Summary

Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأندلس, Berber: ⵍⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, 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 Muslim rule 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 ended 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. After the first Taifa period, al-Andalus became the Iberian part of basically Maghrebian empires with the Almoravid rule (1085-1145) the second Taifa period (1140-1203) and the Almohad rule (1147-1238). This situation ends with the third period of Taifa (1232-1287) and the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238-1492), vassal of the Kingdom of Castile.

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 period 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 slow but profound decadence 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.

Sources on the conquest of al Andalus

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 of Beja. The function of this account was to generate a will to resist among the populations living in the valleys of Asturias. The contemporary analysis of this document imposes to separate the hagiography from the events that actually took place. The central object of the story is the battle of Covadonga. Its uncertain date is known only from the monks' writings, the term "battle" and the location were brought in at the time of Alfonso III.

Conquest of Hispania and Septimania

Before the first Muslim conquests in 711, the territory of the Iberian Peninsula was the southern part of the Visigothic kingdom. The territory was nevertheless divided between the Suevi, Asturias, Cantabrians and Basques in the north, and the southern coasts that remained Roman (exarchate of Carthage of the Roman exarchate of Africa) in the south.

In 710, the internal situation of the Visigothic kingdom was confused: Rodericus of Betica was elected king by the majority of the nobility, and another camp was formed to support Aguila II of Tarragona, who ruled the north of the peninsula, Catalonia and Septimania. The internal divisions turn punctually to the open conflict.

In 711, the Arab general Moussa Ibn Noçaïr sent a contingent of about 12,000 soldiers, including a large majority of Berbers, commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad, governor of Tangier, and took advantage of the Visigothic division to land in the south of the peninsula. They disembarked on the rock to which their leader would have left his name (Jebel 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. Ibn al-Qūṭiyya stresses 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. Nevertheless, the Muslims were unable to conquer the entire peninsula: they were unable to penetrate the Basque kingdoms and made only brief forays into the Cantabrian mountain regions.

The feeling of belonging to an al-Andalus nation appeared through a collective awareness. In 716, on a coin, the term "al-Andalus" appears for the first time, designating Muslim Spain, as opposed to Hispania (Roman term) of the Christians. Al Andalus was then 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 to be 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.

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. The battle of Covadonga (722) marks the symbolic beginning of the Reconquista.

Emirate dependent on Damascus

The newcomers were relatively few in number, the initial contingent numbering between 7,000 and 12,000 men. The Muslim presence in the north of the central system is anecdotal. Moreover, in the eighth century, Nicene Christians perceived Islam as yet another heresy within Christianity, not as a separate religion. Until the Islamization brought about by Abd al-Rahman II (the bishops cooperated fully and maintained their economic privileges. Eulogius of Cordoba in the middle of the ninth century remained in this perspective.

The most common hypothesis is that a large part of the population appreciated the fall of the Visigothic power, and could explain in part the ease of installation of the conquerors. Conversions to Islam by the natives began rapidly among the nobles.

The conquerors 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.

As in the other territories of the Muslim empire, Christians (Nicene and Arian) 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 political situation of Cordoba in the hands of these war princes remained however very unstable. 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.

In 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and transferred the capital of the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad in 755. Abd al-Rahman I fled, landing in Torrox on August 14, 755 in Andalusia and finally conquering power after the battle of Almeda (es) on May 15, 756, he transformed this province of the Empire into an emirate independent of the new Abbasid masters. However, the Emirate recognized the religious authority of the Caliphate until 929.

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 presented by the Andalusian power as a result of provocations 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 period 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 of Mayrit was built as a defense line for Toledo, around which the city of Madrid developed.

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, provoked a new civil war, questioned the measures implemented and highlighted its weaknesses.

The establishment of this new order required 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. 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.

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, part 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 partly a 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 of Cordoba. At that time, the canon of the abbey of Gandersheim, Hrotsvita describes the city in these terms: "Shining jewels of the world, new and beautiful city, proud of its strength, celebrated for its delights, resplendent by the full possession of all its goods.

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, while he recovered the cities of Toledo and Merida, the Kingdom of Asturias and the County of Portugal increased their possessions in the south over 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.

The reopening of economic routes in the tenth century was particularly with North Africa, whereas they had disappeared during the seventh and eighth centuries. One of the first goods was slaves. "The tenth century was a time of generalized economic prosperity. It was a time of agrarian and commercial expansion, and craftsmanship was also very powerful. The Caliphate centralizes many resources through a very advanced tax system, and redistributes them. In this sense, it functions as a kind of engine of growth, a pole of demand that generates a large supply. The means are redistributed, creating a fountain effect that reaches lower and lower strata... With the taxes, it pays the army, the courtiers, the poets, who in turn spend it on servants, horses, ceramics... and so it reaches all layers of society".

