The journey across Egypt would prove perilous. It may be assumed that he intended to go at least as far as northwestern Africa ( Maghreb), the land of his mother, which had been partly conquered by his Umayyad predecessors. Abd al-Rahman had to keep a low profile as he traveled. Only he and Bedr were left to face the unknown.Īfter barely escaping with their lives, Abd al-Rahman and Bedr continued south through Palestine, the Sinai, and then into Egypt. Al-Maqqari quotes earlier historians reporting that Abd al-Rahman was so overcome with fear that from the far shore he ran until exhaustion overcame him. They cut off his head and left his body to rot. The 17th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari poignantly described Abd al-Rahman's reaction as he implored Yahya to keep going: "O brother! Come to me, come to me!" Yahya returned to the near shore, and was quickly dispatched by the horsemen. The horsemen urged them to return, promising that no harm would come to them and Yahya, perhaps from fear of drowning, turned back. Abd al-Rahman and his companions then threw themselves into the River Euphrates. On the way south, Abbasid horsemen again caught up with the trio. Ībd al-Rahman, Yahya, and Bedr quit the village, narrowly escaping the Abbasid assassins. Some histories indicate that Bedr met up with Abd al-Rahman at a later date. Accounts vary, but Bedr likely escaped with Abd ar-Rahman. He left his young son with his sisters and fled with Yahya. Abbasid agents closed in on Abd al-Rahman and his family while they were hiding in a small village. The Abbasids were merciless with all Umayyads that they found.
All along the way the path was filled with danger, as the Abbasids had dispatched horsemen across the region to try to find the Umayyad prince and kill him.
The family fled from Damascus to the River Euphrates. Abd al-Rahman and a small part of his family fled Damascus, where the center of Umayyad power had been people moving with him included his brother Yahya, his four-year-old son Sulayman, and some of his sisters, as well as his Greek mawla (freedman or client), Bedr.
He was twenty when his family, the ruling Umayyads, were overthrown by the Abbasid Revolution in 748–750. 2.1 Social dynamics and construction worksĪbd al-Rahman was born in Palmyra, near Damascus in the heartland of the Umayyad Caliphate, the son of the Umayyad prince Mu'awiya ibn Hisham and his concubine Ra'ha, a Berber woman from the Nafza tribe, and thus the grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, caliph from 724 to 743.
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