Al-Andalus
gigatos | May 31, 2022
Summary
Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأندلس, Berber: ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, Spanish: Al-Ándalus, Portuguese: al-Ândalus) is the term that designates all the territories of the Iberian Peninsula and some of the South of France that were, at one time or another, under the domination of the different Arab states between 711 (first landing) and 1492 (capture of Granada) . The current Andalusia, which takes its name from it, was for a long time only a small part of it.
The term Al-Andalus covers very different political entities in time. After the Umayyad conquest of the Visigoth kingdom, al-Andalus, then in its greatest extent in 731, was first a province of the Caliphate initiated by Caliph Al-Walid I (711-750) and divided into five administrative units. In 750, the province emancipated itself from the Abbasid Caliphate and became the Emirate of Cordoba, an independent Umayyad emirate founded in 756 by Abd al-Rahman I and which, after a first fitna, became the Caliphate of Cordoba, proclaimed by Abd al-Rahman III in 929, opening a period that corresponded to the apogee of Al Andalus.
Ravaged by the civil war between Arabs and Berbers from 1009, the Caliphate of Cordoba came to an end in 1031 after more than 300 years of Umayyad domination, and fragmented into rival kingdoms weakened (Taifas) and threatened in the north by Christian forces. The first Taifa period was followed by the Almoravid domination (1085-1145), the second Taifa period (1140-1203), the Almohad domination (1147-1238), the third Taifa period (1232-1287) and finally the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238-1492).
By its logic of Empire and wealth, and although land of Islam (in Arabic: دار الإسلام), it is home to several times populations with multiple origins and beliefs. Arabs, Berbers, Muladis (converts to Islam) as well as Saqaliba (Slavs) are in the majority, but also live there Jews and Christians, who are called “mozarabes” in Al-Andalus. This diversity is not a stabilized pluralism, but rather a very dynamic character, depending on places, situations and times. The society of al-Andalus tends towards a homogenization from the twelfth century.
The Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule reached its cultural peak during the time of the Caliphate of Cordoba, with a remarkable balance between its political and military power, its wealth, and the brilliance of its civilization. From the tenth century onwards, Cordoba was an intellectual hotbed that welcomed Muslim and Jewish scholars from the Islamic world, developed sciences, arts and philosophies, produced brilliant architectural works and an important body of literature. Andalusian culture was reborn several times from the numerous political upheavals that shook these territories, but from the 13th century onwards, the general picture was one of a slow but profound decline that ended with the capture of Granada in 1492.
The presence of Al-Andalus, a territory under Muslim rule in Europe, has focused many debates, political recoveries, and has generated several myths at various times, where Al-Andalus is singularly separated from both the medieval and Muslim world. These are discussed in the article Convivencia.
The etymology of Al-Andalus has been the subject of the most varied hypotheses over the last three centuries. The accepted explanation for a while was a link with the Vandals: the name of Andalusia would come from a hypothetical form Vandalusia.
Other more or less fanciful hypotheses have been proposed, ranging from the Garden of the Hesperides.
According to the German historian and Islamologist Heinz Halm al-Andalus would come from the arabization of a hypothetical designation of Visigothic Spain: *landa-hlauts (which would mean “allocation of land by lot,” composed of landa-, an inflected form of land “land” and hlauts “lot, inheritance”). This term would have been taken over by the Moors in the 8th century and adapted phonetically in al-Andalus, following the following stages: *landa-hlauts > *landa-lauts > *landa-lus > al-Andalus.
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Sources on the conquest
For Juan Vernet, the cultural contributions in the peninsula via the Arabic language are essentially from the tenth to the thirteenth. The beginnings are laborious. In the eighth century, the invaders were men of war, practically illiterate. Later historians, such as Ibn al-Qûtiyya or Ibn Tumlus, never tried to conceal this fact.
The earliest written sources on the conquest date from the ninth and tenth centuries. The main one is the account by the Andalusian historian Ibn al-Qūṭiyya (- 977) Ta”rikh iftitah al-Andalus (Conquest of al-Ándalus). His student states that these events are related “from memory” without reference to Islamic traditions ( hadith and fiqh). Ibn al-Qūṭiyya reveals the importance of treaties between Arabs and Visigoths. Another source tells the history of Al Andalus from its conquest to the reign of Abd al Rahmân III (889-961): it is the chronicle Akhbâr Majmû”a, generally dated to the tenth century.
These early sources date from the Caliphate period and are at least two centuries later than the events they relate.
The first known Christian account of these events is the Chronicle of 754, composed from 754 in the kingdom of Asturias under Christian rule, perhaps by Isidore de Beja.
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Foundation
Before the first Muslim conquests in 711, the territory of the Iberian Peninsula constituted the southern part of the Visigothic kingdom, with the exception of the rebellious Asturian, Cantabrian and Basque regions in the north, and the southern coasts that remained Roman (exarchate of Carthage of the Eastern Roman Empire).
In April 711, the Arab general Moussa Ibn Noçaïr sent a contingent of about 12,000 soldiers, including a large majority of Berbers, commanded by one of them, the governor of Tangier, Tariq ibn Ziyad, to gain a foothold in Hispania on the rock to which their leader would have left his name (Djebel or Jabal Tariq, future Gibraltar). Quickly reinforced, he defeated a first Visigoth army commanded by a cousin of the king, Sancho. King Rodéric, then confronted with the Franks and the Basques in the north, had to gather an army to face this new danger. However, during the battle of Guadalete on July 19, 711, the partisans of Agila II (Akhila, in Arabic) preferred to betray him. It is the brutal fall of the Visigothic Hispania.
The birth of al-Andalus did not occur after a founding event; it took place as a gradual conquest between 711 and 716, led by a Moorish minority. Soon, the Muslims took Toledo (712), Seville, Ecija and finally Cordoba, the capital. In 714, the city of Zaragoza was reached. In 1236, Lucas de Tuy”s Christian account, chronicon mundi, blames the Jews for opening the gates of Toledo. Ibn al-Qūṭiyya emphasizes the importance of treaties between Arabs and Visigoth nobles, many of whom retained their power, some such as Theodemir ruled their lands under the title of king.
The feeling of belonging to an al-Andalus nation appeared through a collective awareness. In 716, on a coin, the term “al-Andalus” appeared for the first time, designating Muslim Spain, as opposed to the Hispania (Roman term) of the Christians.
At that time, Hispania was divided between the Suevi and Basque kingdoms in the north, the Visigothic kingdoms in the center and the Roman exarchate of Africa in the south. Nevertheless, the Muslims were unable to conquer the entire peninsula: they were unable to penetrate the Basque kingdoms and only made brief incursions into the Cantabrian mountain regions.
They also tried to expand into Francia but were unsuccessful. In 721, Duke Eudes of Aquitaine defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the battle of Toulouse. They returned to the charge in 725 with ”Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi and attacked as far as Autun and Sens (Yonne). The year 732 initially saw the defeat of the Duke of Aquitaine and the invasion of Vasconia by the governor Abd el Rahman. He was finally stopped at the battle of Poitiers by Charles Martel, who began the reunion of Aquitaine under the control of the Vascons with the Frankish kingdom. Septimania was taken over by Pepin the Short in 759. The Muslims retreat to the peninsula.
They decided to establish the capital of the new Iberian emirate in Cordoba. Indeed, unlike many places acquired after negotiations with the Visigothic nobles, Cordoba had resisted. The Muslim troops applied the rights of the victors, their dignitaries took the place of the Visigothic nobles and the city became the de facto capital. They gave its river Betis the name of “great river”: Wadi al kebir, phonetically deformed into Guadalquivir.
The political situation of Córdoba in the hands of these war princes, however, remained very unstable until the arrival of the deposed heir of the caliphs of Damascus, Abd al-Rahman I, who disembarked at Torrox on August 14, 755, in Andalusia, and definitively conquered power after the battle of Almeda (es) on May 15, 756, transforming this province of the Empire into an emirate that was independent of the Caliphate of Damascus.
His Umayyad heirs will proclaim the dissident Western Caliphate in 929.
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The conquest of Hispania and Septimania
Before 711, the Iberian Peninsula was divided between the Suevi and Visigoth fiefdoms and the westernmost coastal exarchates of the Eastern Roman Empire, which had been reconquered by Belisarius two centuries earlier. In 711, Tariq ibn Ziyad disembarked in the south of the peninsula and defeated the Visigoth king Roderic on the banks of the Guadalete river.732, the Muslim expansion beyond the Pyrenees was stopped in Poitiers by Charles Martel and the battle of Covadonga (722) marked the beginning of the Reconquista.
From 716, Al Andalus was an Emirate dependent on the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus. The governor (wali) was appointed by the Caliph. The conquerors tried to settle the Arabs, Syrians and Berbers, but seemed mainly concerned with raids on the Frankish territories in the north. These beginnings were laborious. The initial capital (Seville) was transferred to Cordoba in 718. About twenty governors succeeded each other from 720 to 756.
Newcomers were relatively few in number. As in the other territories of the Muslim empire, Christians and Jews were the overwhelming majority. Belonging to an Abrahamic religion, they were allowed to keep their rites under the status of Dhimmi. These circumstances motivate surrender agreements with many Visigoth aristocrats who retain their properties, and even important powers, such as Theodemir (Arabic: تدمير Tūdmir), governor of Cartagena, who after an agreement with the Emir, governs under the title of King an autonomous Christian territory within Al-Andalus kora of Tudmir (vassalage link). The alliance between Visigoths and conquerors sometimes turned against Arab interests, as in Llívia, where the Berber warlord Munuza married the daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine in 731, provoking the intervention of the Emir Abd al-Rahman to reconquer Roussillon.
The most common hypothesis is that a large part of the population, especially the Arians and Jews, appreciated the new Muslim power which freed them from Visigothic oppression, and could explain in part the rapidity of the progress and the ease of settlement of the conquerors. In addition, in the eighth century, Nicene Christians perceived Islam as yet another heresy within Christianity, and not as a separate religion. Until the Islamization brought about by Abd al-Rahman II (the bishops cooperated fully and maintained their economic privileges. Eulogy of Cordoba in the middle of the ninth century remains in this perspective.conversions to Islam from the natives began quickly, especially among the elites.
From the cultural point of view, in the eighth century, “the Muslim occupation (our eighth century) was totally sterile in this respect: the invaders, men of war, were practically illiterate and later historians, such as Ibn al-Qûtiyya or Ibn Tumlus, never tried to conceal it.
Around 740, the great Berber revolt agitated the Maghreb and led to the de facto independence of these territories from the Umayyad Caliphate. The troubles spread to Al Andalus, and internal dissensions broke out among Arabs. They opposed the Arab clans of the north (Qaysites, originally from Syria) and the Arab clans of the south (originally from Yemen). The distensions led to a quasi civil war which ended with the victory of the governor Yûsuf al-Fihri (Qaysite) who crushed the Yemeni Arabs during the battle of Secunda (747). In addition, the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, on which the governor depended, was shaken by unrest which led to the overthrow of the Umayyads. De facto, Yûsuf al-Fihri ruled independently from Damascus.
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The independent emirate of Cordoba
In 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads, killing all the members of the family except Abd al-Rahman, and transferred power from Damascus to Baghdad. In 755, Abd al-Rahman, the only survivor, fled to Córdoba and declared himself emir of al-Andalus in Córdoba.
