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Muslim Spain

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Muslims entered the Iberian peninsula in 711 AD and lived there as rulers and subjects until 1510 when they were banned by the decrees of Spain's Christian rulers. The name “al-Andalus,” which is what the Muslims called Spain, summoned up the image of a brilliant political achievement and a refined literary and material culture. It also evoked the notion of convivencia, or the “living together” of different religious communities that is thought to have characterized social and political life in medieval al-Andalus. The strength and extent of convivencia and its reality in Muslim Spain continues to be examined and debated today.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. The Muslims' presence in Spain, closer to the perceived heart of Europe perhaps than their parallel presence in the Balkans, has long attracted historians. Their history has often been rewritten as larger attitudes toward Islam change (Castro 1954, Linehan 1993) and there now exist a number of resources for anyone interested in the subject. An important collection of sources is now available in English (Constable 1997). Studies range from an encyclopedia devoted entirely to medieval Iberia (Gerli 2003) to collected essays on the subject, whether newly commissioned surveys (Jayyusi 2000) or reprinted classics (Marin 1998). Shorter surveys of the time and place include many with an emphasis on the Muslim perspective (so, most clearly Lévi-Provencal 1960 ). Others stress the complex political scene (Makki 2000) or the equally complex social issues raised by different ethnic and religious communities living together (Guichard 2000).
  8.  
  9. Castro, Americo, The Structure of Spanish History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954.
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  11. A seminal book on rethinking Spain's Muslim experience.
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  13. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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  15. Presents representative sources in English translation.
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  17. Gerli, E. Michael, ed. Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia. New York and London: Routledge, 2003.
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  19. A broad-ranging one volume encyclopedia.
  20. Find this resource:
  21. Guichard, Pierre. “A Social History of Muslim Spain.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 2. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 679–708. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  23. Life in al-Andalus through the eyes of a social anthropologist.
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  25. Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain. 2 vols. 2d ed. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  27. Survey essays by leading scholars.
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  29. Lévi-Provençal, Evariste. “al-Andalus.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, Evariste Lévi-Provençal, J. Schacht, et al., 490–491. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1960.
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  31. From Iberia's premier Islamicist, with a list of the Arab primary sources.
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  33. Linehan, Peter. History and Historians of Medieval Spain. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
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  35. History in the eyes of the beholders. An important historiographical study.
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  37. Makki, Mahmoud. “A Political History of al-Andalus (92/711-897/1492).” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 1, 2d ed. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 3–87. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  39. With a bibliography (pp. 85–87) of the chief primary sources in Arabic.
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  41. Marin, Manuela, ed. The Formation of al-Andalus.2 vols. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 1998.
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  43. Reprints of classical studies on the early centuries of the Muslim presence in Iberia.
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  45. Histories
  46.  
  47. There are now a number of histories of the Muslims in the Iberian peninsula, with or without the explicit inclusion of the Christian kingdoms of the north. The most detailed is O'Callaghan 1983, though the emphasis is heavily political and tilted toward the Christian north. There are others as well (Fletcher 1992, Kennedy 1996, and Reilly 1993) which, if they are briefer, are also often more interpretative.
  48.  
  49. Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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  51. An elegantly written and persuasively argued history.
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  53. Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal. A Political History of al-Andalus, London: Longman, 1996.
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  55. As announced, chiefly political in focus.
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  57. O'Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.
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  59. Broad and detailed history with considerable attention to the Christian kingdoms.
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  61. Reilly, Bernard F. The Medieval Spains. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
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  63. Ends in 1474 and pays more attention to the Roman and Visigothic prelude in Iberia.
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  65. The Era of Conquest
  66.  
  67. When Muslim troops crossed the straits from Morocco into Iberia in 711 AD, they represented the western extent of an expanding religious community that eventually stretched from Spain to the borders of China (Donner 1981). In the late 7th and early 8th centuries, Muslim armies defeated and absorbed the Berber peoples of North Africa (Brett 1978, Brett and Fentress 1997), and soon thereafter they crossed over from Tangier into Spain. In 673 AD, the Visigoth king of Spain had already warded off a large flotilla of Arab ships that approached the port of Algeciras. The accession of Roderic to the Visigoth kingship in 710 AD was fiercely contested, and the relatives of his predecessor may have summoned assistance from the newly arrived Arabs across the straits. Whether invited or not, Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Muslim amir of Tangier, crossed over with his troops to the Iberian peninsula in May of 711 AD, and on July 19 defeated Roderic and his forces at Lake Janda. The victorious Arab-Berber contingents pushed northward and continued to conquer lands under Visigoth rule (Collins 1989). Various sources present different versions of Tariq's crossing to the mountain that now famously bears his name: Gibralter (Jabal Tariq). They include a near-contemporary historical account, the Chronicle of 754 (Wolf 1999), some later Arab accounts (see Constable 1997, Safran 2000), bits and pieces of archaeological evidence, excavated sites, coins, administrative documents, and treaties (Constable 1997).
  68.  
  69. Brett, Michael. “The Arab Conquest and the Rise of Islam in North Africa.” In The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 2. Edited by J. D. Fage, 490–555. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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  71. What happened in North Africa before there was an Andalus.
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  73. Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth Fentress. The Berbers. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
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  75. A history of a people with a profound influence on Muslim Spain.
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  77. Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain 710–797. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
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  79. With a “Bibliographical Essay” (pp. 231–234).
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  81. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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  83. Excerpted translations of conquests and conditions of surrender.
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  85. Donner, Fred McGraw. The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.
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  87. Donner concentrates on the earliest stages and thus Syria and Iraq, but see pp. 267–271: “The Causes of the Islamic Conquest.”