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 Shiite infiltration, to have held power firmly 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 consider 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 the unceasing effort of Al Andalus 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 had a centralized administration, a powerful army and navy, and a relatively wealthy state and population due to the development of agriculture, irrigation, industry and trade. At that time, according to contemporary studies, the treasure accumulated by the Umayyads thanks to their fiscal system was 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.

The Caliphate was then "a political, economic and cultural giant but with many weaknesses.

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 destruction and burning of Madinat al-Zahira was followed by the burning of Madinat Alzahra in 1013, and the 20-year civil war caused the decadence of the Caliphate. In 1031, the Caliphate of Cordoba collapsed and was divided 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 Qur'an; it is an echo of the fitna of the Umayyad Caliphate of Baghdad which saw the overthrow of the Umayyads by the Abbasids

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.

First Taifa period (1031-1086)

The disintegration of the caliphate led to the creation of independent kingdoms, the taifas. The religious orthodoxy that the Caliph was supposed to uphold was loosened 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.

However, the Caliphate did not disappear altogether. The social organization was then replicated in the different capital cities of the Taifas, which dreamed of being "small Cordoba": Zaragoza, Seville, Valencia, Almeria, where the memory of the splendor of the Caliphate survives, and the result was very brilliant. 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.

If the taifas are part of the cultural continuity of the Caliphate, they no longer represent a danger to the Christian kingdoms of the North to which they sometimes ally themselves or pay tribute (the outcasts).

For Christine Mazzoli-Guintard, with the advance of the Christian armies to the south, "Al Andalus, drifting politically, begins to reject what is different" and asserts its religious orthodoxy, especially from 1064, when the first important city falls: 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.

The Almoravids (1090 - 1140)

The disintegration of the caliphate into multiple taifas made it clear that only a centralized and unified political power could resist the advance of the Christian kingdoms of the north. The conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI marked an existential threat to the Muslim kingdoms of the peninsula. Faced with this risk, the Taifa kings sought the help of the Almoravid sultan of North Africa, Yusuf ben Tashufin, who landed in Algeciras, defeated the king of Leon in the battle of Zalaca (1086), and gradually reconquered all the Taifas (1090) but broke against the old Visigoth capital, Toledo.

If during the Umayyad period and until the first Taifa period it is relevant to analyze al-Andalus in a pre-national Iberian framework in opposition to both the Christian kingdoms and the Berbers, from the Almoravid conquest onwards, this logic is no longer valid. From 1086 to 1227, Seville was a secondary capital of a fundamentally Maghrebian empire to which the Almohads added the centrality of the Muslim West by moving Revelation to the Maghreb, creating Ibn Tūmart's dogma of impeccability (ʿiṣma)and proclaiming a new caliphate. The Almoravid intervention in the peninsula marked the beginning of a long Maghrebi influence on al-Andalus that began in with this conquest, continued with the Almohad rule (1147-1220) and ended with the Marinid influence (early 13th century, early 15th century).

In 1118, Alfonso I of Aragon inflicted heavy defeats on the Almoravids by taking Saragossa, then besieging Granada and attacking several cities on 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.

Taxation was lightened, which seems to have benefited economic activity, and the Almoravid currency, the silver dirham, seems to be a solid currency spread throughout the Muslim West. The Almoravid conquest imposed a rigorous Malekite thought that condemned the art of living and the cultural influence that had developed during the first Taifa period. The destruction of the work of Al-Ghazali by Ali ben Youssef is emblematic of this evolution.

The first signs of Andalusian resentment against the Almoravids came very early. As early as 1121 in Cordoba, the population rebelled against this new power. Only the intervention of the faqîh could prevent a bloodbath. Rebellions multiplied in the cities of al-Andalus and from 1140 onwards, the Almoravid power began to fall in North Africa under Almohad pressure. In 1144 the Sufi Ibn Quasi led a movement against the Almoravids which resulted in the rebirth of the Taifas: the second Taifa period.

Second Taifa period (1145-1153)

Between 1140 and 1153, the Almoravid territory was broken up, briefly reviving the taifas. The movement was exploited by Alfonso VII of Castile, who annexed Almeria and Lisbon, entered Córdoba in 1146 without being able to hold on to it and opted for a protectorate and tribute regime. Tortosa, Lleida and Fraga were taken away two years later by the Christians, Granada and Jaen were annexed by Ibn Mardanish, a Muslim ally of Castile, clearly indicating the risk of a total collapse of Andalusian Islam. The Almohad caliph decided, in 1150, to intervene in the peninsula. The Almohads settled in 1154 in Seville. Except for Majorca, which maintained its independence until 1203, the Taifas were swept away by the Almohad military conquest. The Almohads carried out victorious counter-offensives on many of the places recently annexed by the Christians, which opened a period of 40 years of military pressure along the Tagus.

