Al - Hurr ibn Abd al - Rahman al - Thaqafi Al - Ḥurr ibn ʿAbd al - Raḥmān al - Thaqafī ( ) was an early Umayyad governor who ruled the Muslim province of Al - Andalus from between 716 to 718 . He was the third successor to Musa bin Nusair , the North African governor who had directed the conquest of Visigothic Spain several years earlier in 711 . Al - Hurr was the first Muslim commander to cross the Pyrenees in 717 , leading a small raiding party into Septimania . His incursions were largely unsuccessful , for which he was deposed in 718 . Background . In 711 , an Umayyad army led by freedman Tariq bin Ziyad had been sent to the Iberian peninsula under the orders of North African governor Musa bin Nusair , resulting in its eventual conquest . Leaving his son ' Abd al - ' Aziz in charge , Musa led a triumphant procession of over 400 well - dressed Visigothic princes , followed by slaves and prisoners of war , to the Caliph al - Walid I in Damascus . During that visit , Musa dramatically fell out of favor with al - Walid : Tariq informed the caliph that the treasure paraded , for which Musa had claimed credit , had actually been captured by himself instead . Musa was stripped of his status , and ' Abd al - ' Aziz remained in charge of the newly conquered territories , which were now named " Al - Andalus . " Governorship . After the assassination of Abd al - Aziz in 716 , and the six - month rule of his cousin Ayyub ibn Habib al - Lakhmi , al - Hurr ibn ' abd al - Rahman al - Thaqafi was assigned the post . Soon afterwards , he relocated the Andalusian administrative capital from Seville to Córdoba . Al - Hurr was heavily involved in trying to suppress Christian Gothic resistance , and was largely successful in doing so . He ' s actually credited with the pacification of virtually all Visigothic Hispania , except for the northern mountain ranges of the Basque region , most of the Pyrenees and a pocket of resistance in the Asturian mountains , from which the Reconquista would emerge many years later . Some historians date the small Battle of Covadonga at the end of his term in office , in 718 . He laid the foundations of the future Umayyad administration by sending Umayyad officials to towns , setting up rules for the management of real estate and taxation imposed on it ( the " tributa " or land based taxation ) , returning property to Christian owners where applicable and punishing Berbers for looting and concealment of undeclared acquisition of goods . This job of establishing a civil administration was continued by his successor Al - Samh ibn Malik al - Khawlani and completed by the wali Yahya ibn Salama al - Kalbi . Al - Hurr also turned his attention to the Aquitanians ( referred in most chronicles as Franks ) across the Pyrenees . Sources suggest he was enticed by the treasure horded in the convents and churches , or maybe chasing refugees , or taking advantage of the civil war going on between the chief officers of the Merovingian court with the involvement of Odo the Great , duke of Aquitaine . None of al - Hurr ' s predecessors had attempted to cross the Pyrenees , and in 717 , he attempted to do just that . He led a small expedition across the range into still Gothic Septimania , the first of which was likely to just reconnoiter the region . Several attempted raids later , all of which proved unsuccessful , al - Hurr was deposed by the caliph , who appointed Al - Samh ibn Malik al - Khawlani in 718 as his replacement . Al - Samh continued expeditions into France , reaching as far as the Rhône , but would be killed in the Battle of Toulouse in 721 .