Al-Andalus

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This article is about the historical region. For the modern-day province, see Andalusia.

Al Andalus also refers to a district in Kuwait.

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Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأندلس al-andalus) was the Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims at various times in the period between 711 and 1492.^[1] It refers to the Umayyad Caliphate province (711-750), Emirate of Cordoba (c. 750-929) and Caliphate of Córdoba (929-1031) and its "taifa" ("successor") kingdoms.

As the Iberian Peninsula was slowly regained by Christians attacking southward in the long process known as the Reconquista, the name Al-Andalus came to refer to the Muslim-dominated lands of the former Visigothic Hispania.

In 1236 the Reconquista progressed to the subjugation of the last remaining Islamic stronghold, Granada, achieved by the forces of Ferdinand III of Castile. Granada was a vassal state to Castile for the next 256 years, until January 2, 1492 when Boabdil surrendered complete control of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella, Los Reyes Católicos ("The Catholic Monarchs"). The Portuguese Reconquista culminated in 1249 with the conquest of Algarve by Afonso III.

[edit] Etymology of al-Andalus

The etymology of the word al-Andalus is unknown. As a designation for Iberia or its southern portion, the name is first attested by inscriptions on coins minted by the new Muslim government in Iberia circa 715 (the uncertainty in the year is due to the fact that the coins were bilingual in Latin and Arabic and the two inscriptions differ as to the year of minting).^[2]

At least three specific etymologies have been proposed in Western scholarship, all presuming that the name arose after the Roman period in the Iberian Peninsula's history. Their originators or defenders have been historians. Recently, linguistics expertise has been brought to bear on the issue. Arguments from toponymy (the study of place names), history, and language structure demonstrate the lack of substance in all preceding proposals, and presented evidence that the name predates the Roman occupation rather than postdates it.^[3]

A major objection to all earlier proposals is that the very name Andaluz (the equivalent of Andalus in Spanish spelling) exists in several places in mountainous areas of Castile.^[4] Furthermore, the fragment and- is common in Spanish place names, and the fragment -luz also occurs several times across Spain.

[edit] Older proposals

In Western scholarly tradition, right up to the present moment, the name has been considered by most commentators to come from "Vandal", the name of the Germanic tribe that colonized parts of Iberia from 407 to 429. However, on the one hand there is in fact no historical (i.e., documentary) attestation of this, and on the other hand there are numerous toponymic, linguistic, and historical reasons why it is untenable. This proposal is sometimes associated with the 19th century historian, Dozy^[5]; but it predates him and he recognized certain of its shortcomings. Although he accepted that "al-Andalus" derived from "Vandal", he believed that geographically it referred only to the harbor from which the Vandals departed Iberia for Africa -- the location of which harbor was unknown.^[6]

Another proposal is that "Andalus" is an Arabic language corruption of "Atlantis". This idea has recently been defended by the Spanish historian, Vallvé, but purely on the grounds that it is allegedly plausible phonetically and would explain several toponymic facts -- no evidence offered.^[7] In fact, phonetically this proposed etymology is poorly motivated: the Arabic language would not likely rearrange the consonant sequence of "Atlantis" to this extreme. (The English word "penalty" as a soccer term has been borrowed into modern Arabic as "bilanti". This fact and other examples of borrowing into Arabic taken together suggest that "Atlantis" would more likely become "Altantis" or "Alantis".) The shift of the 'i' to 'u' would need to be justified too.

Vallvé writes:

Arabic texts offering the first mentions of the island of al-Andalus and the sea of al-Andalus become extraordinarily clear if we substitute this expressions with "Atlántida" or "Atlantic". The same can be said with reference to Hercules and the Amazons whose island, according to Arabic commentaries of these Greek and Latin legends, was located in jauf al-Andalus — that is, to the north or interior of the Atlantic Ocean.