The Almohads (1147-1228)

During the Almohad heyday, a new religious "awakening" took place, initiated by Ibn Toumert in southern Morocco and carried by the Almohads. As early as 1147 they took Marrakech, pacified Morocco in 1148 and extended their influence over the whole Maghreb. Of Zahirite inspiration (a form of radical Islam), after a first abortive landing in 1146, they conquered al-Andalus from 1150 and set up their capital in Seville. The initial preaching of Ibn Toumert was very violent, but if the holy war was invoked, it was not against Christians but against the Almoravid "polytheists". Destruction, deportations, forced conversions marked a point of no return. Caliph Al-Mu'min and his successor Abû Yûsuf Ya'qûb (1184-1199) implemented this doctrine in the form of a fundamentalist policy and persecutions of those perceived as heretics: the Jews - whose population fled to the north - the Malikite fuqahâ' and philosophers. When Muhammad al-Nasir (1199-1214) succeeded Yûsuf, the Almohad doctrine rapidly regressed.

However, from the time of the Almoravids and during the twelfth century, the Hispano-Muslim society of al-Andalus remained fundamentally a civil society. Their opponents in the Christian north entered an expansionist phase from the fall of Toledo, feudalized, they devote a major part of their resources to the military subject, and it is at this time that the gap between the techniques of metallurgy begins to widen to the benefit of Christian armies. Moreover, during this twelfth century and unlike the Muslim societies of the East Zengids and Ayyubids at the same time focused on a "counter-crusade", the ideology of the holy war does not seem to mobilize either the people or the Andalusian princes. The subject of jihad, so abundant in oriental poetry, is almost absent in al-Andalus. Dominique Durvoy emphasizes its surprising absence from the work of Ibn Khafadja. Even though many ulama died in the battles against the Christians, mostly Andalusians until the middle of the thirteenth century, the holy war remained a matter for their sovereign and did not engage the believers personally.

The second part of the XIIth century was opulent for Muslim Spain. Agriculture as well as handicrafts were diversified, taxes were moderate, a monetary reform gave birth to the Almohad Dinar, at the origin of the doubloon, which doubled the quantity of gold per coin. Al Andalus is prosperous and develops its cities, its markets and its trade in particular in Seville (the new capital) but also Cordoba, Almeria, Granada, Malaga and Valencia. Despite the rigorism of the new masters' doctrine, the life of the richest seems to perpetuate an art of living inherited from the caliphate and marked by hunting and good food.

Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), third period of taifas and continuation of the Reconquista

In 1212, the Almohads were defeated by a coalition of Christian kings at Las Navas de Tolosa in a battle that decided the future of Spain. In 1220, Ferdinand III of Castile began the Great Reconquest. Ibn Hud, a descendant of the former masters of Zaragoza, took advantage of the discontent against the Almohads to take Murcia and launched a widespread revolt in Al-Andalus in order to re-establish the authority of the Abbasids of Baghdad. In 1229 the Almohad Empire collapsed giving rise to an evanescent third period of taifas (1224-1266). The Castilian and Aragonese rulers took advantage of the situation and defeated Ibn Hud in 1230, and Mallorca was taken the same year by the Catalans. The places fall in cascade: Cordoba in 1236, Valencia in 1238 and Seville in 1248.

At the same time, the Almohads were completely crushed by the Marinids in 1269. .

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. 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 Nazari kingdom. The Mozarabic and Jewish minorities that had been abundant in the early days practically disappeared during the Almohad domination. As a result of their rivalry, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon prevented each other from conquering Granada.

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.

However, the rivalry between Castile and Aragon came to an end in 1469 with the marriage of the Catholic kings, and again 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. In the same year, the Jews were expelled and Christopher Columbus discovered America on behalf of Castile.

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 regain 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 sole region of Granada before its fall in the 15th century.

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.

The 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, numerous hammams, 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, its function is as much defensive as political, separating the area close to the power from the rest. Outside, but still close, were the markets, the cemeteries or the oratories. Even further away were the houses of the notables and also the governor's house. Nowadays, there is little trace of the structure of the cities of the Muslim era, except for the Arab and Christian descriptions.

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 citadel - or alcazar - and the mosque are the main signs of the ruler's authority.

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 is rather late since they appear with the political stabilization during the emirate period with the great mosques of Cordoba (785) or Seville (844), Subsequently, all the 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, 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 9th century until the beginning of the 10th century is a sign of the penetration of Islamic culture in a society which during the first century of the Arab conquest remained predominantly non-Muslim, but also of 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 emir.

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 begins a slow decline with the civil war in the eleventh century to the benefit of Seville, It is definitively lost in 1236 when the armies of Ferdinand III of Castile seize it.

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, hence the precariousness of the local governors. 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 which 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. 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.

Granada, Nazari capital

The first period of taifas saw the development of numerous capitals of these kingdoms. Toledo, the ancient Visigoth capital, and Badajoz are those that dominate the most extensive territories.

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.

Conquest

From the cultural point of view, in the eighth century, "the Muslim occupation was totally sterile: the invaders, men of war, were practically illiterate and later historians, such as Ibn al-Qûtiyya or Ibn Tumlus, never tried to conceal this fact. The sciences and techniques of Islamic civilization developed in Al-Andalus from the ninth century after the political stabilization of the Emirate of Cordoba.