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  89. Ibn Abd-el-Hakem. “The Islamic Conquest of Spain.” Medieval Sourcebook.
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  91. The full translated text of the earliest Arab source, the history of Ibn Abd al-Hakam, written circa 850 AD.
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  93. Safran, Janina M. The Second Umayyad Caliphate. The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in al-Andalus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
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  95. A study of the “uses” of history by the later Muslim rulers of al-Andalus who had commissioned it.
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  97. Sanchez Albornoz, Claudio. “Some Remarks on Fath al-Andalus. ” In The Formation of al-Andalus, Vol. 6. Edited by Manuela Marin, 151–172. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 1998.
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  99. One of Spain's “traditional” historians weighs in on the conquest.
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  101. Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, 2d ed. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1999.
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  103. A valuable collection of sources on the Muslim conquest.
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  105. Consolidating the Territory of al-Andalus
  106.  
  107. Armed resistance was dealt with harshly; cooperation often guaranteed personal safety and free practice of Christianity (Constable 1997). Once most fortresses had yielded, the Muslims won the rest of Iberia through negotiated settlements. In either 718 AD or 722 AD, at Covadonga in Asturias, Pelayo (Latin: Pelagius), a local prince, defeated an invading army of Arabs and Berbers and was able to establish a small independent Christian enclave. It is the first reversal suffered by the Muslims in Spain, and a great deal has been made of it in Spanish history (Collins 1989), beginning with a 9th century Christian Chronicle (Wolf 1999). The momentum of the conquest lasted twenty years. Arab-Berber excursions extended as far as Poitiers, where in 732 AD they were halted by the Franks of Charles Martel. The thinly stretched Muslim armies eventually retreated behind the Pyrenees and from Asturias in the northwest corner of Hispania. The chief spoil of Spain was land, which the conquerors parceled out among themselves. The Arab leaders secured better land than their Berber counterparts, which added to the existing tension over the distribution of power between Arab and Berber elite (Collins 1989).
  108.  
  109. Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain 710–797. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
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  111. The best single treatment in English of the conquest and its immediate sequel, with attention to the Christian resistance.
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  113. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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  115. The sources in translation.
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  117. Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, 2d ed. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1999.
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  119. Early Christian chronicles in translation.
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  121. Administration
  122.  
  123. There were effectively two administrative systems, one for the Muslim newcomers, Arabs and Berbers, and another for the submitted dhimmi communities of Christians and Jews. As for the Muslim masters of al-Andalus, their initial role was to make war, to collect taxes from the subject population, and to enjoy the wealth of the agricultural lands distributed among them (Collins 1995). The Muslims settled in the key fortresses of the country, around which developed provincial districts called quras: these comprised a chief town, a governor, and a garrison to secure it. The whole was under the nominal control of an amir, an official appointed by the governor of Ifriqiyya (Tunis). Both were under the universal sovereignty of the Muslim caliph in Damascus, though the distance between Damascus and Cordoba made the relationship more often symbolic than effective.
  124.  
  125. Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity 400–1000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
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  127. A history of Iberia from the Visigoths to the end of the Umayyad Caliphate.
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  129. Glick, Thomas. From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle: Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
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  131. Consult especially pp. 13–37 for “The Countryside of al-Andalus: A New Model of Settlement”; Lévi Provençal, et al. “Al-Andalus” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1, pp. 490–491. See particularly “The Population of al-Andalus.”
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  133. Marin, Manuela, ed. The Formation of al-Andalus. 2 vols. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 1998.
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  135. Most of the articles translated and republished in volume 1 are devoted to issues surrounding the Muslim settlement in al-Andalus. See in particular the articles by Cruz Hernandez, Manzano Moreno, and Viguera Molins.
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  137. Christian and Jewish Responses
  138.  
  139. The Muslim rulers did not seriously attempt to convert the conquered population. Islamic law tolerated and protected Christians and Jews as “People of the Book,” provided they paid a special poll tax (jizya) in addition to the usual land tax, although conversions to Islam did occur. Motives included social pressure, ambition, the opening of social and political opportunities and economic advantages. Although many either converted or migrated to the northern Christian principalities, a substantial number of Christians remained. The Arabized Christians who lived under the Muslim rule were called Mozarabs. Cases of violent Christian refusal to convert or coexist with the Muslim conquerors were rare, but in the 850s some desperate Christians were executed in Cordoba. These self-sought martyrdoms were recorded in Eulogius's Memoriale Sanctorum but were condemned by bishop Reccafred of Seville (Constable 1997). We know little of the earliest days of the Jewish communities living under Islamic sovereignty, except that they were governed by the dhimma. But from the reign of the Cordoban Umayyad Abd al-Rahman III (912–961 AD until the Almohads after 1140, the Jews of al-Andalus rose into high profile and an unparalleled status—unparalleled, certainly, under Christendom—in terms of prosperity, power, and literary culture).
  140.  
  141. Bulliet, Richard W. Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
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  143. An attempt to calculate the rate of conversion, relying upon the occurrence of Muslim surnames in family genealogies.
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  145. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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  147. Source text of the Christian martyrs of Cordoba.
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  149. Coope, Jessica A. The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
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  151. The archetypal but not very convincing gesture of Christian resistance.
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  153. Coope, Jessica A. “Religious and Cultural Conversion to Islam in Ninth-Century Umayyad Cordoba.” Journal of World History 4 (1993): 47–68.
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  155. An outstanding address to the difficult issues of Islamicization and Arabization in Spain.
