Battle of Bagdoura  The Battle of Bagdoura (or Baqdura) was a decisive confrontation in the Berber Revolt in late 741 CE. It was a follow-up to the Battle of the Nobles the previous year, and resulted in a major Berber victory over the Arabs by the Sebou River (near modern Fes). The battle would permanently break the hold of the Umayyad Caliphate over the far western Maghreb (Morocco), and the resulting retreat of elite Syrian forces into Spain would have implications for the stability of al-Andalus. The Berber revolt broke out in early 740 in western Morocco, in response to the oppressive, unfair (and, by Islamic law, illegal) tax collection and slave-tribute policies imposed on Muslim Berbers by Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab, governor in Kairouan, Ifriqiya and over all the Maghreb and al-Andalus. The Berber rebellion was inspired by Kharijite activists of the Sufrite sect, who held out the promise of a puritan Islamic order, without ethnic or tribal discrimination, a prospect appealing to the mistreated Berbers. The revolt was begun under the leadership of the Matghara Berber chieftain (although alleged to be a humble water-carrier) Maysara al-Matghari. In a few months in 740, the Berbers successfully seized Tangiers and the whole of western Morocco, down to the Sous valley. But when the Ifriqiyan governor dispatched an Arab vanguard under Khalid ibn Abi Habiba against Tangiers, the Berbers deposed Maysara and placed the rebel army in the hands of a more experienced military commander, the Zenata chieftain Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati. Khalid ibn Hamid destroyed the Ifriqiyan army at the Battle of the Nobles in late 740. The main Ifriqiyan army under Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri arrived too late to prevent the slaughter of the original army, and could do little more than hold the line around Tlemcen and appeal to Kairouan and Damascus for reinforcements. Upon hearing the news of the disaster that befell the Ifriqiyan nobles, the Umayyad Caliph Hisham is said to have famously exclaimed "By God, I will most certainly rage against them with an Arab rage, and I will send against them an army whose beginning is where they are and whose end is where I am!"