Valuation of the past

Generally speaking, at the time of the formation of the Muslim Empire and until the tenth century, the Muslim world was in full expansion and considered itself the sole legitimate heir to the Greek and Persian legacies against the Latins of the Byzantine Empire. This point of view is expressed by many Arab authors of the seventh and eighth centuries: "They were scientists, they were craftsmen who appropriated the books of the Greeks because of their geographical proximity. They attribute some of these books to themselves, and they transform others into their religion, except for the Greek books that were too famous and the philosophical works that were too well known: unable, therefore, to change the names, they affirm that the Greeks were nothing but a Byzantine tribe -Al-Gahiz (781-868) Kitab al-Ahbar ". This is the attitude that prevailed among the Umayyads, first in Damascus and then in Cordoba.

Moreover, "the Umayyads never abandoned the ambition to be the legitimate successors of the great pre-Islamic empires and kingdoms. The veneration of the heritage of the ancestors is a facet of the Arab mentality and its religiosity (Ewert, 1991). The Umayyads of Cordoba showed a renewed interest in the pre-Islamic past of the peninsula, with which they identified, and used it to establish their rule in the continuity of past regimes, thus legitimizing their power. The first culture of Al Andalus, until the middle of the 9th century, was formed on a Latin-Hispanic cultural base but in an environment energized by the first contacts with the Maghreb and the East.

However, "the adoption of forms and elements does not necessarily indicate influence or continuity with the pre-Islamic world, but rather an 'acceptance' of the authority and prestige of the past, or an attempt to represent its superiority."

After the civil war and the fall of the Caliphate in 1031, "most of the states that succeeded the Caliphate of Córdoba tried permanently, by various means, to appropriate part of the brilliance and legitimacy that its memory evoked throughout the Muslim West. The palatial city of Madinat al-Zahra is in particular the object of a spolia, the fruit of the conquest and the spoils of the defeated, the consequence of which is a methodical sacking of the city.

The Almoravids and Almohads proceeded in this way in Morocco with the Umayyad legacy. The use of their techniques and the recovery of materials was not the result of a passive absorption or the simple export of Umayyad arts and techniques, but in many cases of spolia sought for the purpose of legitimizing their power, sometimes going as far as transporting materials over very long distances between Cordoba and Marrakech for the needs of a travelling court.

Emirate and Caliphate Periods

From the first half of the ninth century a renewed interest in the study of the sciences is detected, and the court of 'Abd al-Rahman II sees the first figures dedicated to poetry and astrology: 'Abd al-Malik, Yahya al-Gazāl, Ibn al Šamir, and Abbas Ibn Firnās.

"The year 822 marks the symbolic birth of Andalusian music as a tradition distinct from its eastern Arab counterpart. Ziriab, a musician from what is now Kurdistan, exiled to Cordoba around 813, founded a school, imported the Greek-Persian foundations of an important part of traditional Iberian music for several centuries, and had an important influence at the court. Followed by Abbas ibn Firnas, this period marks the beginning of the development of Arab-Andalusian music and bears the seeds of forms such as the nuba. Despite the influence of these two people, "the Andalusian repertoire that has come down to us consists almost exclusively of two types of poetry muwashshah and zajal were invented after the time of Zyriab. The style of Zyriab, which became established in the ninth century, was swept away by the work of Ahmad al Tifashi in the thirteenth century. However, the music remains a source of controversy among the religious orthodox, and following the example of Gregorian chant, rules for singing and instruments are established. The music of Al Andalus influences the troubadours. With the period of Taïfas the courses multiply and with them the schools of song and dance. Al Tifachi explains to us that in the school of Seville these arts are taught to the slaves to increase the price. The mouachah, the zéjels and the Nuba are the most important poetic-musical forms Al-ándalus.

At the same time, Mozarabic chanting (Visigothic religious chanting) was maintained in the Christian liturgy until the 11th century.

During the Umayyad period, al-Andalus developed and became a hotbed of high culture within medieval Europe in the 9th and 10th centuries, attracting a large number of scholars and opening up a period of rich cultural development. It reached its golden age with the Caliphate. According to some historians, a real intellectual enthusiasm made that one pursues all the forms of knowledge: history, geography, philosophy, medicine, mathematics" which is worth the title of "original civilization". The prosperity of al Andalus is the main factor that explains this artistic and cultural development. For Eduardo Manzano, the Caliphate was a cultural giant. These cultural developments are for the use of Andalusians.

The Emirate period and especially the Caliphate period gave rise to achievements in many fields, including engineering, agriculture and architecture, with major accomplishments such as the Great Mosque of Cordoba and Medinat al-Zhara. Medicine is renowned in the medieval world.

Caliphal Cordoba possesses one of the largest libraries of the period, with "a large quantity of manuscripts from the Arabic and Muslim tradition, but also copies from the classical Christian and Jewish tradition. It includes manuscripts from different origins".