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  157. de Epalza, Mikel. “Mozarabs: an Emblematic Christian Minority in al-Andalus.” In The Formation of al-Andalus, 2 vols. Edited by Manuela Marin, 183–204. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 1998.
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  159. A detailed survey by the chief modern authority.
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  161. Glick, Thomas F. From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle: Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
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  163. See pp. 51–63 for the architectural evidence.
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  165. Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. New York: Little Brown, 2002.
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  167. See pp. 66–78 on the famous complaint of Paul Alvarus.
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  169. Miller, H. D., and Hanna E. Kassis.“The Mozarabs.” In Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 417–434. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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  171. The cultural legacy, with bibliography.
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  173. Scheindlin, Raymond. “The Jews in Muslim Spain.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, 2d ed. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 188–200. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  175. A brief but effective survey of a subject on which many books have been written.
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  177. The Caliphate of Cordoba
  178.  
  179. Abd al-Rahman I (r. 756–788 AD) consolidated the political power of the Cordoban or Umayyad Caliphate, which lasted in practice until the death of Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo in 1008 but remained as a “legal” entity until 1031, when Cordoba proclaimed itself a free city. Three excellent surveys of this important era can be found in Collins under Administration, Kennedy under The Tʾifa Period, and Fletcher under The Tʾifa Period). Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya, a grandson of the caliph Hisham (r. 724–743 AD) who had escaped the slaughter of the Umayyad family in 750 AD and traveled to al-Andalus, seized control (see Fletcher under The Tʾifa Period). As amir, he began construction on the site of a Christian basilica the Grand Mosque of Cordoba (la Mezquita), which was completed by his son Hisham (r. 788–796 AD) and is the grandest monument of Muslim Spain (Grabar 1987, Dodds 1990). Abd al-Rahman II (822–852 AD) bureaucratized the ministries (diwans) of the royal court on the Abbasid and/or Byzantine model (Wasserstein 1993). His successor, Abd al-Rahman III (912–961 AD), marked the apogee of Cordoba's prosperity. He declared himself caliph, the authentic successor of Muhammad to counter the claim of the Shi'ite Fatimids, who he was fighting in North Africa. Abd al-Rahman III's son al-Hakam II (961–976 AD) extended the Mezquita, but after his death the powerful vizier al-Mansur (977–1002) ruled for the boy caliph Hisham II. He sponsored or led over fifty campaigns into Christian territory, including a raid in 997 AD deep into Christian territory in Gallicia to take and sack Santiago de Compostela. Mansur's sons lacked legitimacy, there were insurrections, and the regime collapsed into anarchy.
  180.  
  181. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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  183. On the campaigns and diplomacy of Abd al-Rahman III.
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  185. Dodds, Jerrilyn D. Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1990.
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  187. Conquest is more than winning; it is also appropriating.
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  189. Fierro, Maribal. Abd al-Rahman III. The First Cordoban Caliph. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
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  191. A history of Spain's first caliphate. See pp. 109–117: “Cordoba and Madinat al-Zahra.”
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  193. Glick, Thomas. Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages. Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation, 2d ed. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
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  195. The 1999 edition of this book on the mutation of Spanish society is also available online.
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  197. Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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  199. Islamic art's premier historian looks at the Mezquita, among many other things.
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  201. Levi-Provencal, Evariste. “Abd al-Rahman i, ii, iii.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1.Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, Evariste Lévi-Provençal, J. Schacht, et al., 81–82. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1960.
  202. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203. Comprehensive surveys from the master historian of Muslim Spain.
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  205. Ruggles, D. F. “The Great Mosque of Cordoba.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, 159–162. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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  207. The step-by-step construction by accretion.
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  209. Safran, Janina M. The Second Umayyad Caliphate. The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in al-Andalus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
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  211. Details how the new caliphs of al-Andalus cemented their legitimacy through court protocol and the shaping of the early history of al-Andalus.
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  213. Wasserstein, David. The Caliphate in the West. An Islamic Political Institution in the Iberian Peninsula. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
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  215. With an emphasis on institutional history.
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  217. Economy
  218.  
  219. Under Muslim rule, al-Andalus experienced a great economic revival. Population increased; agriculture, through an introduction of new crops and techniques, flourished; the countryside was revitalized (Glick 1995). Mediterranean trade was revived and served as an important cultural, religious, and economic link between the East and the West. Increased travel—the hajj or ritual pilgrimage obliged Muslims to voyage to Mecca—facilitated intellectual and cultural exchanges. Artisanry grew and diversified on an unprecedented scale in the Andalusian cities, while the Great Mosque of Cordoba exemplifies the period's architectural achievements.
  220.  
  221. Glick, Thomas F. From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle: Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995.
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  223. How a new Muslim physical and economic culture emerged.
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  225. Literature and the Arts
  226.  
  227. In the 8th and early 9th century, Andalusia communities still defined themselves by and through their religion, and their intellectual traditions evolved around a mosque, a monastery, and a church, or a synagogue. Among the Muslims that foundation evolved into the Sharia-centered culture of the ʾulama (Urvoy 2000, Fierro 2005). With the political, social, and religious framework of an Islamic community firmly established, the court of the ruler of al-Andalus became the focus of an important tradition of literature and art (Menocal, et al. 2000, Dodds 1992, Hillenbrand 2000), not for the Mozarab Christians whose chief concern was preserving their faith, but certainly for the equally Arabized Jews of Muslim Spain. The poet Dunash ben Labrat was the pioneer of the Jewish cultural renaissance in al-Andalus. Hasday ibn Shaprut, the caliph's own physician, was also the head (nasi) of the Jewish community in Cordoba. Hasday and many other Jews immersed themselves in the adab of Arab-Muslim culture—i.e., its belles lettres and poetry (Brann 1991, Cole 2007).