The following year, Abd al-Rahman, Umayyad, broke the vassalage link with Baghdad, which was now in the hands of the Abbasids. Al-Andalus then became an emirate independent of Baghdad, even if it was still part of the Caliphate for another century and a half, i.e. the Amir recognized the religious pre-eminence of the Caliph. The Frankish troops take away the Spanish marches from the Emirate. Girona fell to the Franks in 785, Narbonne in 793 and Barcelona in 801, but Charlemagne failed to take Zaragoza and was defeated by the Vascons during his retreat to Roncesvalles.
At the end of his reign in 788, the Emirate found a certain stability, which allowed the construction of the mosque of Cordoba to be initiated in 786 and which benefited his successor Hisham. He continued the work of his father and made Malikism the doctrine of Andalusian Muslims. The rivalries between the sons of Hisham became conflictual (796), while tensions between communities (Arabs, Berbers, Christians, muladis) increased and governors tried to make session after the capture of Barcelona by the Franks (801).
At the age of thirty, he inherited a state that his father had pacified by force of arms and in which tensions remained numerous. A patron and protector of the arts and letters, he was considered the most cultured Muslim head of state of his time. These qualities combined with the peace of the emirate allowed him to develop the Andalusian civilization.
The reign of Abd Al-Rahman II was marked by the decree of apostasy of Christian children born of mixed couples and a rapid Islamization of society. In 850, the beheading of Perfect of Cordoba initiated the wave of Martyrs of Cordoba following provocation from Christians. The contemporary reading of these events is a reaction to the loss of influence and the suffocation of Christian culture due to the rapid Islamization of society.
In 844, the Viking fleet attacked Lisbon and took, looted and burned Seville for seven days. They were repulsed on November 11, 844 south of the city.
The second half of the ninth century was extremely troubled. The most moderate historians speak of a “serious political crisis”, many speak of the “first civil war” or “first fitna”. The new emir, Muhammad I (Umayyad), continued the policy of Islamization of society initiated by his father, to the point of causing revolts and uprisings. As always in al-Andalus, the crises are complex and multiple oppositions. It is described by Andalusian chroniclers as an ethnic revolt between “Arabs”, “Berbers” and “natives” (”ajam): muladis and Christians. If the latter play a more discreet role, the conflicts are concentrated between Arabs and Muladis. The latter are natives converted to Islam and Arabized who are presented by the sources of the time as the main adversaries of Arab power, as will be the Berbers later (1011-1031): “conversion does not seem to be considered a sufficient criterion to be definitively classified in the group of “Muslims” (Aillet, 2009). The portrait of the emirate fitna is indeed that of a society that returns to its origins, to its indigenous ”aṣabiyya.” Cyrille Aillet explains that this troubled time saw the disappearance of Latin-speaking Christians and the emergence of Arabic-speaking Christians called Mozarabs in the Christian kingdoms of the north.
Several muladi princes acquired notable economic and military power, their regions attempted to secede and live in dissent from Cordoba. The first uprisings began in Zaragoza and Toledo in the middle of the ninth century, led in particular by the Banu Qasi in the Ebro valley, and Ordoño I of Oviedo around Toledo. The revolt of the Banu Qasi that began in 842 was crushed in 924. In addition to these regions living in dissent, the internal situation of the Emirate was chaotic, with major unrest in most regions and cities: Merida, Evora, Toledo, Albacete, Valencia, Granada, Almeria, Seville, among others. It was during this period that the citadel was built, around which the city of Mayrit (Madrid) was developed as a defense line for Toledo.
The revolt of Omar Ben Hafsun in Betica began around 880, annexed Antequera, Jaen, threatened Cordoba, Malaga, Murcia and Granada. It asks, in 909 the help of the new Fatimid caliphate while the most valuable allies of the Umayyads in the Maghreb, the Ṣalihids of Nekor, had just gone through a serious political crisis, also because of the Fatimids and a front is opened in the north against the kingdom of Leon. The revolt was crushed in 928. The whole considerably weakened the Emirate.
The period of the independent Emirate is essentially a stage of unification of the territories under Muslim domination, a rapid Islamization of the populations and the installation of a new political order formed by the viziers. The organization of politics was chaotic, internal disputes between Arabs and Berbers did not cease, as well as between Arab princes, which allowed the Christian kingdoms of the north to regroup, consolidate and initiate the Reconquest. From the death of Abd al-Rahman II in 852, Cordoba acquired its configuration of Muslim metropolis built around Islam. The efficient organization of the administrative apparatus was inspired by the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus. However, this so-called “neo-Omayyad” organization came up against the internal contradictions of Andalusian society, generated a new civil war, questioned the measures implemented and highlighted its weaknesses.
The establishment of this new order implied the overcoming of a great deal of resistance among the natives. In 909, the advent of the Fatimid caliphate of Shiite obedience and its takeover of most of the Maghreb coasts profoundly changed the political situation in the western Mediterranean and deprived the Emirate of many of its supporters. Nevertheless, in the Emirate, in 928, the Umayyads alone triumphed over the last uprisings against their authority.
The influence of the Umayyads of Cordoba was very important in the western Maghreb. Several raids were launched on the North African coasts where the Umayyads had solid support. On the eve of the advent of the Fatimids, almost all the principalities of the western Maghreb seem to have been linked to the Umayyads, to have maintained cordial relations with Cordoba at that time, or even to have been openly pro-Umayyad. In 902, a group of sailors, supported by the Umayyad emirs of Cordoba, founded Oran, and in 903, the Andalusians settled in the Balearic Islands, named by the Phoenicians and the Romans, which they designated as the eastern islands of al-Andalus.
All of this pushes ”Abd al-Rahman III to regroup his supporters and to rebuild the political organization on new bases in order to adapt it both to the internal situation of Al Andalus and to the external Fatimid and Christian threats.
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The Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031)
In 928, Abd al-Rahman III was victorious against Omar Ben Hafsun and reclaimed most of the territories that had tried to secede. However, some of the northwestern territories were lost to the Christian kingdoms (Galicia, Leon, northern Portugal). The cities of Merida and Toledo were reintegrated in 931.
The reign of Al-Rahman III was brilliant. Of all the governors of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman was the one who contributed most to the power of the country. When he came to the throne, the country was divided, plagued by revolts and the rapid advance of the Christian kingdoms. He reorganized his territories, stabilized power, pacified Al Andalus and slowed down the Christian advances. For Robert Hillenbrand, this was the first social unification in Spain.
In 929, Abd Al-Rahman III took advantage of his victory, the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate over Ifriqiya and Sicily in 909 and the fractures of the Abbasid Caliphate to proclaim the Caliphate of Cordoba, of which he declared himself Caliph. The proclamation of the Umayyad Caliphate was in part the consequence of the increasingly threatening assertion of the Fatimid Caliphate in the Maghreb and the concomitant weakness of the Abbasid Caliphate. With this status, Cordoba declared itself the new guarantor of the unity of Islam, breaking with Baghdad, and de facto enemy of the Fatimid Caliphate against which conflicts multiplied during the tenth century.
In 936, the Caliph launched several prestigious works. The construction of the palatial city of Madinat al-Zahra as a symbol of his power, seeking to inscribe it in the continuity and legitimacy of historical powers. He also ordered the expansion of the mosque in Cordoba.
It develops Al Andalus according to 3 axes:
On the external fronts, the conflicts were continuous both against the Fatimid Caliphate and in the Maghreb. At his death, if he recovered the cities of Toledo and Merida, the Kingdom of Asturias and the County of Portugal increased their possessions in the south on Ávila, Salamanca, Segovia, Combra.
His successor, Al-Hakam II (915-976) continued the work of his father and allowed Al-Andalus to reach a cultural peak.
On the death of Al-Hakam II, power passed to the vizier Ibn ʿÂmir Al-Mansûr who arrogated to himself most of the prerogatives of the Caliph and organized the fall of the Umayyads. To assert his power, he had Madinat al-Zahira built with a view to supplanting the caliphal city of Madinat al-Zahra. He established his legitimacy by presenting himself as a warlord fighting in the name of Islam and rigorous Sunnism.
From the point of view of internal politics, and in addition to his seizure of power over the Umayyads, Almanzor is known to have burned controversial books of astronomy, to have been more attentive to religious orthodoxy than his predecessors, to have harassed the followers of the philosopher Ibn Masarra, to have prevented any Shi”ite infiltration, to have held on firmly to power and to have centralized the administration. Justice is said to be rather fair, according to the criteria of the time. It is described that he had his wife give the head of General Ghâlib, his father, who was trying to oppose his taking of power.
From the external point of view, he opened many military fronts, notably against the Fatimid caliphate in the west, which affected the Idrissides in the south who failed to restore their authority over Fez in 985. In the north, he organized victorious counter-attacks on places taken by the Reconquista and the raids of the Christian kingdoms on the margins of the Caliphate for political and economic purposes. The sack of Barcelona in 985 and Santiago de Compostela in 997 are two expeditions that have the most important consequences in the Christian world. Far from Cordoba, Santiago de Compostela was tempted to end its vassalage link with Al Andalus, while Almanzor was occupied by a front in the Maghreb. The sanctuary was razed during the 48th expedition of Almanzor. The consequences of these two expeditions are the de facto independence of the county of Barcelona from the kingdom of the Franks, the second is the end of the religious status quo between the caliphate and the Christian world which considers this attack as an affront but where it inspires fear.
From its foundation, the survival of Al Andalus must rely on the Maghreb, both for its economic circuits, its workforce, and for its men at arms against the Christians, but until Almanzor, the Arabs in demographic minority, were wary of a too large presence of armed Berbers likely to overthrow them. On the contrary, Almanzor brought in Zenata tribes from the Maghreb at great expense, driven out by the Zirids, to reinforce his armies. For Francis Manzano, the elites as well as the Andalusian people seem to be aware that these exchanges of populations, badly Arabized, suspicious from the religious point of view and that they discredit as barbarians are the own poison of their society.
The economic dependence of Al Andalus on the Maghreb is well described. In the twelfth century, Al-Idrissi in his Kitâb nuzhat al-mushtaq fî ikhtirâq al-âfâq returns repeatedly to the economic links of interdependence between Andalusia and the Moroccan ports. He emphasizes the quasi-monoculture of the olive tree around Cordoba. This dependence explains Al Andalus” relentless effort to control the economic routes of the Maghreb. For Francis Manzano, this dependence without strong control is “a thorn in the side” of Al-Andalus that generates structural fragility.
Eduardo Manzano Moreno points out that the apogee of Al-Andalus was under Almanzor. The Caliphate was by far the most powerful political system in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. The Caliphate was endowed with a centralized administration, a powerful army and navy; its state and population were relatively wealthy thanks to the development of agriculture, irrigation, a flourishing industry and trade.At this time, according to contemporary studies, the treasure accumulated by the Umayyads thanks to their fiscal system is immense. It is above all linked to an increase in economic production and trade that is worth the cultural and artistic wealth of the Caliphate at its peak.
Almanzor died in 1002. His sons succeeded him, and the Caliph tried to regain power, which triggered a civil war in al-Andalus in 1009. The sacking of Medinat Alzahira, ordered by the Caliph, allowed the recovery, according to medieval chronicles, of a staggering treasure of 1,500,000 gold coins and 2,100,000 silver coins. The civil war causes the decadence of the Caliphate. In 1031, the Caliphate of Cordoba collapsed and split into taifas. The commentators of the time make the Berbers the main architects of the fall of the Umayyads and the main beneficiaries of the collapse of the Caliphate, even if contemporary analysis notes that several important Taifas are recovered Arab families or claiming to be such.