Not surprisingly, Cordoba has a number of major philologists such as Abu Ali al Qali (? -967). The Sevillian grammarian Al Zubaydi (?-969) composed a biographical dictionary of lexicographers and grammarians, and the Islamic world owes Ibn Sidah, from Murcia, a lexicographic work considered one of the main medieval contributions to the Arabic language. This period produced renowned scholars such as the astronomer Al-Zarqali or the surgeon Abu Al-Qasim. As Shahab Ahmed (2016) recently reminded us, Muslims throughout the centuries did not live their religions as the Salafists preach today, through a literal and implacable reading of decontextualized texts, but through poetry and ethics. The period is rich of many poets and writers, and the religious link is very present. The most famous are Ibn Abd Rabbih (Iqd `al-Farid: "The Unique Necklace"), and Ibn Hazm and his work The Necklace of the Dove, both a treatise on love and a view on the fitna of 1013. This was the time of the historian Ibn al-Qūṭiyya who wrote one of the main sources on the conquest of al-Andalus: "History of the conquest of al-Andalus".

After the civil war and its sackings, in spite of the wars between rival taifas, Christian advances, in spite of "instability and social decadence" the influence of Al Andalus increases, in particular in Cordoba. The religious scholars multiply: lexicographers, historians, philosophers, are among the most brilliant of their time. However, the poetry of Ibn Khafadja (1058-1138) marks a transition. It is interpreted as "the expression of a threatened society that, sensing its impending demise, is already preparing its eulogy," a world engulfed between the Christian advance to Toledo and the Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus.

Almoravid and Almohad periods

With the Almoravid and especially Almohad reigns, the cultural influence was exerted from the Maghreb to Andalusia. Almoravid art is clearly inspired by the achievements of the sumptuous art of the first period of Taifa in the eleventh century, but much more austere as imposed by their religious precepts. This austerity is however lost towards the end of their reign during the XIIth century. The Almoravid art develops mainly in Morocco, but they leave in the Iberian Peninsula some examples like the castle of Monteagudo (es).

The Almoravid and Almohad periods produced renowned scholars, notably in mathematics with the work of Jabir Ibn Aflah), in pharmacology (Avenzoar), and in agronomy (Ibn Bassal) and Muhammad ibn Aslam Al-Ghafiqi renowned for his cataract operations. The Almohad era has many thinkers who broke with previous thoughts, in an attempt of radical renovation. In the study of philology, Ibn Mada (-1165) sought a form of clarity, concision and simplicity in the study of the Arabic language. Generally speaking, philology is considered as an annex to other disciplines, in particular to the study of the Koran and poetry.

Cultural life oscillated between Almohad rigorism and high quality productions. The year 1191 saw the banning of musicians but poetry remained rich. The caliphs surrounded themselves with brilliant doctors. Averroes, advisor to Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur and commentator on Aristotle, opposed the mysticism of al-Ghrazali, which led to his being sentenced to exile and the destruction of his work. The other great philosophical figure of the time was Maimonides who was forced to convert to Islam before fleeing to Egypt to the court of Saladin.

However, the second part of the twelfth century is opulent, and from 1160, the Almohad caliphs decide to invest a significant part of the tax in public works and develop considerably the religious, civil and military architecture of al-Andalus and build many fortresses, palaces, bridges and mosques that remain among the most emblematic of Andalusia (Giralda, alcazars, Torre del Oro etc.. ) and which are directly inspired by the productions of the Christian north, for example the stuccos of the monastery of Las Huelgas (Burgos), or those of the old synagogue Santa Maria la Blanca in Toledo.

Almohad architecture is also dominated by the simplicity and austerity that their doctrine suggests. The interiors of the mosques are almost always white, spacious and marked by symmetries that reduce the decorative aspect to a few floral or geometric motifs. However, the Almohads innovated in this area by creating the panels of sebka. The Almohad mosques are particularly famous for their minarets. The military architecture reached a great level of perfection that makes their fortresses almost impregnable. The marquetry and the ceramics are famous with in particular the generalization at this time of the techniques sgraffite and of stamping which cohabits with the technique of the dry cord invented during the caliphal period before replacing it.

Nazari period

For Pierre Guichard, during the thirteenth century the Emirate of Granada 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 Andalusian culture. 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 a few isolated figures of great scholars like the mathematician al-Qalasâdî or the physician Muhammad al-Saqurî ".

Medieval society

From a general point of view, al-Andalus is a part of the classical Muslim Empire inscribed 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 noble, religious, serf, 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.

It is a deeply patriarchal society. During the Caliphate, women were pretty much excluded from public life, but they could own property and pass it on. They play an important role in the private space of the Caliph's palaces, and the administration includes renowned calligraphers. However, the lack of visibility of women in this society results in very little documentation. The little that has come down to us relates negative information about famous women (wife of the Caliph). The erotic literature is more extensive and lends credence to the contemporary thesis that slave women had more freedom than so-called free women.

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 primarily 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.