  228.  
  229. Ashtor, Eliyahu. “Hasdai ibn Shaprut.” In The Jews of Moslem Spain, vol. 1. By Eliyahu Ashtor, 135–227. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992.
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  231. On the pioneer.
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  233. Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
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  235. On the beginnings of the literary tradition among the Jews of Spain.
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  237. Cole, Peter. The Dream of the Poem. Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950–1492. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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  239. An acclaimed translation of this poetry.
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  241. Dodds, Jerrilyn, ed. Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.
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  243. A richly illustrated stroll with a master through a rich collection.
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  245. Fierro, Maribal. Abd al-Rahman III. The First Cordoban Caliph. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
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  247. Underneath the glitter is the sturdy, often severe, Islamic framework.
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  249. Hillenbrand, Robert. “Medieval Cordoba as Cultural Center.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, 2d ed. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 112–135. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  251. A survey of the arts under the caliphate.
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  253. Menocal, Maria Rosa, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, eds. The Literature of al-Andalus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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  255. With its essays by authors and literary types, this is the best guide to the literary culture of the era. Special attention is called to the essays by Brann, Lopez-Morillas, Miller, and Kassis.
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  257. Urvoy, Dominique. “The ʾUlama of al-Andalus.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 2. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 849–877. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  259. How the religious elite of Muslim Spain operated.
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  261. The Tʾifa Period
  262.  
  263. Fitna (civil war) broke out in Spain between 1008 and 1031, beginning with the death of the vizier Abd al-Malik. Both he and his father brought over Berbers from North Africa to conduct campaigns in the north. But uncertainty about the succession in Cordoba and the intervention or connivance of northern Christian powers such as Castile led to civil war. During the years 1008 to 1010 the Berber troops could no longer be controlled—they destroyed Madinat al-Zahra and sacked Cordoba. From the ruins of the caliphate arose a series of local princedoms, the city-cum-hinterland domains of the muluk al-tawâʾif (party kings) (Wasserstein 1985). Between 1010 and 1040, there were three dozen of such independent city-states run by settled Berbers, local notables, and ambitious civil servants—many of them former slaves. Between 1040 and 1959 they were reduced to six: Seville was the most powerful of the lot, a status due at least in part to its location in the fertile valley of the Quadalquivir, with its sugar cane and olive cultivation, and its access to the Atlantic. Granada, Badajoz, Toledo, Valencia, and Zaragoza (Robinson 2000) were the others (surveyed in Fletcher 1992 and Kennedy 1996).
  264.  
  265. Fletcher, Richard. The Quest for El Cid. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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  267. On the end of Cordoba and the emergence of their successors.
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  269. Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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  271. A survey of this highly complex era, why it happened and where it led.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus. London: Longman, 1996.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. Another excellent survey of the era, with an emphasis on politics.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Robinson, Cynthia. “The Aljaferia in Saragosa and the Taifa Spaces.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 233–234. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. Saragosa's most important building and what it tells us about the Party Kings.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Wasserstein, David. The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. The standard treatment of the era.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Political and Religious Responses
  286.  
  287. By the 11th century, the northern Christian princedoms that had survived the Muslim invasion in Galicia and Castile had grown more aggressive and ambitious (Fletcher 1989). Northern militias, which were now close to standing armies (Powers 1988), and Christian settlers extended ever farther southward toward the Muslim domains, which were thinly populated except in the southern river valleys (Fletcher 1989). Alfonso VI's conquest of Toledo (1085), the political and religious capital of Visigoth Spain, was the most important (Reilly 1992).In most cases religion had little or nothing to do with the ebb and flow of political power among the states of the peninsula, but Pope Urban II's preaching of the Crusade in 1095 coincided with the increased popularity of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and its cult of St. James (Constable 1997, Fletcher 1984). The cult was increasingly politicized, and St. James, known as the “Moor-slayer” (matamoros) became the patron saint of a number of Christian Spanish kingdoms (Constable 1997, Stokstadt 1978).
  288.  
  289. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
  290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. Excerpts from a pilgrims' guide.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Fletcher, Richard. Saint James' Catapault: The Life and Times of Diego Gelmirez of Santiago de Compostela. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. The making of Spain's most important shrine center.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Fletcher, Richard. The Quest for El Cid. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. Supplies a richly nuanced background to the entire Taʾifa era.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Powers, James F. A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal Militias in the Central Middle Ages, 1000–1284. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
  302. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. An illuminating account of how the Christian states mounted and waged their wars.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Reilly, Bernard F. The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. The rise of Castile, with a bibliography of primary sources, pp. 262–264.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Stokstadt, Marilyn. Santiago de Compostela in the Age of the Great Pilgrimages. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
  310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. Compostela and its shrine in 12th century political, social, cultural, and economic life.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Intellectual and Artistic Life
  314.  