For Ibn Hazm, a contemporary scholar of the civil war supporting the Umayyad restoration, this fitna was inevitable and would be the consequence of the illegitimacy of the Umayyads to claim the Koran; it is an echo of the fitna of the Umayyad Caliphate of Baghdad, which saw the overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbassids
If Caliphal Cordoba “surpassed in wealth all previous and later cities in Europe on the Mediterranean for several centuries,” Ibn Ḥazm paints a picture of the city immediately after the civil war in which “ruin swept everything away,” but shortly thereafter, around 1031-1043, Ibn ”Idārī al-Marrākušī describes a pacified city in which the neighborhoods demolished by the revolution were rebuilt.
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First Taifa period (1031-1086)
The religious orthodoxy that the caliph was supposed to uphold was loosening and believers of other religions could more easily gain access to power. On the other hand, the new lords, considered as “usurpers”, are Berbers and former slaves (especially Slavs), mainly interested in wars with their neighbors. They do not trust the Arabs or the Andalusians. In these conditions, they surrounded themselves with Jews, which they considered less risky. Thus, the Jew Samuel ibn Nagrela became vizier first in order to organize the administration of Granada, whose king Ziri and the reigning tribe had only reorganized the tax collection. During the eleventh century, despite the sackings of the civil war, the wars between rival Taifas, the Christian advances, despite “instability and social decadence” the influence of Al Andalus increases, especially in Cordoba. The religious scholars multiply: lexicographers, historians, philosophers, who are among the most brilliant of their time.
For Christine Mazzoli-Guintard, with the advance of the Christian armies to the south, “Al Andalus, drifting politically, began to reject what is different” and asserted its religious orthodoxy, especially from 1064, when the first important city fell: Barbastro. In 1066, the assassination of a Jewish vizier was followed by pogroms (1066). Only 20 years passed between the capture of Barbastro in northern Aragon and the capture of Toledo in 1084 in the center of the peninsula. The capture of the ancient Visigoth capital placed Alfonso VI in the center of the peninsula.
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The Almoravids
In 1086, the Almoravids were called to help by the taifa of Seville. They won the battle of Sagrajas over Alfonso VI, king of Castile and stopped his military advance. Sultan Yusuf, aware of the military weakness of the Taifas, organized the reconquest and reunification of the territories of al-Andalus. Unable to pursue this conquest to the north, the Almoravid empire fell into decadence and fragmented, causing the Taifas to reappear while in Morocco a new military elite appeared: the Almohads.
The latter are warriors from Berber tribes during the twelfth century, who rebel against the Almoravid empire, accusing them of being unable to maintain the stability of the Muslim states or to curb the advance of the Christians to the south. Under these pretexts, they entered the peninsula in 1147, overthrew the Almoravids and the recently re-established Taifas.
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The Almohads (1147-1228)
From 1147, the Almohads, of Zahirite inspiration (form of radical Islam), conquered al-Andalus.
In 1184-1199, the Almohad caliphate was at its peak under Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur. Averroes was, for a time, his advisor.
In 1212, the Almohads were defeated by a coalition of Christian kings at Las Navas de Tolosa. Al-Andalus is divided again into taifas, which are conquered one after the other by the kings of Castile.
In 1229, James I of Aragon conquered Majorca. The capital, Palma, fell into his hands on December 31. The loss of Majorca was followed by the loss of the rest of the Balearic Islands.
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The Emirate of Granada (1238-1492) and the end of the Reconquista
In 1238, two years after the fall of Cordoba, Mohammed ben Nazar founded the Emirate of Granada and, by declaring himself vassal of the king of Castile, made his kingdom the only Muslim kingdom not to be conquered. Later on, the rivalry between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon meant that each of them prevented the other from conquering Granada. However, this rivalry came to an end in 1469 with the marriage of the Catholic kings and in 1474 with their accession to the two thrones. In 1492, the Nasrid kingdom of Granada was conquered, after ten years of war, ending the Reconquista. The same year, the Jews were expelled and Christopher Columbus discovered America on behalf of Castile.
For Pierre Guichard, this kingdom became a bastion of religious and cultural conservatism. The society is structured around a rigorously orthodox Malikite thought, it is coupled with a mystical push and fierce resistance that degenerate into a major crisis of the Andalusian culture during the thirteenth century. If mysticism found echoes in popular circles, intellectual and religious life was particularly suspicious. The most traditionalist forms dominate. Ibn Al Zubayr (d. 1308) tells how he fights against superstitions and how he obtains the stoning of a heterodox mystic. All cultural forms are addressed but without any renewal other than the form, and the result is generally inferior to the productions of the tenth and eleventh centuries.
In the fourteenth century, the momentum is broken: “at the time of Muhammad V, when the Alhambra was completed, we still saw some brief glimmers of the ancient splendor of al-Andalus. But the background is a slow, progressive but profound decadence that does not stop some isolated figures of great scholars as the mathematician al-Qalasâdî or the physician Muhammad al-Saqurî “.
With the advance of the Castilians, many Andalusians fled to the south of the peninsula. With the fall of the kingdoms of Cordoba, Jaen, Seville and Murcia many moved to the Nazarene kingdom. The Mozarabic and Jewish minorities that had been abundant in the early days practically disappeared during the Almohad domination.
However, with the consolidation of the Kingdom of Granada, Jews returned, led by Christian merchants who set up trading posts in the main Granada towns. The Mozarabic presence was reduced to a few isolated groups: political refugees and merchants who were allowed to practice their religion in private. A Jewish quarter was created and contacts with Christians were numerous, at least on the borders: Andalusian and Genoese merchants, workers and even Sevillian artists who came to decorate the princely palaces.
The geography of al-Andalus varies greatly according to the period. At the time of the Arab-Berber arrival, the country belonging to the Umayyads of Damascus extended on both sides of the Pyrenees, up to the vicinity of Narbonne and even during the ninth century to Fraxinet. The end of the Caliphate in the 11th century and the period of the Taifas allowed the Reconquista to rapidly gain ground that only the Almoravids and then the Almohads managed to slow down for a while, but the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa allowed the Catholic kings to reduce the country to the region of Granada before its fall in the 15th century.
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The cities
Unlike the rest of Europe, Andalusian society was much more urban, allowing cities like Cordoba to have half a million inhabitants at its peak. The Andalusian cities are the expression of the power of the emir and then of the caliph who invested considerable sums to maintain the living forces such as the intellectuals. These same cities whose names are mostly Roman like Valencia (Valentia) which will be called Balansiyya, Caesar Augusta which will give Saragossa, Malaga which will be called Malaka, Emerida in Marida. Others are named after their Arab founder, such as Benicàssim, which takes its name from Banu-Kasim, Benicarló from Banu-Karlo or Calatrava from Kalat-Rabah. Authors like Ibn Hawqal in his book Surat al-Ardh count sixty-two main cities.
Nowadays, there are few traces of the structure of the cities of the Muslim period except for the Arab and Christian descriptions. The real descriptions of the cities of al-Andalus begin in the tenth century and show Islamic cities composed of elements characteristic of the urban centers of North Africa or the Middle East such as mosques, souks, the kasbah or the arsenal. Apart from this oriental architecture, the structure of Andalusian cities was similar to other European cities in Christian territory. A wall surrounds the important buildings of the city. Outside, but still close, were the markets, cemeteries or oratories. Even further away were the houses of the notables and also the governor”s house.
The development of the city center was never planned, so that each landowner was free to determine the width of the streets or the height of the buildings. A traveler in the 15th century said of Granada that the roofs of the houses touch each other and that two donkeys going in opposite directions would not have enough room to pass each other. The muhtasib was the person in charge of watching over the whole, but most of the time he limited his action to preventing the ruined houses from falling on passers-by. Only in large and medium-sized cities can one cross wide lanes, as is the case in Cordoba or Granada, Seville, Toledo or Valencia.
The mosque is one of the main signs of the ruler”s authority and although not all cities had mosques it was common to see Islamic cult buildings. Apart from the small buildings used for communal prayer, the construction of mosques in al-Andalus was rather late, since it was not until sixty to one hundred and fifty years later that large mosques such as the one in Cordoba (785) or Seville (844) appeared, Subsequently, all cities that aspired to concentrate important powers financed the construction of large mosques as was the case, for example, in Badajoz where Ibn Marwan understood the need to build an imposing building as a sign of the opulence of the city he had founded. Finally, it is important to note that in many cities, mainly in those controlled by Latin converts, the construction of mosques is a sign of attachment to Islam. Finally, the wave of mosque building at the end of the ninth century to the beginning of the tenth century marks the penetration of Islamic culture in the society that was during the first century of the Arab conquest remained mostly non-Muslim but also the affirmation of the power of the emir.
There are still several mosques today, most of which have been transformed into churches as in Cordoba, Seville, Niebla, but in many other cities, despite the excavations, the location of Muslim religious buildings is difficult and only the texts of the time give us an often vague information on the location of these.
Although written traces are rare, excavations have made it possible to find the outlines of citadels in cities considered to be major centers of power. Placed in the best position of the city, offering the widest view, the citadels were intended to defend against external enemies, but sometimes the local population represented a greater threat. In cities such as Toledo or Seville, for example, the city wall was demolished and the stones used to build a fortress to protect the governor and his soldiers in case of a revolt by the population. The citadels also differed according to their geographical location; in the east of the country as in Murcia or Denia, the cities had citadels almost impregnable, which was not the case in the west to the area of present-day Portugal. Finally, like the mosques and the citadel, the ports, markets, cemeteries and baths were also under the direct authority of the Sultan.
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Cordoba, capital Umayyad and Almoravid
An important city since Roman times, Cordoba was chosen as the capital during the Umayyad and Almoravid eras. The city had the advantage of its geographical position. Close to the Guadalquivir and located in the middle of vast and fertile fields, it was one of the first cities to be conquered by Arab-Berber armies, who entrusted its defense to Jews in 711. In 716, it was placed in the center of the country when it was decided that it would be wise to make it its capital at the expense of Seville. The ruined Roman bridge was restored as well as the wall. People came from all over the peninsula and from North Africa. As soon as the first emir, Abd Al-Rahman I, arrived, a large mosque was built facing the river, as well as a palace, the Alcazar, where all the official ceremonies and receptions were held. Outside the city, Abd Al-Rahman I built the Rusafa in memory of the Syrian palaces of his childhood. Two centuries later, the city center of Córdoba, with its nearly forty-seven mosques, was enriched by the palace of Abd al-Rahman III, Madinat al-Zahra, a masterpiece that cost huge sums of money but allowed the new caliph to assert his power and show the other European powers his might. The city, which at the time of Al-Hakam II had in its libraries more than 400,000 books collected from all over the Mediterranean, is also a great cultural and theological center thanks to the theologians who came to settle there.
The number of inhabitants in the city at its peak in the tenth century is very difficult to estimate; Spanish historians such as R. Carande estimate it at more than 500,000. The size of the city, which was nearly 14 kilometers in circumference, was also gigantic for its time. The madinah or kasbah, which was the center of the city, was surrounded by a large wall built on the line of an ancient Roman rampart. The city center was cut off by two large roads that led to the different districts of the city. This city center, where mainly Jewish families but also other craftsmen and merchants were grouped, quickly became too small to accommodate the new arrivals. Apart from the Berbers and Arabs, the Cordovan capital had many Slavs from Northern Europe but also Blacks from Africa and Mozarabs, Christians who had adopted the Islamic way of life and where they had many convents and churches.
The city, which began a slow decline with the civil war in the eleventh century in favor of Seville, was definitively lost in 1236 when the armies of Ferdinand III of Castile captured it.
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Seville, Almohad capital
Capital from 713 to 718, Seville was a city in perpetual rebellion against the authority of the emirs of Cordoba. It is extremely difficult to know the economic state of the city.
