Sara al-Qutiyya

Sara al-Qutiyya (; ) or Sara the Goth (fl. 8th century) was a Visigothic noblewoman, who was the grand-daughter of king Wittiza. After the death of her father she travelled to Damascus from al-Andalus and successfully petitioned the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik to restore lands to her family that had been appropriated by her uncle. The historian Ibn al-Qutiyya was her great-grandson.

Biography Sara al-Qutiyya was born to a noble family; her father was Olmund [ ca], a son of Wittiza the Visigothic king. When he died, Sara, along with her two younger brothers, inherited the family's lands around Seville. However, Olmund's brother, Artobas, who had inherited land-holdings in Cordoba, appropriated Sara and her brother's inheritance.

Whilst at court, Sara met the future Abd al-Rahman I, who reportedly "gave her special treatment and innumerable attentions". During this time, the caliph Hisham also arranged for her to marry a man called Isā Ibn Muzāḥim, After Isā Ibn Muzāḥim died in 138H (755/756), The historian Ibn al-Qutiyya was one of her descendants, writing a history of the Umayyad caliphate and including his great-grandmother's life in it.

In 2018, the Spanish-language broadcaster RTVE recorded a documentary on her.

Historiography The story of Sara al-Qutiyya appears in the History of the Conquest of al-Andalus by Ibn al-Qutiyya and also in a biography of Ibn al-Qutiyya by Ibn Khallikan. As Visigothic royalty, Sara al-Qutiyya would have been a Christian. Her marriages to Muslim men have been seen by historians such as Mary Elizabeth Perry and Ilan Vit-Suzan, as emblematic of the Islamization of the Christian Visigothic elite of Al-Andalus. However the medievalist Roger Collins regards Sara as a "mythical ancestor" rather than a historical individual.