Is the Castellar de Morera d'Elche the Madîna d'al-CAskar of the Arabic texts?

The eastern region of al-Andalus (Sharq al-Andalus) underwent a strong deurbanisation during the 8th - 9th centuries (prolonging the
a situation already compromised in the Visigothic period). It was only from the 10th century onwards that the cities of this region, with the revival of Mediterranean trade, began to gain importance. The description of Andalus written towards the end of the 9th century by the oriental author al-Ya'qûbî, who does not mention Murcia, notes in the region of
Tudmir has only two notable cities (with a pulpit for preaching or minbar), Lorca and al-'Askar. This city of al-'Askar (a word designating an army or, as a toponym, a "military camp") appears
also in a small number of sources relating to events occurring in the region at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century. The article examines the possibility that this place name could have applied to the vast late-antique and early medieval archaeological site of Castellar de Morera, near Elche.
In support of this hypothesis, we can first of all point out that this identification would make it possible to fill the unexplainable "gap" represented by the disappearance of the "city" of Elche in both texts and archaeology between the abandonment of the ancient site of Alcudia and the Taifa period.
It can then be argued above all that the family of the Shaykh al-Islamî, one of the main rebels to Umayyad authority at the time of the fitna or political anarchy of the late 9th and early 10th centuries in the region of Tudmir, who is known to have al-`Askar, was, according to Ibn Hazm, settled in Elche.