Abd al-Rahman I, more fully
Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya ibn Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (731–788), was the founder of a
Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of
Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding
Caliphate of Córdoba). At the time it was known by the Arabs as
al-Andalus. Abd al-Rahman's establishment of a government in al-Andalus represented a branching from the rest of the
Caliphate of Damascus, which had been brought under the
Abbasid following the overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty from
Damascus in 750.