However, there are some clues that give us an idea, and the ease with which the Vikings looted Seville in 844 seems to show that the city did not have adequate fortifications, which made the local governors somewhat precarious. Following the sacking, Abd Al-Rahman II undertook the reconstruction of the city by building a mosque (later enlarged by the Almohads who added the Giralda), a souk, an arsenal and above all a network of towers and walls that gave the city the reputation of an impregnable city. Thanks to these constructions, Seville was ready to take off; the governor of the city enjoyed a power equal to that of the emir of Cordoba, he dispensed justice, had his own army and did not pay taxes to the central government. With Abd Al-Rahman III, the fruits of his success are visible, the cultivation of olives, cotton and agriculture in general is increased. In the eleventh century, the city reached its peak in the time of the Taifa kingdoms and even ended up annexing Cordoba, the former capital, whose place it would take with the reign of the Almohads. Its proximity to the sea made it one of the largest ports in the country, from where goods were shipped mainly to Alexandria, allowing many families to amass great wealth, so much so that witnesses of the time report that there were no families in the whole country more wealthy and more devoted to trade and industry than in Seville.
The city supplanted Cordoba as capital during the reign of the Almohads from 1147 to 1248. The second half of the XIIth century gave rise to brilliant achievements, in a century described as “opulent” by Philippe Conrad. The plastic arts and music are encouraged. They achieved a synthesis of Maghrebian and Andalusian influences, notably with the construction of the Giralda in their capital, Seville. The city was besieged from 1247 to 1248 and surrendered to Ferdinand III.
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Other cities
Capital of the Visigothic kingdom until 708, Toledo is the city that has best preserved its Roman heritage. It is also the city that, even long after the Reconquista, has kept its spirit of tolerance. During the Caliphate period, the city had a very large Mozarabic and Jewish community and was an example of Convivencia. It was a prosperous city thanks to its market and its rich fertile land. Its location on the Tagus River at the meeting point of three hills gave it a military importance of the first order, although it was the first city of this size to be taken during the reconquest. At its greatest expansion, the city had 30,000 inhabitants. On May 25, 1085, the city fell to Alfonso VI of Leon, who perpetuated the spirit of tolerance and supported the arts and sciences with the translation of numerous Arabic works.
Valencia and Almeria became more important after the fall of the Umayyads of Cordoba. From the 11th century, Valencia was under pressure from the County of Barcelona, but it was not definitively taken until 1238, by James I of Aragon. Almeria became the seat of a Taifa kingdom created by the Slavic king Jairan, which was later conquered by the Taifa kingdom of Murcia, and then by the Almoravids. From then on, for more than half a century, Almería, together with Valencia and Denia, concentrated the trade of Al Andalus with the Abbasid caliphate. It developed workshops for embroidered silk, brocade and siglatons and brought together the greatest fortunes of the emirate. The port was chosen as the seat of the Admiralty and became one of the most important slave markets in the Mediterranean.
The sciences and techniques of Islamic civilization were developed in al-Andalus in the early days of the Muslim conquest of Hispania.
The troops demobilized after the defeat of the Frankish cavalry, composed of Arabs and Berbers collectively called Moors, settling in these new lands of the Iberian Peninsula, were amazed by the presence of streams and so fertile land.
It was a golden age of Islamic civilization that gave birth to new knowledge in the peninsula, especially in the fields of engineering, agriculture and architecture. They will generate architectural masterpieces such as the Alhambra and the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Medicine was also one of the most advanced in the medieval world.
During the Umayyad period, al-Andalus reached its golden age and became, from the ninth century onwards, a hotbed of high culture within medieval Europe, attracting a large number of scholars and thus opening up a period of rich cultural flourishing. The patronage of caliphs, emirs and governors is one of the factors that explain such a brilliant civilization. The result was a valorization of the works of the mind and one of the richest cultural flourishing that the history of civilizations has known. According to some historians, a real intellectual enthusiasm makes that one pursues all the forms of the knowledge: the history, the geography, the philosophy, the medicine, the mathematics” which is worth the title of “original civilization”.
Under the Caliphate of Cordoba, Al-Andalus was a beacon of learning. Its capital, Cordoba, the largest city in Europe, became one of the main cultural and economic centers of the Mediterranean basin, Europe and the Islamic world. Many scientific advances came from al-Andalus, including major advances in mathematics (Jabir Ibn Aflah), astronomy (Al-Zarqali), surgery (Abu Al-Qasim), pharmacology (Avenzoar), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal).
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Medieval society
From a general point of view, al-Andalus is a part of the classical Muslim Empire in the heart of the Middle Ages. The territories under Muslim rule had an Empire structure, meaning that different peoples with different religions and languages lived together. In most of them, non-Muslim and non-Arabic speaking populations were dominant until the 11th century.
All these societies are medieval. They are first dominated by religions, and particularly by the religion of the sovereign. Societies are organized into communities. One can distinguish confessions (Muslims, Jews and Christians), ethnic groups (Arabs, Berbers, Visigoths…), the status of the noble, the religious, the serf, the slave, and the status of women. Ethnically, Arabs are at the top of the social ladder followed, in descending order, by Berbers, Muladis, Mozarabs and Jews, communities are separated, the legal inferiorization of communities and minorities is the norm, and it is all the more marked as the communities are small.
Al-Andalus is completely in line with its condition as a territory of an empire and has a typical medieval organization. However, its evolution differs in some points from other territories under Muslim rule. On the one hand, Islamization is dominant from the tenth century while the other territories under Muslim rule are still mostly non-Muslim in the eleventh century. Then, in the twelfth century, most of the non-Muslim communities disappeared from al-Andalus, unlike most of the territories that had belonged to the Muslim Empire, many of which crossed the Middle Ages with significant religious minorities.
This differentiated evolution is in the first place the counter blow of the Reconquista which by weakening and overthrowing the successive Muslim powers opened the way to the most rigorous currents such as those carried by the Almohads.
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Ethnic composition at the Muslim arrival
It is extremely difficult to determine the number of people living in al-Andalus, as shifting borders and wars have shaped the country”s demographics. In its golden age, the figure of ten million residents, including non-Muslims, has been suggested. There were Celts and Visigoths before the arrival of the Arabs, Berbers, Slavs, Franks among others.
Andalusian society was fragmented according to religion but also according to ethnicity. In the second half of the 8th century, there were :
Among the Christians, a distinction could be made between those who had retained their previous culture and the Mozarabes who had adopted, after the Muslim conquest, the Arab customs and language, while maintaining their religion.
Among the Muslims, there were :
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Main ethnic groups
Apart from those in positions of power, it is difficult to understand the social dynamics at work or their interactions because of the very little documentation that has come down to us. The documentation available after the Reconquest is more extensive and the initial structuring of public life has changed little, so it can provide clues to the interactions of these groups.
The eighth century was marked by the overall instability of al-Andalus, both on its external borders and politically. The ninth century was marked by a strong Islamization of society, a wave of Christian martyrs, and important attempts at secession of territories by Mozarabes. In the tenth century, society was essentially Muslim. It seemed to be pacified when the Caliphate was established. There were then a large number of communities in al-Andalus, which structured public life. Generally speaking, these communities live with their own laws and do not mix.
The Arabs established everywhere in the Iberian Peninsula and in a strong majority in the South, Southeast, East and Northeast are united among themselves and have a strong ethnic feeling. During the conquest of the country, more than 18,000 Arab soldiers arrived and settled in the country. They are mainly of Qaisite and Kalbite (Yemeni) origin. They were baladiyyûn (those of the conquest), and were later joined by the sâmiyyûn (those of the later Umayyad contingent), a distinction that overlapped, to some extent, with the ancient divide between Qahtanites and Adnanites. These characteristics will complicate the work of the first emirs to pacify the country.
Later, arriving from Egypt, the Hedjaz and the whole Arab world in general, they grouped together in cities according to their origin, the Arabs of Homs settled around Seville, those of Damascus in Granada (Spain), those of Palestine in Malaga.
The Ebro basin, the Guadalquivir valley, eastern Andalusia, the regions of Cordoba, Seville, Murcia, Jaen, Granada, the Mediterranean coast of southern Spain and the Atlantic Algarve are areas with a large Arab majority.
Other Arab populations, of Hilalian origin (Zughba and Riyâh), settled later in al-Andalus during the Almohad period. These Arabs, present in large numbers in the Almohad ranks and whose role was to guard the main axes of the country, serve as reserves for the troops, and collect taxes, benefited from land concessions, especially in the southeast of the country.
Although the majority of the Arabs were city dwellers and focused on trade or held high positions in the administration, they were also large landowners. Over the centuries, the Arab population grew but its power diminished in favor of an Arab-Hispanic civilization that lasted until the fall of Granada.
Often originating from the Atlas Mountains, the Berbers live in various mountains of central and northern Spain. They lead a life of farmers and pastoralists, as in their original homelands. More numerous than the Arabs and just as united among themselves, willingly autonomous, they will constantly pose problems to the various central powers. The emirs and caliphs were indispensable and sought after by the armed forces in North Africa and the north of al-Andalus, but they were wary of them because they knew they were rebellious and capable of challenging their power. For example, Almanzor (al-Mansur), relied heavily on them in his personal conquest of power. It is also noted that the Berbers actually took power in several taifas at the end of the civil war of 1031.
Mostly Muslim, their original tribes included pagan, even Christian and Jewish populations and superficial converts to Islam, reputedly prone to schisms and apostasies. The sharing of arable land was clearly to their disadvantage compared to the Arabs, who were clearly privileged. They were often placed in mountainous areas of lesser economic interest, but they also inherited certain rich lands “in contact” with potential Christian incursions, in the Ebro valley and the country of Valencia. They are thus far from the central superstructures of al-Andalus and play a role of frontline defenders against the threat of incursions by the Franks and free Christians. They were visibly numerous in the territories where the Catalan conquest would later develop (lower regions of the Ebro, Valencian Levant).
The term Mozarabic means “Arabized” and no Andalusian text has been preserved. It is used by authors of the Christian kingdoms to designate Christians living in Islamic lands and the Christian binomial
However, in Al Andalus it is likely that this term was used in a broader sense, to designate individuals who spoke Arabic but were not of Arab descent: all Christians, but also Jews or Islamized and Arabized Berbers.
Christians of Iberian, Celtic, Roman or Visigothic origin followed the rite of Saint Isidore. Cyrille Aillet explains that during the troubles of the second half of the ninth century, the Latin-speaking Christians disappeared in favor of the Arabic-speaking Christians, called Mozarabic by the Latin-speaking Christians in the northern kingdoms of Al Andalus. These give rise to an Arab-Christian culture in Cordoba. “The most astonishing conclusion of Cyrille Aillet”s patient research is that the Mozarabs are less a “community” in the sense that we understand it today, a human group closed in on traditions that distinguish and separate it from others, than a way of being – the author says very nicely that there is “a Mozarabic situation”.
They follow the rite of Isidore of Seville until the eleventh century, the Latin rite thereafter. Represented by a come or Mozarabic count himself, they kept their episcopal seats, convents and churches. Some of them reached high ranks in society, which allowed them to acquire all the sciences and cultures of the East and which they passed on to their Christian co-religionists in the north of the peninsula as the reconquest progressed. During the reconquest the rite of Saint Isidore was ruthlessly replaced by the Roman rite under the influence of Cluny.
At the end of the eleventh century and the capture of Toledo by Castile, the presence of Christians increased again in these conquered territories from the eleventh century. The newcomers abandoned the Mozarabic rite and followed the Latin rite and came under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, at that time still a member of the Pentarchy; on the southern coasts belonging to the Eastern Roman Empire, some churches followed the Greek rite and came under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople.
