Lower March

File:Al_Andalus_-_2.png (area in green) in the early 10th century.]]

The Lower March ({{langx|ar|الثغر الأدنى}}, al-Thaghr al-Adnā; {{Langx|pt|Marca Inferior}}) was a march of al-Andalus. It included territory that is now in Portugal.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zLlPykZq80MC |title=Histoire du Portugal et de son empire colonial|author=António Henrique R. de Oliveira Marques, Mário Soares |date=1998|accessdate= 2011-12-09|publisher=KARTHALA Editions |isbn=9782865378449 |language=French }}

As a borderland territory, it was home to the so-called muwalladun or indigenous converts and their descendants, some of whom eventually established dynastic lordships. This was the case of Ibn Marwan al-Jilliqi who ruled the Cora of Mérida during the early part of the ninth century, a region with its capital in modern Mérida, including the area of modern Badajoz.{{Cite book|title=Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia|last=Safran|first=Janina|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2013|isbn=9780801451836|location=Ithaca, NY|pages=172}} Several rebellions occurred in the territory, most notably caused by Umar ibn Hafsun and two of his sons refusing to recognize the Emir of Cordoba's sovereignty;{{Cite book|title=Rulers and Realms in Medieval Iberia, 711–1492|last=Flood|first=Timothy M.|publisher=McFarland|year=2018|isbn=9781476674711|location=Jefferson, NC|pages=45}} even after Ibn Hafsun's death, small pockets of independent resistance persisted. It was not until a decade after Ibn Hafsun’s demise that the Emir of Cordoba was able to completely quell the rebellion in the Lower March.

In the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III (912–961), the Lower March was combined with the Central March to form an enlarged march with its capital at Medinaceli in the former Central March. It retained the name of the Lower March.{{cite book |first=Jacinto |last=Bosch Vilá |chapter=Considerations with Respect to al-Thaghr in al-Andalus and the Political-Administrative Division of Muslim Spain |pages=377–387 |title=The Formation of al-Andalus, Part 1: History and Society |editor=Manuela Marín |year=2016 |publisher=Routledge |orig-year=1962}}{{EI2 |first=J. D. |last=Latham |pages=447–449 |title=al-Thughūr, 2: In al-Andalus |volume=10 |doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1214}}