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, after the Muslim conquest, had adopted Arab customs and language, while maintaining their religion.

Among the Muslims, there were:

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.

On the other hand, according to the historian Pierre Guichard, all the Umayyad princes who succeeded each other in power in Cordoba were sons of concubine slaves, the majority of whom were of indigenous origin, "Galician", coming from the remaining Christian areas of northern and northwestern Spain. Thus, according to the author, "with each generation, the proportion of Arab blood flowing in the veins of the reigning ruler decreased by half, so that the last of the lineage, Hicham II (976-1013), who, according to the only genealogy in male line, is of pure Arab origin, has in reality only 0.09% Arab blood.

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 to parents of mixed couples.

If the first conversions take place quickly after the arrival of the Arabs, they remain few in the eighth century and it is only in the middle of the ninth century that a strong islamization of the society takes place under the reign of Abd al-Rahman II, causing important tensions: waves of martyrs. Toledo is one of the most populated cities in muwallads and will give many Muslim clerics of high rank. Of their Roman origins, only anthroponyms remain for many, such as the Banu Angelino or the Banu Martin for example. Moreover "conversion does not seem to be considered a sufficient criterion to be definitively ranked in the group of "Muslims" (Aillet, 2009) while the muladi claim these the same rights as other Muslims, which degenerates into attempts at secession and more broadly triggers "the fitna emirale": "a society that returns to its origins, to its 'aṣabiyya indigenous. This first civil war ended in 928 with the victory of the emir, the establishment of the Caliphate (929), and the restoration of civil peace (931-933). The Muslims represent then nearly 80% of the population. The muladi were the most faithful and reliable community in the eyes of the caliphs.

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, working mainly in professions that were devalued or forbidden by other religions (credit, trade). Eduardo Manzano Moreno indicates that before the first Taifa period, documentation on the Jews of al-Andalus is extremely limited and concentrated on a few individuals present at the caliphal court, in particular the ambassador Hasdaï ibn Shaprut (915-970). The first period of taifa is better known, it includes a number of doctors, scholars, politicians and military men and constitutes the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. It includes the poets Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1058) and Judah Halevi (1075-1141). The situation deteriorated from 1066 (massacre of Granada), then following the Almoravid conquest and even more after the Almohad conquest. However, the Almohad period saw the emergence of such renowned figures as the physician and philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204).

A large number joined the territories dominated by the Christians and North Africa, with the famous case of Moses Maimonides joining the Egypt of Saladin. In the fourteenth and fifteenth 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.

Religions

The Islamization of society after the Arab conquest was rapid. According to some authors, in the tenth century, half of the population was already Islamicized, 80% in the eleventh century and 90% in the twelfth century. Cyrille Aillet, in his study on the de-Christianization of al-Andalus from the wave of martyrs in the ninth century, loses all trace of Christian presence in Toledo until 1067 and makes the hypothesis that the Christians of the eleventh century are newcomers or returnees, we lose all trace of Christian population between 893 and 1067: were the Christians of the eleventh century the continuation of those of the ninth century, or are they newcomers? In medieval Spain - in both Christian and Muslim territory - integration, assimilation, and religious and ethnic ties have a dynamic character that Cyrille Aillet studies region by region in an "Evolutionary Geography of Christianity in al-Andalus. All contemporary studies agree on the very moving reality of religious links in medieval Spain, which are as much the result of exclusive absorptions as of movements of populations.

Sunni Islam was the official religion of Muslim Spain from the conquest in 711 until the fall of the kingdom of Granada in 1492. The official theological trend was Acharism. Jurisprudence was first practiced according to the Awzâ'ite school of law and then applied according to the Malekite school. Zahirite jurisprudence was sometimes applied but its influence was minimal and punctual. The other "religions of the Book" were accepted with, however, periods of repression. By the eleventh century, Islam had become the majority religion and Muslims constituted more than 80% of the inhabitants of al-Andalus.

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 they had 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 through 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 the 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 a 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.

Other religions are prohibited, including Zoroastrianism and Shiite Islam. The application of these prohibitions is particularly highlighted during the opposition between the Fatimid Caliphate and the Caliphate of Cordoba.

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 become Christian again, 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.

Agriculture

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 regions of Valencia and Murcia, and silkworms and flax were produced in the region of Granada. In case of bad harvests as in the beginning of the 10th 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, notably gold and slaves. From the Emirate period, control of the Maghreb (up to the trans-Saharan routes, Sidjilmassa and the loop of the Niger) became 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) recurrently returns 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 that generates structural fragilities accentuated during the Umayyad period by the distensions between Arabs and Berbers.

Textile industry

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.

Metals

Iberian metal mines have been known since ancient times: gold, silver and tin were exploited by the Phoenicians, the Romans added the extraction of mercury and lead (Catartagena), zinc (Granada). The iron mines are the most abundant, they are famous in Toledo as in the area of Guadix (Granada) since the Roman Empire. Mining is not state-run, but scattered in small productions throughout the territory depending on the veins and is generally complementary to agricultural or livestock activity. Moreover, the treatment of the ore is not done on the place of extraction, which supposes a phase of transport.