In al-Andalus, the Almohavid conquest provoked emigrations to the Christian north of which no structured community remained from the twelfth century onwards, unlike in many other territories that had belonged to the Muslim Empire.
The Muladi or Muwallads are the converts to Islam. They are a transitional group, mainly present during the Emirate and Caliphate periods. They can be of Iberian, Celtic, Roman or Visigothic origin. They are converts to Islam, but “their revolt during the ninth century nevertheless places them in the ban of “Muslims”, to the point of being qualified in the texts by the terms of murtadd, mushrik and kâfir”. For a time, they represented the largest group in the country, essentially Christians who had converted or were born of parents of mixed couples.
If the first conversions took place rapidly after the arrival of the Arabs, they remained few in number in the 8th century and it was not until the middle of the 9th century that a strong Islamization of society took place under the reign of Abd al-Rahman II, giving rise to important tensions: waves of martyrs and attempts at secession (Omar Ben Hafsun). In the tenth century, with the establishment of the Caliphate, most of the population of Visigothic origin was now Muslim.
Slavers, called Saqaliba in Arabic, are an important group in Andalusian society. As in Roman times and Byzantium, while sub-Saharan Africa remained a source for slaves, they were captured and purchased mainly in Europe. The Slavons were mainly Slavs and Germans from Central and Eastern Europe who were converted to Islam to escape their initial servile condition. Under Abd al-Rahman II, they were brought back to Andalusia in large numbers. Some of them received an advanced education that allowed them to obtain high positions in the administration. Some of them became great falconers, great goldsmiths or even commanders of the guard, and they ended up forming a separate group, favoring each other. They played an important role in the break-up of the country in the 11th century during their struggles against the Berbers. During the Taifa period, several Slavs managed to wrest a kingdom from the Berbers, as in Valencia, Almeria or Tortosa, and turn it into a powerful political entity.
The Jews are also Arabic-speaking. They lived mainly in the cities and worked mainly in occupations that were devalued or forbidden by other religions (credit, trade). They included several doctors and scholars, some of whom were appointed ambassadors. This intellectual boom, illustrated by the physician and diplomat Hasdaï ibn Shaprut (915 – 970), the poets Salomon ibn Gabirol (1021 – 1058) and Juda Halévi (1075 – 1141), and the physician and philosopher Maïmonide (1138 – 1204), weakened from the time of the Almoravid conquest onwards, and even more so after the Almohad conquest when the situation of the Jews deteriorated. A large number of them joined the territories dominated by the Christians and North Africa, with the famous case of Moses Maimonides joining Saladin”s Egypt.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, they again fled persecution and the Inquisition in the Christian north. In particular, they reached Granada where there were more than 50,000 Jews when the city was taken by Castile.
The living conditions of non-Muslims have been the subject of many debates around the concept of convivencia, a concept abandoned by historians. The spectrum of these debates has been constituted by María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature who considers that tolerance was an integral part of Andalusian society. According to her, the dhimmis, forming the majority of the conquered population, although having fewer rights than the Muslims, had a better condition than the minorities present in Christian countries. At the other extreme is, for example, the historian Serafín Fanjul, who points out that the convivencia underlying the debates has often been exaggerated by historians. For Rafael Sánchez Saus, too, Menocal”s irenic vision does not correspond to reality: “in al-Andalus, there was never a will to integrate the conquered population into an ethnically and religiously plural system. What was established was the means to perpetuate the domination of a small minority of oriental and North African Muslim warriors over the indigenous population”. Emmanuelle Teixer Dumesnil”s contemporary approach explains that the very notion of tolerance is anachronistic in medieval societies as a whole, and that relations are based on other relationships than tolerance or integration, which are concepts from the Enlightenment.
As in all medieval societies, the rights of communities of other religions are clearly inferior, and, in addition to religion, ethnicity, gender and social status participate in this systematic legal inferiorization. Jurisconsults tried to impose a “coexistence in avoidance” whose application was very unequal according to social status: the prohibition of mixed marriages was a reality in the palaces of Medinat Alzahara, but was little followed in the working-class Qaturba. Moreover, the effective dissemination of these rules beyond Cordoba varied according to the region, the urban or rural situation and the whole gives rise to very contrasting realities according to the situation of each person. While there was no longer any Christian presence in Toledo in the tenth century and Arabization was almost complete, Ibn Hawqal (2nd part of the tenth century) indicates the presence of farms grouping thousands of Christian peasants “ignorant of urban life” speaking a Romance language, and who could rebel and fortify themselves in the hills.
Until the turn of the ninth century, Muslims were few in number. Non-Muslims, forming the majority of the indigenous population at the time of the conquest, had the status of dhimmi and paid the jizya. Until the Islamization brought about by Abd al-Rahman II (the bishops cooperated fully and maintained their economic privileges. In general, historians Bernard Lewis, S.D. Goitein, and Norman Stillman agree that the dhimmi status to which Jews and Christians were subjected was an obviously inferior one, and one that deteriorated as Muslim rule eroded.
The troubled period of the Emirate saw waves of Christian martyrs. The civil war that shook the second part of the ninth century was led by the numerous muwladis, converts to Islam, claiming the same social status as the Arabs they were trying to overthrow. Although al-Andalus is one of the best-known medieval Islamic societies, both in writing and in archaeology, until the eleventh century we know almost nothing about the Jewish population, its organization, its social dynamics. If at that time the city of Cordoba does not seem to have any confessional districts, we only have information on a handful of people, mainly on Hasday ibn Ishaq ibn Shaprut. The information on the Christians is not much more extensive. It indicates that Recemund, bishop of Elvira, was in the service of the Caliph as ambassador and intermediary with Juan de Gorze, and for the rest of the inhabitants, it only allows us to deduce that this period was calmer than the previous one, which was marked by waves of martyrs. Conversions to Islam were rapid and did not seem to be forced.
The more recent periods are somewhat better known. The end of the civil war provoked an abandonment of the orthodoxy to which the caliph was supposed to attend. The Jews were active collaborators of the Muslim power, but with the Christian maturation in the north, the structural weakness of the Taifa caused a stiffening of the Muslim power towards minority religions. Their fate deteriorated with the first Christian advances (1064, Barastro) which ended with the emblematic capture of Toledo (1085). For Christine Mazzoli-Guintard, the assassination of a Jewish vizier followed by pogroms (1066) is part of this logic. In 1118, Alfonso I of Aragon inflicted heavy defeats on the Almoravids by taking Saragossa, then by besieging Granada and attacking several towns along the Guadalquivir (1125-1126). In these regions, the Christians were deported to the Maghreb, or had to convert, or fled by accompanying the Christian armies in their retreat. All of this led to a radical decline of the Christian communities. In the twelfth century, with the arrival of the Almohads, the status of dhimmi came to an end and the Jews chose either to convert to Islam or to flee to the Christian kingdoms of the north, North Africa or Palestine. The situation relaxed from the second half of the 12th century, and Islamization was almost complete.
Serafín Fanjul defines the society of the kingdom of Granada (1238-1492) as “a monocultural society, with only one language, one religion. It was a terribly intolerant society, out of an instinct for survival, since it was cornered by the sea. However, there is still an important Jewish quarter in Granada.
During the Caliphate period, the laws state that the Muslim travels on a horse, the Christian on a donkey, the fines for the same offences are half for Muslims, mixed marriages between Christian or Jewish men and Muslim women are almost impossible, the testimony of a Christian against a Muslim is not admissible in court. A Christian cannot have a Muslim servant. Emmanuelle Teixer Dumesnil points out, however, that “when it is tirelessly repeated that the dhimmî must not ride horses, must wear distinctive signs and cannot mix with Muslims, it is precisely because the opposite is happening in societies where they are fully integrated. The government seeks to avoid cohabitation in order to “safeguard” the faith of each and avoid syncretism, but its success is limited, especially in the city of Cordoba. Indeed, if the confessional groups are not intimate, the popular districts of the Qaturba are not confessional and the public space is shared. Marriages between Christians and Muslims are still numerous among servants and slaves and the reality experienced by the different social groups is very different.
The situation of the Christians in the early days was different according to the cities and the treaties that the local authorities had established upon the arrival of the Muslims. In the region of Mérida they could keep their properties except for the ornaments of the churches. In the provinces of Alicante and Lorca they paid tribute. In other cases, the situation was not so favorable, as in the case of some large Christian landowners who saw their lands partially despoiled. The chaotic situation in the country prevented the “dhimma” from being applied too rigorously, which made it possible to preserve the distinct religious and cultural traits of the Christians. Nevertheless, from 830 onwards, with the Arabization and Islamization of the country, the change is obvious. Christianity then experienced a rapid demographic and cultural decline. It was not until the time of the Caliphate that greater tolerance emerged, as Christians no longer constituted a threat to power. In the second half of the 12th century, there were no longer any organized Christian communities in al-Andalus.
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Reconquista
Before 1085, date of the capture of Toledo by the Christians, the Iberian Peninsula was four-fifths under Muslim rule, the north under four Christian kingdoms and since 806 under a Frankish march created by Charlemagne with Barcelona as its capital. After the battle of Toledo (1085), the Reconquista or Christian reconquest, progressed strongly. Al-Andalus was reduced to a little more than half of the Spanish territory. When the Christians began to unite to push back the Muslims who had been installed since the 720s, the region was ruled by a caliph, the Caliph of Cordoba. After Toledo, the Reconquista accelerated in the 13th century with the important Muslim defeat at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, a great historic Catholic victory, followed by the conquest of Cordoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248. Thousands of Muslims left Spain or took refuge in the small kingdom of Granada.
In 1237, in the midst of a rout, a Nasrid Muslim leader took possession of Granada and founded the Kingdom of Granada, which was recognized as a vassal by Castile in 1246 and thus had to pay tribute to it. From time to time, conflicts broke out due to the refusal to pay and ended with a new balance between the Moorish emirate and the Christian kingdom. In 1483, Mohammed XII became emir, dispossessing his father, an event that triggered the Granada wars. A new agreement with Castile provoked a rebellion in the Emir”s family and the region of Malaga separated from the Emirate. Málaga was taken by Castile and its 15,000 inhabitants were taken prisoner, which frightened Mohammed.
Pressed by the starving population and faced with the superiority of the Catholic kings, who had artillery, the emir capitulated on January 2, 1492, thus ending eleven years of hostilities and seven centuries of Islamic power in this part of Spain. On the other hand, the presence of Muslim populations in Spain, which had returned to Christianity, did not end until 1609, when they were completely expelled from Spain by Philip III, who was worried about the Moriscos” desire for revenge, the unrest they were causing, the barbarian raids on the Spanish coasts, and the expected help from the Ottomans.
Also read, history – Spice trade
Economy and trade
The vast expanses of land, especially in the tenth century when the Caliphate was at its peak, allowed Al-Andalus to have a varied agriculture. The cultivation of cereals was mainly located in the dry lands south of Jaen or Cordoba. The regions west of Seville were great producers of olive oil and grapes. Bananas, rice, palm trees and sugar cane were cultivated in the south and southeast. Fruits and vegetables such as asparagus, almonds, cherries and oranges were introduced into the country very late. Cotton was mainly produced in the region of Valencia or Murcia and silkworms and flax were produced in the region of Granada. The vast wooded areas around Cadiz, Cordoba, Malaga or Ronda allowed the country to launch large and costly wood projects, such as shipyards. In case of bad harvests, as at the beginning of the tenth century, cereals were imported from North Africa from the ports of Oran or Tunisia.