The "Island of al-Andalus" is mentioned in an anonymous Arabic chronicle of the conquest of Iberia composed two to three centuries after the fact.^[8] It is identified as the location of the landfall of the advance guard of the Moorish invasion of Iberia. The chronicle also says that "Island of al-Andalus" was subsequently renamed "Island of Tarifa". The preliminary invasion force of a few hundred, led by the Berber chief, Tarif abu Zura, seized the first bit of land that is encountered after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in 710. The main invasion force led by Tariq ibn Ziyad followed them a year later. The landfall, now known in Spain as either Punta Marroquí or Punta de Tarifa, is in fact the southern tip of an islet, presently known as Isla de Tarifa or Isla de las Palomas, just offshore of the Iberian mainland.^[9]

This testimony of the Arab chronicle, the modern name "Isla de Tarifa", and the above mentioned toponymic evidence that "Andaluz" is a name of pre-Roman origin taken together lead to the supposition that the "Island of Andalus" is the present day Isla de Tarifa, which lies just offshore from the modern day Spanish city of Tarifa. The extension of the scope of the designation "Al-Andalus" from a single islet to all of Iberia has several historical precedents. India is named after the Indus River, whose valley constitutes almost the northwest extreme of the Indian subcontinent. The name "Asia" originally denoted just parts of Anatolia. For centuries now, the Kingdom of the Netherlands has been popularly referred to by foreigners as "Holland", which is but one of the regions of the Netherlands.

In the 1980's, the historian Halm, also rejecting the "Vandal" proposal, originated an innovative alternative.^[10] Halm, noting that Germanic tribes were reported to have distributed conquered lands by having members draw lots, and that Iberia under the Germanic Visigoths was sometimes known by the Latin name, Gothica Sors, 'lot Gothland', speculated that the Visigoths themselves might have called their new lands "lot lands".^[11] He reconstructed what the Gothic language version of this term would be: *landahlauts (the asterisk is the standard linguistic symbol for a form that is merely proposed, not attested). Halm then suggested that the hypothetical Gothic language term gave rise to both the attested Latin term, Gothica Sors, and the Arab name, Al-Andalus. Again, it must be emphasized that this reasoning has no historical evidence to support it.

[edit] History

see also Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula

[edit] Conquest and early years

The Age of the Caliphs

The Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula, who ruled Iberia between 711 and 1492 C.E., are commonly known as the Moors. Their territory, which they called "Al Andalus", initially included much of Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France, but in the final period was limited to the Kingdom of Granada. For the etymology of the Arabic word Al-Andalus, see the section above.

In France, the Muslims were defeated at Tours-Poitiers (about two-thirds of the way to Paris) during the month of Ramadan in 732 CE. This place is known as 'The Pavement of the Martyrs' and in Muslim chronicles as Balaat ash-Shuhada'. Muslim control of Toulouse, Narbonne, Lyon and nearby territories varied from time to time, as some of the territories were lost, regained, and then lost. This went on until 975 C.E.

The word Moors is a corrupted word referring to the people who came from Morocco (Mauri). The Christians of the Iberian Peninsula began to use this term exclusively for Muslims when the Muslims lost administrative control of northern parts of Spain and Portugal. Later, other words such as Moriscos and Mudejares were used for them beginning in the mid-thirteenth century.

When Muslims first arrived in Iberia in 711 C.E., they constituted mainly Arabs and Berbers of North Africa. Islamic writers commonly express the view that most inhabitants of Andalus, especially Arian Christians and slaves, accepted Islamic rule willingly. There was also, by 770 C.E., significant immigration from North Africa and Arabia. Muslim sources state that the immigrant population intermarried with various nationalities including the native Iberian-Muslim population, and express the view that Iberia had become fairly homogeneous within a few generations. The reign of Abdur-Rahman, the 'Falcon of Andalus' (755-788), saw the construction of an Islamic civilization similar to that of Damascus, Baghdad and other regional centers. Within a century, the Islamic (or "Moorish") civilisation in Iberia is widely considered to have been the most advanced in Western Europe.

Prior to the arrival of the Moors, the Visigothic rivals of King Roderic had gathered along with Jews and Arian Christians fleeing forced conversions at the hands of the Catholic bishops who controlled the Visigothic monarchy. The Egyptian historian Ibn Abd-el-Hakem relates that Roderic's vassal, Julian, count of Ceuta had sent one of his daughters to the Visigothic court at Toledo for education and that Roderic had impregnated her. After learning of this, he made his way to Qayrawan (modern day Tunisia) and requested the assistance of Musa ibn Nusayr, the Muslim governor in North Africa. Personal power politics may have played a larger part, as Julian and other notable families were extremely discontented with the existing status quo in the Visigothic kingdom. In exchange for lands in southern Iberia, Julian promised ships to carry Ibn Nusayr's troops across the Strait of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar).