The case of iron attracts particular attention of historians given its importance in many areas (agriculture, construction, armies). The processing of the ore was done in the countryside, and the forging in the cities. The trades of this industry are devalued and in the hands of natives. The techniques used from the Umayyad period are the best of that time: the "Indian" technique (Arabic sources: al-hindi). It has passed to the Latin posterity as Damascus steel and Wootz. The Umayyads intensified the exploitation of the iron mines in Toledo and brought to the steel productions the damascening that made their reputation. The iron trade was so important in caliphal Cordoba that there was an iron market (sūq al-ḥaddadīn), mentioned by Ibn al-Hay. Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Teruel, and Toledo were among the major processing centers. The ports had their own forges for maritime needs, as well as multiple small-scale facilities in the countryside for agricultural needs. On the other hand, transport and marketing were often interrupted by the many troubles that these regions suffered and had to be revived

After a near interruption of production during the conquest, iron production increased during the Amiral period until the first Taifa period, it collapsed and disappeared completely in Granada and Seville with the Almoravid conquest, while Toledo passed into the hands of Castile in 1085 depriving al Andalus of its main resources. Some historians attribute certain Arab military failures of the twelfth century to the greater availability of this material in the Christian north.

One of the most exploited metals is copper (nuḥās). It is exported in the form of ingots or manufactured, decorative, or everyday objects. It is extracted from the mines of Granada, Almeria and the mountains around Toledo. "It seems unbelievable that the great Iberian deposits of Rio tinto, Tharsis (es), Aljustrel were not known" but we have absolutely no evidence in this sense. Some old galleries have been visited, however, and the Arabic documentation of the time directs us rather to the search for third products of the class of couperose and alum (a priori iron sulfate and iron sulfate and ammonium).

wood and paper

Wood, an essential material for industry and shipbuilding, was sorely lacking throughout the Muslim world, which was forced to send 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. The vast wooded areas around Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga or Ronda allowed the country to launch large and costly wood projects, such as shipyards.

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.

Slaves

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.

Major trade routes

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 there.

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.

Institutions

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 close to 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 the 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 court 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.

Diplomacy

The difficulties of communication and the slowness of the means of transport did not allow for any real diplomacy except with the close neighbors of Andalusia. At the turn of the ninth century, the emirate was still a young state barely free of the revolts and unrest that had shaken it a century earlier, and the second half of the century proved particularly chaotic to the point that the surrounding Christian powers bet on its demise. Being on the border of two great spaces (Latin and Oriental), the country maintained very rich but also tumultuous relations with them.

The proclamation of Al Andalus as a Caliphate in 929 implies that the political power of the Amir extends to the religious sphere in order to be universal commander of the believers. This proclamation made the Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphates the enemies of the Caliphate of Cordoba. The Fatimids being both Shiite and geographically closer are a more direct enemy. Moreover, they disputed with the Umayyads the domination of the Maghreb, fomented rebellions against their authority, and jeopardized trade routes vital for the stability of their regime: gold and slaves passed through them. The Umayyads forged complex diplomatic ties along three main lines: Umayyad domination of Al Andalus and the Iberian Peninsula, Cordoba's domination of the Strait of Gibraltar, and domination of the western Mediterranean - including at least the Iberian side, the Balearic Islands, and the Italian west coast and the Gulf of Lion.

To the emerging power of the Umayyads on the political and religious spheres around the Mediterranean, a second pretender was added, Otto the Great, who claimed to resurrect the Carolingian empire and opposed the powers in place, especially in Constantinople. The Umayyads favored good relations with Constantinople, which allowed them to keep the Abbasids and Fatimids at bay, but they also composed the Germanic emperor. One of the known episodes of these negotiations was the sending by Otto I of Juan de Gorze as ambassador to negotiate with Abd al-Rahman. The Umayyad ruler seems to have been particularly well informed about the political situation in the Holy Roman Empire. The negotiations continued in Frankfurt.

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 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.

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 Arab 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 from Byzantium and Persia, in the field of architecture, reaches Western Europe through the Andalusian intermediary. The reuse of the horseshoe-shaped arches taken from Byzantine and Persian architecture is noted very early on. 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 (Christian influence in Al-Andalus, see Mozarabic art) 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.

Thereafter, the achievements of Al Andalus influence the architects of the Christian kingdoms, especially from the eleventh century, both under the effect of the reconquest (art of repopulation), both under the effect of a direct influence at the time Almohad: it is the art mudejar. 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 horseshoe-shaped arches, floral motifs and are decorated with biblical inscriptions carved in stone, aesthetically inspired by the arabesques that adorned the mosques of the time.

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 attestations, 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 respect, 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 being better and better evaluated, notably through archaeology, which should eventually lead to 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.

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 becoming Arabized 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, which 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 Romance 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, 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.