Al Andalus was however very dependent on the Maghreb economically, both for labor and for economic circuits and certain commodities. From the Emirate period, the control of the Maghreb (up to the trans-Saharan routes, Sidjilmassa and the loop of the Niger) becomes imperative. It was achieved through regular coups de forces and shifting agreements with the dominant tribes. Economic dependence is well documented. Al-Idrissi, in his Kitâb nuzhat al-mushtaq fî ikhtirâq al-âfâq (middle of the twelfth century) returns repeatedly to the economic links of interdependence between Andalusia and the Moroccan ports. He also emphasizes, around Cordoba, the quasi-monoculture of the olive tree. For Francis Manzano, this dependence on the Maghreb without strong control is “a thorn in the side” of Al-Andalus which generates structural fragilities accentuated during the Umayyad period by the distensions between Arabs and Berbers.
Silk arrived from China via Persia and was mainly cultivated in the upper Guadalquivir region at the foot of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Morena mountains, enriching nearby cities such as Baza and even Cadiz. But it was in Almería and its surroundings that the craftsmen specialized in making fabrics, curtains or costumes before Seville and Cordoba had their own weaving workshops in the 9th century. The silk trade was a great source of wealth for the country, which sold silk throughout the Mediterranean basin, to Yemen, India, but also to Northern Europe and England. Roger de Hoveden, an English traveler in the 13th century, and the Chanson de Roland speak of silk from Almeria and silk carpets. However, it is also from the 12th century that this industry sees its production fall. The Europeans, and in particular the Italians, opened up to this trade and their merchants ventured more and more along the silk route, and the vogue for wool from England or Flanders supplanted silk. Nevertheless, Andalusian silk was exported until the fall of Granada in the 15th century.
Wool has been exploited since antiquity and is mainly produced around the Guadiana River and in the whole of Extremadura. Under Muslim rule, it was intensively produced and exported, especially with the breeding of sheep of the so-called Merino breed, whose name comes from the Merinids, a Berber dynasty from North Africa. It is from the Maghreb that the Muslims of the peninsula learned the techniques of breeding, the organization of transhumance between the different seasons, the legal rules concerning the rights of exploitation of the land. Alfonso X of Castile himself will take over these techniques and jurisdictions to impose them on his lands. Bocairent, near Valencia, was one of the great fabric manufacturing centers of the peninsula. Andalusian merchants exported to Egypt to the court of the Fatimid caliphs or to Persia.
As in the whole Muslim world in general, the Andalusian lands are poor in iron and it is obliged to import it from India. The blades of Toledo are as famous as those of Damascus and are sold at a high price throughout the Mediterranean basin and Europe. The most exploited metal in the country is copper, extracted mainly in the region of Seville, which exports it in the form of ingots or manufactured, decorative or useful objects.
Just as scarce as iron, wood, an indispensable material for industry and shipbuilding, was sorely lacking throughout the Muslim world, which was forced to launch expeditions as far as Dalmatia to find quality wood. The advantage that al-Andalus had due to its large wooded areas (especially around Dénia or Tortosa) allowed it to export large quantities, but as the Reconquista progressed, the forests became scarcer.
Introduced in the East a few years after the battle of Talas in 751, paper is an essential material in the Andalusian economy. Manufactured in the region of Xàtiva near Valencia (Spain), it acquired a great reputation thanks to its quality of manufacture mixing rag and linen. Very much in demand throughout the East and in Europe, it is mentioned by name in the Guenizah of Cairo.
The slave trade is attested as early as the end of the 9th century. The vast majority of slaves came from the country called bilad as-Sakalibas, i.e. the land of slaves, which included all of Eastern and Central Europe. The others came from the steppes of Asia (bilad Al-Attrak) or from the present Sudan (bilad as-Sudan). Slaves from Europe were mainly Slaves captured around the Elbe region, Dalmatia or the Balkans. The Scandinavians were the main sellers of slaves, bringing them to the banks of the Rhine where merchants, mainly Jews, bought the slaves and then resold them throughout Europe, such as in Verdun, which was the main center for the castration of slaves, but also in Prague or in the Orient or in Andalusia. However, with the arrival of the Almoravids, the European slave trade diminished in favor of African slaves.
Long before the arrival of the Arabs, the Iberian Peninsula had a solid road infrastructure, which had been built by the Romans but left to decay with the arrival of the Visigoths. During the Arab domination, the main internal road axes all left from Cordoba, the capital, and reached the major cities of the country such as Seville, Toledo, Almería, Valencia, Zaragoza and Malaga.
As far as foreign trade was concerned, the main axis was the one that joined Andalusia to the current Languedoc-Roussillon (which was an Arab province for half a century) with cities like Arles or Narbonne from where goods were shipped to all of Europe or the Orient. Andalusian merchants mainly bought weapons or sheets from Flanders and sold silks and spices.
Between 903 and 1229, the Balearic Islands, mainly Mallorca, locked down trade in the Mediterranean, as well as between the peninsula and Algiers. The islands also provided a base for pirate expeditions.
The Andalusian ports were mainly oriented towards trade with North Africa, Syria or Yemen. Heavy goods such as wood, wool and wheat were transported by sea, as were pilgrims heading for Mecca.
Also read, biographies – Alexander Archipenko
Government and bureaucracy
The ruler dominates the people and possesses all powers, obeying only his conscience and the Islamic rules. He is the central figure in the country and even more so since Abd Al-Rahman III was crowned Caliph, Commander of the Faithful. The ruler has absolute authority over the officials and the army. He appoints whomever he wishes to the highest positions of the state. The ruler rarely appeared in public, especially after the construction of the Madinat Al-Zahra palace by Abd Al-Rahman III, where receptions were governed by a strict and complex protocol, which did not fail to dazzle Western ambassadors marked by the respectful fear that the caliph inspired in his subjects. The sovereign kept his family with him in his palace.
The most important ceremony in the life of a ruler is the baya, a tribute that marks the advent of a new ruler. Present are his close and distant family, the high dignitaries of the court, judges, military, etc.. All these people swear loyalty to the new ruler according to a hierarchical order imported from the Abbasid caliphate by Zyriab. Then come the feasts of the breaking of the fast of the month of Ramadan and the feast of the Sacrifice which are celebrated with pomp.
It is very difficult to make an accurate map of the different regions of al-Andalus because its borders were so mobile and its leaders changed frequently. It is sometimes even safer to rely on Christian sources than on Arab sources of the time. However, according to many Arab authors, the country was divided into marches (tughur or taghr in the singular) and districts (kûra in the singular, kuwar in the plural).
Located between the Christian kingdoms and the Emirate, the marches act as a border and a buffer zone. Inspired by the tughur that the Abbasids had placed on their border with Byzantium, these marches were defended by fortresses of varying size depending on the strategic interest of the place. Governed by soldiers with extensive powers, the populations living there, although in a state of war, lived in relative peace due to the forces that the central government placed there.
In the rest of the country, garrisons made up of Arab soldiers but also mercenaries guarantee the security of the territory. The administration is not in the hands of a military officer but of a wali who is appointed and supervised by the central government. The wali governs a provincial district. Each kûra has a capital, a governor and a garrison. The governor lives in a fortified building (al-Muqaddasî reports a list of 18 names. Yâqût gives a total of 41 names and Al-Râzî gives a figure of 37. This mode of administrative division, inherited from the Abbasid model in Baghdad or the Umayyads in Damascus, was to remain in place until the end of the Muslim presence in Spain.
The ruler is surrounded by advisors, the viziers, the first vizier who is also the head of the administration is the hadjib. The latter is the second most important person after the ruler and he can contact the ruler at any time and must keep him informed of the country”s affairs. The hadjib is also, after the sovereign, the best paid person and is the object of all honors, but in return he is responsible for a heavy and complex administration. He lived in the Alcazar and then in Madinat al-Zahra after its construction.
Next come the “offices” or diwans, of which there are three, each headed by a vizier. The first diwan is the Chancellery or the katib al-diwan or diwan al-rasail. It is responsible for diplomas and certificates, appointments and official correspondence. This diwan is also responsible for the Post Office or barid, a communication system inherited from the Abbasids. Finally, the first diwan manages the intelligence services.
Under the authority of Mozarabs or Jews, the management of finances or the khizanat al-mal was organized in a complex way. The revenues of the state as well as the revenues of the ruler were accounted for. In al-Andalus, taxes were the primary source of income, in addition to tributes from vassals and extraordinary revenues. Over the centuries, these receipts varied considerably: from 250,000 dinars at the beginning of the Arab presence, this amount rose to one million under Abd al-Rahman II and up to five million under Abd al-Rahman III and his successors. These taxes include the zakat for Muslims, the jizya for non-Muslims and other taxes that the governor raises when necessary. The royal court was a major expense. Under Abd Al-Rahman III, the maintenance of his palace of Madinat Al-Zahra but also the harem and its 6,000 women, domestic staff, family of the sovereign, swallowed up considerable sums.
The Caliph, God”s lieutenant on earth, is also the judge of all believers. He can exercise this function if he wishes, but generally delegates it to subordinates called cadi, invested with the power of jurisdiction. The cadi of Cordoba was the only one directly appointed by the caliph, the others being generally appointed by the viziers or provincial governors.
In a judgment, the cadi is alone and is assisted by a counsel who has an advisory role only. The cadi is chosen for his competence in Islamic law, but also for his moral qualities. His judgments are final, although it is possible in some cases to ask to be judged again by the same or another cadi or by a council convened for this purpose. The most serious sentences are executed by the civil or military authorities. In addition to judgments, the cadi manages property, maintains mosques, orphanages and any building intended for the most disadvantaged. Finally, he is allowed to preside over Friday prayers and other religious holidays.
Justice being free, the cadi, who must be of a pious character and must render justice fairly, is poorly paid. But he remains a considerable figure within the state. There is no building designed for justice hearings: judgments are made in a room adjacent to the mosque. The cadi can judge between two Muslims or between a Muslim and a Christian. In the case of a dispute between Christians, a special magistrate was assigned who judged according to the old Visigothic law; between Jews, a Jewish judge was assigned.
In the time of al-Andalus, the law was derived from the sharia. A civil servant was specially assigned to the maintenance of public order: he was the sahib al-suk, equivalent to a current police officer. He made sure that the population fulfilled their religious duties, that they behaved properly in the street, and that the discriminatory rules against dhimmis were applied. However, his main function is to track down counterfeits and deceptions in the markets by checking weights and measures, ensuring the quality of products sold, etc. The rules he has to follow are laid down in treatises which indicate the steps to be taken in each case that arises. When the sahib al-suk apprehends a person, he hands him over to the cadi for trial. In the provincial cities, the task of arresting and executing the sentences of the criminals falls to the governor.
Also read, biographies – Charles Demuth
Diplomacy
The difficulties of communication and the slowness of the means of transport did not allow to have a real diplomacy except with the close neighbors of Andalusia. In the tenth century, the emirate was still a young state barely free of the revolts and unrest that had shaken it a century earlier. Being on the border of two great spaces (Latin and Eastern), the country maintained very rich but also tumultuous relations with them.