  315. Despite political upheavals, the economic and intellectual life of al-Andalus during the taʾifa and the following eras of Berber upheavals was prosperous and vital. The Christian soldier, diplomat, and courtier Rodrigo Diaz, better known as El Cid (al-Sayyid), who fought for Christian and Muslim patrons alike, became prince of Valencia and the subject of Spain's first epic (Fletcher 1989). Samuel ibn Naghrila, or Shmuel ha-Nagid, rose to become the head (nagid) of Spain's Jews and prime minister of the taʾifa kingdom of Granada as well as a “scholar of religious law, biblical exegete and grammarian, patron of the arts and poet” (HaNagid 1996, Cole 2007). The muluk al-tawâʾif, some of whom were themselves literary men—Muʾtamid (r. 1068–1092) at Seville and Abdallah, the ruler (1073–1090) at Granada (Cole 2007)—were enthusiastic patrons of and participants in the arts and letters. And unlike the Almoravids who followed them, their tolerance allowed for a brilliant interaction between the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities that lead to a widespread cultural revival. Among key literary figures, Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064) was an accomplished poet (Ibn Hazm 1994) and sharp-elbowed polemicist on the battlefield of comparative religion, if not a successful statesman. The Jewish intellectual revival was led by Abraham bar Hayya, who based his astronomical and mathematical works on Islamic science, and the poet-philosopher Solomon Ibn Gabirol (d. 1070) (Cole 2007, PEN American Center). One of the most famous Spaniards of the era, Maimonides or Musa ibn Maymun, was born in Cordoba in 1135, but the family left the city soon after the Almohad takeover in 1148 and Maimonides' (d. 1204) intellectual formation took place in North Africa and his productive career there and in Egypt.
  316.  
  317. Cole, Peter. The Dream of the Poem. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. Pages 74–110 present a generous selection of Ibn Gabirol's poetry in translation.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. See pp. 91–102: “Three Views of Samuel and Joseph ibn Naghrela.”
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Fletcher, Richard. The Quest for El Cid. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Far and away the best treatment of this legendary Christian hero who also served Muslim masters.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Hamilton, Rita, and Janet Perry, trans. The Poem of the Cid: Dual Language Edition, Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1985.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. The Spanish text and English translation.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. HaNagid, Shmuel. Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid. Translated by Peter Cole. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
  334. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. The poetry of “a second David” in translation.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Ibn Hazm. The Ring of the Dove. An Arabic Treatise on the Art and Practice of Love. Translated by Arthur John Arberry. London: Luzac Oriental, 1994.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. A translation of Ibn Hazm's most considerable literary achievement. Originally published in 1953.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Ibd Daud, Abraham. “On Samuel Ha-Nagid, Vizier of Granada, 993–d after 1056.” Medieval Sourcebook.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. A biographical sketch of the poet, scholar, and statesman written by Abraham ibn Dawud in 1161, about a century after Ibn Naghrila.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. PEN American Center. “Shelomo Ibn Gabirol (1021/22–c. 1057/58).”
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. For an interesting appreciation.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Poetry
  350.  
  351. Poets began to draw upon local spoken vernaculars to invent new literary languages (Jayyusi 2000, Monroe 2000). The new poetry that began to be recited and sung in these places stands at the origins of a long-lived European literary tradition of the lyric (Menocal 1994). Another contemporary form that found favor in Muslim Spain among both Arabic and Hebrew authors was the maqama: short, somewhat disconnected narratives centered around the entertaining adventures of a hero (Drory 2000).
  352.  
  353. Drory, Rina. “The Maqama.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 190–210. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  354. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. An Eastern literary form comes west. Contains useful bibliography.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Greundler, Beatrice. “The Qasida.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 211–232. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. The shapes, classical and vernacular, of the poetical flowering of al-Andalus are traced in the classical qasida. With full bibliography.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Jayyusi, Salma Khadra. “Andalusi Poetry: The Golden Period.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 317–366. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. A broad survey of the poetical accomplishment of al-Andalus.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Menocal, Maria Rosa. Shards of Love. Exile and the Origins of the Lyric, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. A classic and engaging presentation of the “origins” thesis.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Monroe, James T. “Zajal and Muwashshah: Hispano-Arabic Poetry and the Romance Tradition.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 398–419. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. The introduction of the vernacular tongues into classical forms.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Rosen, Tova. “The Muwashshah.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 165–189. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. Traces the innovative vernacular hybrid muwashshah. With full bibliography.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Prose
  378.  
  379. The Andalusian courts were sites not only of the evolution or revival of traditional Arabic poetry but of prose writing as well, especially the adab genre (a combination of biography and history), philosophy, and sciences. Muslim scholars, furthermore, added ancient Persian astronomy and Hindu Indian mathematics and astronomy to their heritage of Greek sciences and medicine (see Fierro and Samsó 1998). Philosophy and science thus comprised a common tradition that was shared by the three religions and in al-Andalus provided ample opportunities for collaboration.
  380.  
  381. Fierro, Maribel, and Julio Samsó. eds. The Formation of Al-Andalus, Part Two: Language, Religion, Culture, and the Sciences. Aldershot, UK: Variorum 1998, 329–430.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Devoted to a series of essays on the development of Indian and particularly Greek-based astronomy, mathematics, and medicine in Muslim Spain.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. The Almoravids
  386.  
  387. In order to protect their lands from Christian encroachment, the taʾifa kings appealed to the powerful North African Berber dynasty, the Almoravids (Fletcher 1989, Kennedy 1996). The intervention of the Almoravids halted the southern thrust of the Christian kings of Castile and Aragon only temporarily. Their inability to effectively defend the area contributed to making the Almoravid regime unpopular, as did the rigidity of their Sharia observance based on the Maliki law school. The Almoravid practice of the Maliki doctrine was inimical to the evolving religious sensibilities of most Muslims, who were turning toward Sufism and other affective practices (Chalmeta 1993).
  388.  
  389. Chalmeta, Pedro. “al-Murabitun.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 7. Edited by E. J. van Donzel, 583–591. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1993.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. A detailed survey, with a full bibliography of the Arab sources.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Fletcher, Richard. The Quest for El Cid. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. Their career in al-Andalus, and in the life of al-Cid, described, pp. 144–165, with bibliography, pp. 212–213.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Kennedy, Hugh,Kennedy, Hugh. “The Almoravid Empire.” In Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus. London: Longman, 1996.