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 smallness 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 researchers, 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 regions 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. The latter 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.

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 of 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

Genetics

According to a study by Adams et al. in 2008 that studied the Y chromosome (paternal lineage) of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, they would have an average of about 11% North African ancestry with significant geographical variations ranging from 2% in Catalonia to almost 22% in North Castile. According to another study by Capelli et al. in 2009, 7-8% of the paternal lines of Spaniards, Portuguese and Sicilians are from North Africa and were introduced by the Moors in the Middle Ages.

In 2013, according to an autosomal study, that is, one that takes into account all the chromosomes and not just the paternal or maternal lineage, carried out by a group of Spanish-American researchers, involving nearly 3,000 individuals from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and published by the U.S. scientific journal PNAS, between 5% and 15% of the genome of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, depending on the region (except for the Basque people), comes from North Africa (20% in the Canary Islands).

In 2014, a similar autosomal study by Lazaridis et al. calculated that, on average, 12.6% of the genome of Spaniards in the Iberian Peninsula is from North Africa.

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 Inrap, "All of this data suggests that the skeletons discovered in the tombs of Nîmes belonged to Berber soldiers enlisted 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.

Notes

In reverse chronological order

Sources

1. Al-Andalus
2. Al-Andalus
3. À l'heure actuelle, la présence musulmane est attestée archéologiquement et historiquement sur certains territoires de l'actuelle France : la Septimanie, dont la capitale est Harbûna, actuelle Narbonne, sous domination musulmane de 719 à 759 ; certaines régions côtières de la Provence et plus particulièrement du Massif des Maures sous domination musulmane jusqu'à la fin du Xe siècle.
4. la Septimanie, dont la capitale est Harbûna, actuelle Narbonne, sous domination musulmane de 719 à 759 ;
5. certaines régions côtières de la Provence et plus particulièrement du Massif des Maures sous domination musulmane jusqu'à la fin du Xe siècle.
6. La Narbonnaise (ou Septimanie) fut considérée comme incluse dans les limites d'al-Andalus[9].
7. En 1236, Lucas de Tuy rédige son chronicon mundi où, entre autres griefs contre les juifs, il les accuse d'avoir ouvert aux Maures les portes de Tolède. En fait, les connaissances contemporaines sur les juifs du royaume wisigoth sont minimes et réduites à quelques inscriptions funéraires en hébreu. En tout état de cause, leur population était trop faible pour avoir eu une incidence sur la conquêteDavid J. Wasserstein, « Langues et frontières entre juifs et musulmans en al-Andalus », Casa de Vélasquez, Casa de Vélasquez, no Judíos y musulmanes en al-Andalus y el Magreb,‎ 2013 (lire en ligne).
8. Manzano Moreno, 2018, p. 129. "El nombre [de al-Andalus] terminará imponiéndose con mucha rapidez dentro de la tradición cultural árabe y acabará designando a todo el territorio de la península ibérica, incluyendo también a los territorios cristianos"
9. Benito Ruano, Eloy (2000). «Los árabes y musulmanes de la Edad Media aplicaron el nombre de al-Ándalus a todas aquellas tierras que habían formado parte del reino visigodo: la península ibérica y la Septimania ultrapirenaica». Tópicos y realidades de la Edad Media 1. Real Academia de la Historia. p. 79. ISBN 9788489512801.
10. García de Cortázar, José Ángel (1 de enero de 1995). V Semana de Estudios Medievales: Nájera, 1 al 5 de agosto de 1994 5. Gobierno de La Rioja, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. p. 52. ISBN 9788487252457.
11. a b Viguera, María Jesús (2002). «Al-Andalus: los Omeyas». En Juan Carrasco, Josep Maria Salrach, Julio Valdeón y María Jesús Viguera, ed. Historia de las Españas medievales. Barcelona: Crítica. p. 13. ISBN 84-8432-300-5.
12. ^ Translations: Arabic: الأنْدَلُس translit. al-'Andalus; Aragonese: al-Andalus; Asturian: al-Ándalus; Basque: al-Andalus; Berber: ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, romanized: Andalus; Catalan: al-Àndalus; Galician: al-Andalus; Occitan: Al Andalús; Portuguese: al-Ândalus; Spanish: al-Ándalus. Also known in English, perhaps in a slightly dated or quaint sense, as Moorish Spain.
13. "Para los autores árabes medievales, el término al-Andalus designa la totalidad de las zonas conquistadas — siquiera temporalmente — por tropas arabo-musulmanas en territorios actualmente pertenecientes a Portugal, Espana y Francia" ("Keskiajan arabikirjoittajille al-Andalus käsitti kaikki, myös väliaikaisesti arabi-muslimien valloittamat alueet nykyisten Portugalin, Espanjan ja Ranskan alueilla"), José Ángel García de Cortázar, V Semana de Estudios Medievales: Nájera, 1 al 5 de agosto de 1994, Gobierno de La Rioja, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 1995, p. 52.