The relationship between the Umayyads and the Abbasids of Baghdad had turned sour following the assassination of the entire ruling family, except for Abd Al-Rahman I. Then the tensions gradually subsided. The Umayyads, who had been established for nearly two centuries, had lost their oriental traditions, and nothing of the past prestige of Damascus, their former capital, remained except for a few ruined buildings. Now the entire Arab world was turning to Baghdad, including the Andalusians. The influence of the Iraqi city inspired Andalusia and Zyriab is one of the most remarkable elements of the penetration of the Abbasid culture in Andalusia. Of Kurdish origin, he left Baghdad and asked Al-Hakam for permission to settle at his court, but when he landed on the peninsula, Al-Hakam died and it was Abd Al-Rahman II who had the opportunity to receive him. They quickly became close friends, the emir appreciating the great culture of Zyriab. Zyriab founded a school in Córdoba and introduced the Medinese song that would later inspire the cante jondo. His arrival totally disrupted the Andalusian court which discovered a new way of life, clothing, table rules imported from Baghdad, games (he imported the game of chess known in Persia since the 4th century) and even the way of expressing oneself or behaving in society, Zyriab brought a new wind to Andalusia. The influence of this man should not make us forget that his success is mainly due to the favorable terrain that the country offered for the development of culture and science. The personality of Amir Abd Al-Rahman II, who was himself passionate about poetry and who surrounded himself with other people as brilliant as Zyriab, such as Al-Ghazal or Ibn Firmas, contributed to this. The country knows a period of economic and agrarian prosperity thanks to these exchanges with the East. Men like Zyriab allowed Abd Al-Rahman to give Andalusia a new path centered on Baghdad, definitively detaching itself from the Roman, Visigothic or Syrian culture from which the first amirs came.
The Iraqi influence is also felt at the level of institutions. The Emir became an absolute monarch whose power was almost total over Andalusia, except for religious matters which were still under the authority of the grand cadi and the mufti. The governors who had been so quick to disobey the emir were closely watched and reported only to him. Here again, the influence of Baghdad is felt since this organization of society is totally inspired by it. Abd Al-Rahman continued to reorganize the army following the example of his ancestors; to the undisciplined groups from the various tribes which they continued to obey, he preferred professional soldiers under the orders of a central government. He formed an army of slaves (Mamluks) of Slavic origin, thus imitating the Abbasid rulers who had under their command Turkish slave soldiers who were still largely non-Muslim. These slaves were bought abroad, especially in Europe, and then trained in the trades of arms.
North Africa during the first centuries of the emirate was a vast land where struggles between tribes took place, the Abbasid governors having freed themselves from the authority of the distant Caliph of Baghdad and certain Shiite clerics who wished to establish themselves in these lands.
During the reign of Abd Al-Rahman III, the caliphate had little contact with these countries, limited only to buying grain in case of crop failure. The greatest danger certainly came from the Shiite Fatimid caliphate still established in present-day Tunisia and part of Algeria, which had its eye on the lands of Morocco. The caliph followed with attention the victories and defeats of this rival dynasty and allied himself with the Berbers in its struggle. He annexed Melilla in 927, then Ceuta in 931 and even Algiers in 951.
Constantinople was the largest city in Europe at the time of Al-Andalus. The Eastern Roman Empire, which modern historians call the “Byzantine Empire”, had to fight against the armies of the Umayyads of Damascus during the 8th century. North Africa, which had been part of the Roman Empire since the first century B.C. and had been administered by the Eastern Roman Empire since Justinian, had been lost and even the capital Constantinople had been threatened. Arab raids against the Eastern Roman Empire (649, 654, 667, 670, 674, 678, 695, 697 and 718) largely depopulated the coasts, Sicily and the Greek islands, whether their inhabitants fled inland or were taken into slavery. Until the reign of Abd al-Rahman II, relations between the Empire and al-Andalus were therefore hostile, especially since the Andalusians driven out by Amir al-Hakam during the Revolt of the Faubourg in 818 had seized Crete in 827 and from there raided the entire Aegean. In 839-840, the Eastern Roman emperor Theophilus, threatened by Muslim advances in North Africa and Sicily, sent an ambassador to Cordoba and offered Abd al-Rahman II a treaty of friendship in exchange for the withdrawal of the Muslims from Crete. Theophilus is undoubtedly badly informed on the situation and Abd al-Rahman II answers that the emirs masters of Crete do not depend any more on him since they were driven out of the country; by diplomacy it sends to Constantinople various gifts as well as a poet.
This episode, although secondary, delighted Abd al-Rahman II because it marked the country”s entry into the arena of the great countries of the Mediterranean world. It was the first time that an empire as powerful as Byzantium turned to Andalusia and asked for its help. The Byzantine emperor sent sumptuous gifts to the Caliph and a letter asking him to stop looting.
Also read, biographies – Yermak Timofeyevich
With Western Christianity
The exchanges with China and India, but also the capture of Alexandria or Damascus, which were ancient Roman cities in the East with vast libraries (including many books in Greek) are the starting point of the so-called Arab sciences. From late antiquity these Greek works were translated into Syriac by the Syriac-speaking Christians of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. The first Muslim thinkers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, all of whom did not know Greek, became aware of these writings through their translations into Arabic and disseminated them. This trend soon arrived in Europe, timidly at first, but then it took its full place at the end of the Middle Ages, contributing in part to the Renaissance in Europe.
The first to translate Arabic and Greek texts into Latin were the Spaniards and Italians: these documents slowly penetrated France. In the 13th century, Paris was the most important center of philosophical and theological studies in the Latin world, and the courses given in its university were renowned throughout Europe. Despite his prestige, it was not until two centuries after Avicenna”s death that the University of Paris fully recognized his works. The first to take an interest in Arab thought were French theologians and churchmen. Guillaume d”Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the 13th century, showed great interest in Arabic and Greek philosophy even though he did not hesitate to criticize and denigrate Avicenna”s work for its pro-Islamic reflections. Later Thomas Aquinas had the same reaction to the texts of the Arab thinker.
On the scientific level, Greek science and philosophy continued to be taught in their original language in Constantinople and in the cultural centers of the Eastern Empire. On the other hand, Western Europe remained until the eleventh century away from Greek sciences, only to rediscover them through Arabic translations from Al-Andalus. Gerbert d”Aurillac, after having traveled through Catalonia and visited the libraries of bishoprics and monasteries containing translations of Muslim and Spanish works, was one of the first to bring the Arabic sciences back to France. Throughout Europe, a vast translation movement was launched. Although imperfect, these translations introduced numerous notions in mathematics, astronomy and medicine.
In the field of arts, the influence coming from Byzantium and Persia, in the field of architecture, reaches Western Europe through the Andalusian intermediary. During the Caliphate period, the recovery of the old Visigothic and Roman architectural codes in the organs of power (Medinat Al Zahira, Cordoba mosque) is desired. For Susana Calvo Capilla, the massive reuse of Roman materials in the palatine complex of Medinat Al-Zahara (sculptures of muses and philosophers, sarcophagi, basins, etc.) is a political intention. It is a question of creating a visual reference to the “knowledge of the ancients” and of exalting the Hispanic heritage to legitimize the power of the Caliph over Cordoba at the time when his rupture with Baghdad provoked a major political earthquake, and to install him in the continuity of power in Spain. For Gabriel Martinez, the Mozarabic influence can be appreciated only by taking into account the political questions raised by the iconoclasm, underlining the presence of characters at the top of the capitals of the mosque of Cordoba, characteristic of the last extension of the temple by Almansor and which can pass as well for Moslem sages as for Christian saints. Several Romanesque churches in the south of France between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have an architecture similar to the mosques and palaces of Al-Andalus, such as the horseshoe-shaped arches taken from Byzantine or Persian architecture, and are decorated with biblical inscriptions carved in stone, aesthetically inspired by the arabesques that adorned the mosques of the time.
Also read, biographies – Themistocles
Historiographic situation
The facts of language in al-Andalus have been regularly invoked in support of a global theory founded mainly by historians, often Arabists, for over a century. For a group of researchers logically attached to written evidence and attestation, it is understandable that the Arabic language has been the main (or almost exclusive) source of information. However, Arabic is here, as in the Maghreb, only one of the available languages in contact, although the most valued on the sociolinguistic level (institutions, writing, literature etc.). The other two have either progressively fallen into orality and marginality since the 8th century (in the case of Romance), or have mainly remained there, especially in the countryside (in the case of Berber). It is worth noting that the Arab-Berber contact is often reduced to an imbalance manifested by a pre-eminence of Arabic and Arabness. For example, Évariste Lévi-Provençal, in his Histoire de l”Espagne musulmane, evokes very well the Berber identity and the probable articulations of the groups settled in Spain. However, he essentially cites tribal names (ethnonyms), the name of the language and its avatars (al-lisan al-gharbi, or *al-gharbia > esp. algarabía > fr. charabia) … “which they exchanged without difficulty for that of Arabic, at the same time as that of Roman. Berber was probably no longer spoken in Spain from the 9th century onwards…”.
Half a century later, André Clot wrote that the Berbers “quickly became Arabized and quickly forgot their original language.
This way of considering al-Andalus tends de facto to underestimate the roles that the dominated languages may have played in the system of languages and identities, masking a whole series of concrete facts that escape our attention and are mainly related to orality (regional languages, interlects, toponymy). Thus, Arabic toponymy, so abundant at first sight in Spain and Portugal (and up to the present day), represents a superstructure that has covered up the realities of local, Romance or Berber denominations. Indeed :
“… the corpus of Arabic origin is certainly of impressive size and as a whole “jumps out” from the region of Valencia to present-day Andalusia. Nevertheless, very early on, linguists showed the limits of what was often presented as a form of obsession with Arabic. In the mid-twentieth century, Manuel Sanchis-Guarner recognized in a review the interest and seriousness of the work of Miguel Asín Palacios (Contribución a la toponimia árabe de España). But he also showed what the “all Arabic” could lead to. Toponyms of various types, which the automatism pushed to identify as Arabic, hid in reality perfectly Roman etymologies, like *ALBARETA “poplar grove” > Albareda or Meliana (< anthroponym AEMILIUS + suff. -ANA, designating a Roman villa) ” “
At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, while the dogma of an al-Andalus of “conviviencia” (hereafter) is cracking, new avenues of research are emerging and developing: lexicographic and dialectological of Arabic itself, of sociolinguistic type relating to the contact of languages, devoted to the rights of minorities in al-Andalus or to the views of the Berber communities. In this regard, it is observed that the practices or influences of the Berber language have been regularly underestimated and neglected.
Finally, the oldest communities, Visigothic or Romanesque, are better and better evaluated, notably through archaeology, which should eventually allow for a better understanding of the changes in identity relations between endogenous and exogenous communities.
Taking into consideration these different ways, the sociolinguist Francis Manzano proposes in 2017 a synthesis and new tracks in the exploitation of the contacts of languages and identities in Al-Andalus. For this researcher, the languages would be structured around three poles, in the continuity of the neighboring Maghreb: the Romanic pole, the Arabic pole and the Berber pole. This structuring of the “tripolar system” of the Maghreb, established and used by the researcher since the 1990s, tends to slow down the disappearance of one of the three poles considered, contrary to a bipolar system more common in the rest of Europe (southern France and the Iberian Peninsula in particular), where the majority languages progress better and faster. However, the distribution of functions and the importance of these poles are different when one moves from the Maghreb to al-Andalus. The most obvious weakness is the fragility of the Hispanic Berber pole, deprived of its support from the fundamental Amazigh base of North Africa. Thus, far from their original terrain, Berber dialects and identities seem to have been more radically dominated by the Arab pole, and in much greater difficulty than in the Maghreb.
Also read, biographies – Antonio Meucci
The languages of Al-Andalus
The Romanic pole is organized around languages derived from Latin, but it is not a single language, with a proven diglossia between these different languages and written Latin. As in the Maghreb, the Arab conquest froze the natural evolution of these Romance languages, which would undoubtedly have gone towards structured neo-Romanic languages (other than those we know), so many possibilities deviated or nipped in the bud. At the same time, the elite capable of speaking and reading Latin turned away from it in favor of Arabic, which was more socially advantageous, and which now appeared to them as more complete and adapted to the changes taking place. The function of Latin as a language of worship was lost early on, as Eulogius of Cordoba or Alvarus in the middle of the ninth century make it possible to understand:
“The “Mozarabs” often went directly to Arabic, which they knew better than Latin, one more step and these dhimmi, nasâra or ”agâm became Muslims or “muwallad(s)”, or “muladi(s)”.