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. A broader view of the ribat phenomenon.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. The Almohads
  402.  
  403. The Almoravids were eventually replaced by the Almohads, who conquered Seville in 1147 and ruled al-Andalus by 1160. The Almohads were another Berber dynasty founded in 1120s in North Africa by the holy man Ibn Tumart (Constable 1997, Shatzmiller 1993), who declared himself the Mahdi—a divinely inspired guide sent to reform Islamic faith and lead the believers to salvation (Hopkins 1971). Ibn Tumart's (d. 1130) main emphasis was on the oneness of God, tawhid (Constable 1997), hence the name of his followers: al-Muwahhidun (those who emphasize divine unity). To preserve that unity they tended to allegorize or rationalize many expressions in the Qurʾan, and they were critical of Spain's traditionalist Maliki jurists' more literal interpretation of the Qurʾan. Although the heart of their empire remained in the Maghrib (Le Tourneau 1969, Fletcher 2000), the Almohads became in al-Andalus one more party to Iberia's complicated power struggles. Effective Almohad power in al-Andalus lasted less than a century. In 1195 they dealt what should have been a decisive blow to Castile. They followed it up by pressing deep into Castile, but once again troubles in Morocco forced them to withdraw, granting the Christians a long truce. When it expired in 1210, a coalition of Christian powers formed under the leadership of Alfonso, and the two sides finally engaged at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The Almohad forces were annihilated. In 1228 they departed Andalus.
  404.  
  405. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Translated sources on the Almohads and their times.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Abdo-'l-Wáhid al-Marrékoshí. The History of the Almohades, Preceded by a Sketch of the History of Spain from the Times of the Conquest till the Reign of Yúsof ibn-Téshufín, and of the history of the Almoravides. Edited by Reinhart Dozy. Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1968.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. A translation of the basic source by the doyen of 19th-century historians of Muslim Spain. A reprint of the 2d edition, published by E. J. Brill in 1881.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Fletcher, Madeleine. “The Almohad Tawhid: Theology which Relies on Logic.” Numen 38 (1991): 110–127
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. Attempts to explain how Fundamentalism and Aristotle became bedmates.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Fletcher, Madeleine. “Al-Andalus and North Africa in Almohad Ideology.” In Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Manuela Martin, 235–238. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. Geography as ideology.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Hopkins, J. P. F. “Ibn Tumart.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 3. Edited by B. Lewis, V.L. Ménage, Ch. Pellat, J. Schacht, et al., 958–960. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1971.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. A brief but useful resource on the founder of the movement.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Kennedy, Hugh.”The Early Almohad Caliphate.” In Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus. By Hugh Kennedy. London: Longman, 1998.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. The rise of a political and ideologically complex movement.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Le Tourneau, Roger. The Almohad Movement in North Africa in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. A standard study of the movement in its ideological heartland.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Shatzmiller, Maya. “al-Muwahhidun.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 7. Edited by E. J. van Donzel, 801–807. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1993.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. The best available survey, with a full bibliography of the Arab sources.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Arts and Sciences under the Almohads
  438.  
  439. Ibn Tufayl (c. 1110–1189) and Ibn Rushd (1126–1198) were the Almohads' two chief “house philosophers,” both of them patronized and supported by the court. Their entrée into those circles was in each case medicine, but Muslim (as well as Christian and Jewish) physicians trained in the Greek medical tradition almost invariably had an interest in philosophy (falsafa) as well. Ibn Tufayl was an imaginative and creative allegorist and esotericist, believing in a deeper level of truth that lies beneath texts. His famous work, Hayy ibn Yaqzan (The Living One, Son of the Watchful One), is simply a statement of that conviction in an engaging novelistic form (Buergel 2000, Goodman 1996). Ibn Rushd was an academic scholar, best known for his authoritative commentaries on Aristotle (al-ʾAlawi 2000, Urvoy 1996). He belonged to the long tradition of philosophy as public discourse and came from a distinguished family of Islamic lawyers and judges (qadis) in Cordoba. He served as qadi in both Seville and Cordoba and as chief physician to the caliph. In addition to writing on law and medicine, he composed a defense of philosophy against the Baghdad theologian Ghazali (d. 1111) and two theological works attempting to show the concord between faith (properly understood) and reason, a position the Almohads had officially embraced (Taylor 2005).
  440.  
  441. al-ʾAlawi, Jamal al-Din. “The Philosophy of Ibn Rushd.” In Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Manuela Martin, 804–829. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. A survey of Ibn Rushd's thinking on philosophy in a Spanish context.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Averroes. Averroes' Tahafut al-tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). Translated by Simon van den Bergh. London: Gibb Memorial Fund, 1954.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. A translation of Ibn Rushd's rebuttal of Ghazali's attempt at a takedown.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Averroes. Averroes on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy. Translated by George Hourani. London: Gibb Memorial Fund, 1961.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. On having your cake and eating it, Almohad style.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Buergel, J. C. “Ibn Tufayl and his Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Turning Point in Arabic Philosophical Writing.” In Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Manuela Martin, 830–848. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. On the substitution of the allegorical for the literal.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Goodman, Lenn Evan. “Ibn Tufayl.” In History of Islamic Philosophy, vol. 1, part 2. Edited by Sayyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 313–329. London: Routledge, 1996.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. Locates Ibn Tufayl in the course of Islamic falsafa.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Taylor, Richard C. “Averroes: Religious Dialectic and Aristotelian Philosophical Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Edited by Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 180–200, 433–434. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. The attempted reconciliation of two epistemologies.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Urvoy, Dominique. “Ibn Rushd.” In History of Islamic Philosophy, vol. 1, part 2. Edited by Sayyed Hossein Nasir and Oliver Leaman, 330–345. New York: Routledge, 1996.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. A survey by a leading scholar of the intellectual life of al-Andalus.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. The Final Phase of Al-Andalus
  470.  