For the author, the link of the Romanesque pole to the Christian cult constitutes an initial strength, before becoming a weakness: by Arabizing and preserving their cult, the Christians hope to obtain the social benefits associated with Arabic, the written language and language of success in their eyes. However, this approach, which was slowed down for a time by the authorities, led to an alignment both in terms of language and religion, undermining the foundations of Christianity and leading to conversions that the authorities were often wary of. From then on, the Romanesque pole was rather maintained in the intimacy of families and in the countryside, where contacts multiplied, among others with Berber. As these are two minority poles, these languages are invisible or minorities from the central superstructures of Al-Andalus. This fact indirectly favors the rapprochement between the Berber and Romanic poles in the peasant lands. However, for this set of reasons, the concrete data is poor and the “Mozarabic” and “Berber” issues are only mentioned randomly or by overlapping. It is generally concluded that the “Mozarabic” communities disappeared definitively after the double passage of the Almoravids and, above all, the Almohads.
The Arabic pole develops to the systematic detriment of the Roman and Berber poles. It is the language of power and of the new religion, the most informed, and the language of writing (science, literature, arts). The Arab conquest took place at a time when the Latin pole was already divided between a high language that was losing ground and the various Romance languages of the Visigothic kingdom. This is why Arabic quickly supplanted Latin, which it replaced on an equal footing as the upper language of the sociolinguistic system. It thus became a vector of social promotion, a crucial target for the urban elite and Visigothic nobles, but it was not of primary interest to the serfs, slaves and peasants of the Romanic and Berber groups, who did not share the same interests of power and for whom their native languages or the koinés and interlectes of the land were sufficient.
At the same time, despite its status as a high, structured and standardized language, Arabic was soon subject to the same centrifugal forces as Latin before it. Dialectal divisions inevitably occurred, with regional Arabic showing itself to be porous to Romanic and Berber contributions, particularly in botanical and pharmacological treatises, which were linked to rural organizations. In the opposite direction, borrowings from Arabic are massive in Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese, as these languages extend their geographical domains towards the south. They mostly reveal the character of Arabic as a cultural medium. These movements are also visible in toponymy, especially in Valencia and Andalusia, without being systematic.
The Berber pole is undoubtedly the most discreet. The Berbers are doubly used within al-Andalus. Because of their ability to fight (and work) in semi-desert terrain, landscapes quite close to their regions of origin, they provided the bulk of the armed troops fighting in place of the urban Arabs, for whom they also represented a permanent structural political threat. Once “demobilized”, Berbers were used to exploit and populate the less economically profitable lands, as well as those in contact with the free Christian principalities. For this reason, they are mainly located in the countryside. These are areas of cultivation in arid zones rather poor, abandoned by the Arabs, in the south as in the north, but sometimes rather rich regions subject to Christian pressure, such as the valley of the Ebro, Valencia and the Balearic Islands, where the Aragonese conquest develops
The Muslim presence in Spain has been regularly invoked to support different ideologies, different policies, by very different agents throughout history forging a set of myths that are analyzed as such in the twenty-first century, part of which is grouped under the term “convivencia” popularized by Américo Castro. In Spain this presence has been continuously invoked, from the Reconquista to the contemporary period. In the Arab-Muslim sphere, the myth of the lost paradise develops from the Middle Ages on poetic and literary bases of delicate interpretation where political greatness, economic ease, cultural apogee and confessional tolerance are idealized while the difficulties are not evoked. It continues until the 21st century.
A significant part of contemporary academic production analyzes Convivencia as a set of myths, analyzing its roots and different forms. This is the case, for example, of Bruno Sorovia, who, in the introduction to his article “Al Andalus in the mirror of multiculturalism”, complains about the difficulty of considering Al Andalus simply “as a part of the history of the classical Islamic world” and that it is common “to interpret it in a singularly acritical way, with the eyes of the present.
For Maribel Fierro, “The myth of a paradise of tolerance, harmony and absence of conflict does not exist so much in the historical production on Al Andalus as a whole”, but rather in popularization books with a political vocation. Joseph Pérez synthesizes the contemporary consensus on this concept: “the myth of the “Spain of three cultures”, widely used as an element of propaganda, is so far from the historical reality that it can only generate new elements of confusion.
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History of the myths
Christine Mazzoli-Guintard emphasizes that “the myth of Andalusian tolerance is born after the conquest. It is based on the sharing of the Basilica of St. Vincent between Christians and Muslims until the creation in 785 of the mosque of Cordoba on the premises of this basilica. However, “The sharing is a legend, archaeology has revealed the exiguity of a building that could not house both communities.
For Pascal Buresi, most of the myths about Al Andalus were developed by the victors in the Latin and Christian world, sometimes by drawing on the Arab imagination. From the beginning of the Arab territorial losses in Al Andalus, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an Islamic mythology was developed through poetry around the lost territories assimilated to the paradise of Islam and ignoring the internal difficulties. It generates a double process of mythification: on the one hand, the oblivion of the historical difficulties of these territories and on the other, the conservation, the exaggeration, even the invention of marvelous features.
The author locates the origin of the myth in the misinterpretation of poems composed during the Reconquista, such as those of Ibn Ḫafāǧa (1058-1137), contemporary with the capture of Toledo by Castile and the Almoravid annexation. These poems were later considered pastoral, whereas, borrowing from older poetic currents, they should be understood as “a poetry of struggle or refusal, perhaps of escape from reality, the expression of a threatened society that, sensing its impending demise, is already preparing its eulogy.” Maria Jesús Rubiera Mata of the University of Alicante, also gives this myth of Arab origins through the work of Al-Maqqari of Tlemcen (1577-1632), a descendant of the Muslims of Granada. Spanish Arabists later contributed to the reconstruction of the history of al-Andalus by incorporating the (Arabic) history of al-Andalus into Spanish history.
At the end of the 13th century, when the situation in Castile was tense between Christians and Jews, Lucas de Tuy wrote Chronicon mundi, which, among other accusations, explained the Visigothic defeat of the Muslims five centuries earlier as a betrayal by the Jews in order to take advantage of their tolerance. The analysis of F. Bravo López makes this book the birth of a constructed myth that develops autonomously.
The myth was transformed in Europe in the 19th century, taking on the features of the Rousseauist myth of the good savage as well as the Orientalist movement, understood as “admiration for a distant and historically mystified Other”, particularly with regard to the Alhambra. The opposition between the two Spanish schools since 1860 reinforces the myth. The first, close to the Catholic right, which exalts the resistance of the Mozarabs to the Muslim power, and the other, close to the liberals, which idealizes the medieval Islamic power to better blacken the Mozarabs: “As in Africa and Sicily, the anticlericalism built a very favorable image of Islam, secular, tolerant, progressive, opposing him the fanaticism of these retrograde Mozarabs.
In Jewish history, this narrative produced a radical split between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, and “as Bernard Lewis put it, the ”myth of Muslim tolerance” was used by many late nineteenth-century scholars as ”a stick with which to beat their Christian neighbors”. It was then recuperated in opposing and mythologized interpretations on both sides by supporters and opponents of Israel: Islamic tolerance is opposed to centuries of persecution.
Convivencia is recovered in Franco”s Spain around questions about the “essence of Spain” with the raging debate between Américo Castro and Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz about the definition of Spanish identity. After Franco”s death, this field was abandoned in Spain but recovered in the United States. The concept of convivencia was taken up in the 1970s by American scholars, who combined it with other, sometimes anachronistic, notions such as acculturation, assimilation, integration, colonization, and tolerance, and then developed an inverted, but no less erroneous, reading of Franco”s nationalist myth: the mean-spirited Christian nationalists of the north opposed to the beneficent globalization of the south.
Finally, the last quarter of the 20th century saw the rise of the Arab world and the emergence of political Islam. These phenomena generally go hand in hand with growing tensions in various parts of the world, giving rise to such landmark publications as Samuel Huntington”s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, published in 1996, which in turn brought medieval Andalusia to the attention of the general public. Taking part in this debate, several authors in the United States, such as María Rosa Menocal, have highlighted tolerance in Umayyad Andalusia. She explains “the impossibility of understanding what in another time was only an ornament in the world without seeing the reflection of this history on our doorstep”. The concept is used in an eminently political framework. It is notably quoted several times by Barack Obama. This political stance is conducive to the emergence of a counter-discourse: the medieval history “painted in pink” is answered by a medieval history “painted in black”, written by the most conservative circles, where the “true Spaniards” are Christians, and religious minorities are terrorists.
These American studies contrast sharply with their European counterparts, where most of the Spanish authors who have spoken have done so to warn against an idealization of Al Andalus. Eduardo Manzano Moreno highlights the very different perspectives between American and European authors on this concept, perspectives that are notably studied and compared by Ryan Szpiech.
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Beyond the myths
Eduardo Manzano indicates that the success of the concept of “convivencia” is mainly due to the lack of interest in seriously and rigorously theorizing the acculturation processes that occurred in the medieval Iberian Peninsula, a field that nevertheless interested several Spanish Arabists as well as Thomas Glick in the USA.
Most researchers call for a “demystification” of Al Andalus, including the abandonment of the concept of convivencia, in view of the difficulty of giving content to this notion with vague contours. As Manuela Marín and Joseph Pérez summarize, “the myth of the “Spain of three cultures”, widely used as an element of propaganda, is so far from the historical reality that it can only generate new elements of confusion. For Christine Mazzoli-Guintard, there was neither conviviencia nor armed cohabitation, but very different realities according to the social groups considered, under the constant pressure of a power that sought coexistence through avoidance. Juan Vicente García Marsilla is opposed to a “à la carte” history, which consists in highlighting elements that are useful for an ideology and ignoring those that serve it, a common attitude and one that is all the more condemnable given the abundance of sources.
For Maribel Fierro, the concept of Convivencia masks the structural inequalities of medieval communities. By focusing on their religious dimension, it ignores the other major parameters that participated in the identity of individuals and groups, and their place in society: language, culture, ethnicity, gender, social status, age. It does not help the contemporary reader to better understand medieval Spain. Maribel Fierro puts forward the concept of “conveniencia” put forward by Brian Catlos, which is much more capable of making these societies intelligible. The cultural complexity of the Iberian Middle Ages is still waiting for a worthy treatment
In 2016, a genetic analysis of skeletons from three Muslim tombs discovered during preventive excavations in Nîmes in 2006-2007, carried out by a team from INRAP and under the direction of Yves Gleize, showed that they were people from North Africa, belonging to the paternal haplogroup E-M81, which is very common in the Maghreb. These people were respectively aged between 20 and 29 years for one, around 30 years for the second, and over 50 years for the third. According to the Inrap “All of this data suggests that the skeletons discovered in the tombs of Nîmes belonged to Berber soldiers enrolled in the Umayyad army during the Arab expansion in North Africa. For Yves Gleize, one of the authors of the study, “the archaeological, anthropological and genetic analysis of these burials from the early medieval period in Nîmes provides material evidence of a Muslim occupation in the eighth century in the south of France”, to be linked to their presence attested in Narbonne for 40 years as well as in Nîmes punctually conquered in the 8th century.
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Bibliography
In reverse chronological order
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External links
Sources