  471. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Christian princes seized on Almohad weakness in the Maghreb to advance the Reconquista (Bishko 1975, O'Callaghan 2004). One after another the principal Muslim centers were overcome. Valencia fell to Jaime I of Aragon in 1238 (Constable 1997), and Seville was conquered by Fernando III of Castile in 1248 (Constable 1997), giving the kingdom of Castile access to the Atlantic via the Guadalquivir. By 1266 only the Muslim princedom of Granada survived in Spain. By the mid-13th century, Muslim Iberia was confined to Granada and to a few of the Atlantic coastal towns. With the Christian push southward, many Muslims migrated to Muslim Granada or North Africa (al-Azmeh 2000, Tolan 2002). In the absence of the Almohads, a man named Ibn al-Ahmar gained the allegiance of a number of cities. In 1246 he yielded the strategic city of Jaen to the Christians and accepted vassalship to Fernando III of Castile in exchange for a twenty-year truce. Secure in this alliance, he then withdrew to Granada and made it his capital. Meanwhile, distractions prevented Castile and Aragon from acting upon a treaty arrangement in 1309–1310 that agreed on the conquest of Granada (Constable 1997, Harvey 1992, Kennedy 1996).
  472.  
  473. al-Azmeh, Aziz. “Mortal Enemies, Invisible Neighbours: Northerners in Andalusi Eyes.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 259–272. Leiden, the Netherlands, and New York: Brill, 2000.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. For an opposite take, see Tolan 2002.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Bishko, Charles. “The Spanish and Portuguese Reconquest, 1093–1492.” In A History of the Crusades, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Edited by Harry W. Hazard and Kenneth Setton, 396–436. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. For an overall view of the Reconquista in the larger context of the Crusades.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Excerpted sources on the end of al-Andalus.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Harvey, L. P. Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. The end game from one of the chief historians of the era.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus. London: Longman, 1996.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. On the last stage in the history of Muslim al-Andalus.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. O'Callaghan, Joseph F. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. Contains an enlightening chapter on how the northern kingdoms financed the enterprise of the Reconquista, and pp. 177–208 trace the public relations side of the enterprise.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Tolan, John V. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. How the Christians thought of their Muslim neighbors.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. The Alhambra
  502.  
  503. During the temporary respite that marked the half century of the reigns of the Nasrids Yusuf I (1333–1353) and Muhammad V (1353–1391), an anonymous architect converted the ineffective citadel fortress of Granada into a marvelously condensed complex of courts, reception halls, living quarters, and baths long known as “The Red Fortress” (Qala'at al-Hamra) or the Alhambra (Grabar 1978). The Alhambra and the Generelife, its exquisite adjoining garden-belvedere across the ravine, are testimonials to Andalusian refinement (Jacobs and Fernandez 2000, Irwin 2004).
  504.  
  505. Grabar, Oleg. The Alhambra. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.
  506. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. A more technical appreciation by the premier Islamic art historian.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Gross, Barry, and Michael Gross. “The Alhambra: A Virtual Walking Tour.” Saudi Aramco World 57, no. 4 (July/August 2006).
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. A splendid virtual walking tour of the Alhambra.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Irwin, Robert. The Alhambra. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. A marvelously evocative tour of the premises.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Jacobs, Michael, and Francisco Fernandez. Alhambra. New York: Rizzoli International, 2000.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. Breathtakingly illustrated.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Ibn Khaldun
  522.  
  523. The brightest light of Nasrid Granada was a Tunisian, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). He was the descendent of an old Seville family displaced to Tunisia by the Christian Reconquista. The diplomat historian worked in Tunis and Fez before settling in Granada in the early 1360s. His star rose with a successful mission on behalf of the Nasrids to Christian Seville in 1364 (Cruz Hernandez 2000), but there was another star in that Granadan firmament, Ibn al-Khatib (Knysh 2000), the primo letterato asoluto, whose opposition drove Ibn Khaldun back to North Africa, where he composed his masterpiece, the Preface to History in the mid-1370s (Rosenthal 1958), a work that owed a great deal to his Andalusi experience. He was later drawn to Cairo, where he died a literary, diplomatic, and judicial celebrity in 1406.
  524.  
  525. Cruz Hernandez, Miguel. “Islamic Thought in the Iberian Peninsula.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Vol. 2. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 777–803. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. Ibn Rushd in the broader context of Andalusi falsafa.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Ibn Khaldûn. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. 3 vols. New York: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. Ibn Khaldun's massive contribution to world literature.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Knysh, Alexander. “Ibn al-Khatib.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 358–372. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. The polymath of the Nasrid twilight.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. The Fall of Granada
  538.  
  539. The period 1350–1405 marked the last peaceful interlude between Castile and Granada. Following a brief conflict (1405–1410), the two powers resumed an “uneasy peace.” The early 15th century saw the fall of the tribal Marinids of Morocco, upon whose political support Granada depended. Then in 1415a Portuguese victory at Ceuta placed the Straits of Gibraltar into Christian hands. During the first half of the fifteenth century the Nasrids of Granada also faced some serious internal problems: weakening economy, tribal friction, and vast taxation. Still Granada withstood disunified Christian attacks, but tensions mounted in the south as the Castilian forces devastated the Muslim countryside with the double intent of destroying Granada's food supply and lowering the morale of the inhabitants. Alleged Granadan raids and escalating Castilian reprisals escalated matters in the winter of 1481–1482. In 1483 the Castilians captured the son of the amir of Granada, Boabdil (Abu Abdullah), who had rebelled against his father and was propped up in Granada as Muhammad XII. Town after town fell to the Castilians, and in 1491 Ferdinand besieged Granada for nine months. Finally, on 1 January 1492 the outmanned and underequipped Granadans surrendered to Aragon's Ferdinand and Leon and Castile's Isabel whose 1469 marriage had united their kingdoms (Constable 1997). The terms of the surrender, which had been arranged in November, granted the captured Muslims the right to practice their religion, customs and law, on terms similar to conditions of the Mudejars living in the Christian North (Constable 1997). However, many Muslims decided to emigrate to Morocco. Boabdil was granted a puppet fiefdom in Las Alpujarras but returned to North Africa after only a few months.
  540.  
  541. Constable, Olivia Remie, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. With texts on the capitulation of Granada and its terms.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Edwards, John. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. On the war for Granada from the Christian perspective.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. On the Nasrids' relationship with their Christian neighbors and their occasional North Afriican patrons.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Harvey, L. P. Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. Traces the history of the Nasrids down to the eve of the conquest of Granada, and then (pp. 307–323) the conquest of Granada.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus. London: Longman, 1998.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. On the rise and fall of Nasrid Granada.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. The Mudejars
  562.  
  563. Christians had lived under Muslim sovereignty from the beginning of the Muslim conquest. They were called, dismissively, “Mozarabs” or “Wannabe Arabs” and they were governed as dhimmis under the eternal terms of the Sharia, or canon law of Islam (de Epalza 2000). The dhimma pact protected the right of the subjected parties to continue in their Jewish or Christian versions of monotheism, but it also bound them to a diminished civil and social status in Muslim society. When the Christians began to push back against al-Andalus in the twelfth century, Muslims across Spain started falling under Christian sovereignty. The princes of Castile and Aragon regarded their Muslim subjects, Mudejars (or Covenanted), as economic assets and legislated their protection—legislation that could, unlike the Sharia be altered—but the other party to the proceedings, the Church, viewed them simply as infidels and attempted, by a variety of means (and generally unsuccessfully) to convert them (Harvey 2000a). At the fall of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, many Muslims fled to North Africa, but many remained and found themselves under the sovereignty of Castile (Harvey 1992, Harvey 2000a). At first they were granted that same protected Mudejar status, but in 1499 Jiménez de Cisneros, Catholic primate of Christian Spain, prevailed upon Ferdinand and Isabella to pursue a more aggressive policy toward the Mudejars. Mosques were converted into churches, and there were mass baptisms. Pressures began to mount of the Mudejar communities after 1500, and in some instances at least, most notably in 1500–1501, the Muslims responded by taking up arms.
  564.  
  565. de Epalza, Mikel. “Mozarabs: An Emblematic Christian Minority in al-Andalus.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 149–170. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. The Muslims' Christians from beginning to end.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Harvey, L. P. Islamic Spain 1250 to 1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. The rising Christian tide creates its own problems of regulation and/or assimilation.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Harvey, L. P. “The Mudejars.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 176–187. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000a.
  574. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Similar to de Epalza 2000 on the Christians' Muslims.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Harvey, L. P. “The Political, Social, and Cultural History of the Moriscos.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 201–234. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000b.
  578. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. The final Moors and their attempts to cling to their religious and cultural identities.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. The Moriscos
  582.  
  583. Earlier, when Andalusian Muslims were threatened by their Christian neighbors, they had turned to North Africa for help. Now those Christians were not neighbors but sovereigns and, at the same time, there was no power in the Maghrib that was capable of assisting them. They turned instead to the Mamluks of Egypt, and later, to the new imperial power in Mediterranean Islam, the Ottoman Empire. In both cases, the thought was that these Muslim powers might threaten reciprocal action on the Christians of Muslim Palestine if pressure continued to be brought to bear on the Muslims of Christian Spain. The Mamluks did not survive enough to act on that suggestion and the Ottomans declined to (Harvey 2000). The dissolution of mudejar status, which was begun in 1502 by Castile in Granada, ground inexorably on. In 1515 Navarre was annexed by Castile and so came under the latter's laws, which no longer recognized mudejar status. In Valencia, and in the Kingdom of Aragon generally (Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia), the end was hastened by social revolutionaries (members of las germanías, “the brotherhoods”) who attacked the mudejar villages and baptized the inhabitants en masse (Harvey 2000). Eventually, in 1525–1526, the issue was apparently closed: all mudjars in the Crown of Aragon had to convert or leave. It was the end of the Muslims in newly Christian Spain, but it was not the end of the Muslim issue for the (now Christian) Spaniards. Having forced the Muslims (and the Jews) to convert, the Christians had well-founded doubts about the sincerity of the new converts, whom they called Moriscos or “Little Moors” (Harvey 2000, Lopez-Baralt 2000). The solution was the Inquisition, a Church tribunal empowered to discover, hear and adjudicate instances of cryptoinfidelity among the converted Muslims (Kamen 1997) and converted Jews, the Conversos or Marranos.
  584.  
  585. Harvey, L. P. “The Political, Social, and Cultural History of the Moriscos.” In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 201–234. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
  586. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. The premier historian of the Moriscos also provides a useful bibliography.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Lopez-Baralt, Luce. “The Moriscos.” In The Literature of al-Andalus. Edited by María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Anthony Sells, 472–490. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. Their literary legacy, with bibliography.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997.
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. See especially pp. 214–227: “The End of Morisco Spain.”
  596. Find this resource:
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