Main article: Umayyad conquest of Hispania

Under the command of Tariq ibn-Ziyad, a small force landed at Gibraltar on April 30, 711 . After a decisive victory at the Battle of Guadalete on July 19, 711, Tariq ibn-Ziyad brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim occupation in a seven-year campaign. They moved northeast across the Pyrenees but were defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. The Iberian peninsula, except for the Kingdom of Asturias, became part of the expanding Umayyad empire, under the name of al-Andalus. The earliest attestation of this Arab name is a dinar coin, preserved in the Archaeological Museum in Madrid, dating from five years after the conquest (716). The coin bears the word "al-Andalus" in Arabic script on one side and the Iberian Latin "Span" on the obverse.^[12]

At first, al-Andalus was ruled by governors appointed by the Caliph, most ruling for periods of under three years. However, from 740, a series of civil wars between various Muslim groups in Iberia resulted in the breakdown of Caliphal control, with Yūsuf al-Fihri, who emerged as the main winner, effectively becoming an independent ruler.

[edit] The Emirate and Caliphate of Córdoba

The interior of the Cathedral of Cordoba, formerly the Mosque of Cordoba, built by the Umayyads on the site of the Saint Vicente Visigothic Christian basilica and rededicated as a Christian cathedral in the 13th Century. The mosque is one of the finest examples of Arab-Islamic architecture in the Umayyad style.

In 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads for control of the great Arab empire. But in 756, the exiled Umayyad prince Abd-ar-Rahman I (later titled Al-Dākhil) ousted Yūsuf al-Fihri to establish himself as the Emir of Córdoba. He refused to submit to the Abbasid caliph, as Abbasid forces had killed most of his family. Over a thirty year reign, he established a tenuous rule over much of al-Andalus, overcoming partisans of both the al-Fihri family and of the Abbasid caliph.

For the next century and a half, his descendants continued as emirs of Córdoba, with nominal control over the rest of al-Andalus and sometimes even parts of western North Africa, but with real control, particularly over the marches along the Christian border, vacillating depending on the competence of the individual emir. Indeed, the power of emir Abdallah ibn Muhammad (circa 900) did not extend beyond Córdoba itself. But his grandson Abd-al-Rahman III, who succeeded him in 912, not only rapidly restored Umayyad power throughout al-Andalus but extended it into western North Africa as well. In 929 he proclaimed himself Caliph, elevating the emirate to a position competing in prestige not only with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad but also the Shi'ite caliph in Tunis — with whom he was competing for control of North Africa.

The Caliphate of Cordoba c. 1000 at the apogee of Al-Mansur.

The Caliphate broke up into many taifa states in 1031.

The period of the Caliphate is seen by Muslim writers as the golden age of al-Andalus. Crops produced using irrigation, along with food imported from from the Middle East, provided the area around Córdoba and some other Andalusī cities with an agricultural economic sector by far the most advanced in western Europe. Among European cities, Córdoba under the Caliphate, with a population of perhaps 500,000, was second only to Constantinople in size and prosperity. Within the Islamic world, Córdoba was one of the leading cultural centres. The work of its most important philosophers and scientists (notably Ibn Rushd ("Averroes") and Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") had a major influence on the intellectual life of medieval western Europe.

Muslims and non-Muslims often came from abroad to study in the famous libraries and universities of al-Andalus. The most noted of these was Michael Scot, who took the works of Ibn Rushd ("Averroes") and Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") to Italy. This transmission was to have a significant impact on the formation of the European Renaissance.

[edit] The First Taifa Period

The Córdoba Caliphate effectively collapsed during a ruinous civil war between 1009 and 1013, although it was not finally abolished until 1031. Al-Andalus now broke up into a number of mostly independent states called taifas. These were however militarily too weak to defend themselves against repeated raids and demands for tribute from the Christian states based in the north and west, which had already spread from their initial strongholds in Galicia, Asturias, the Basque country and the Carolingian Marca Hispanica to become the Kingdoms of Navarre, León, Portugal, Castile and Aragon and the County of Barcelona. Eventually, raids turned into conquests, and in response, the taifa kings requested help from the Almoravids, the fundamentalist-Islamic rulers of the Maghreb. However, the Almoravids conquered the taifa kingdoms after defeating the Castilian King Alfonso VI at the battles of Zallāqah and Uclés.

[edit] Almoravids, Almohads and Marinids

In 1086 the Almoravid ruler of Morocco Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the Muslim princes in Iberia to defend them against Alfonso VI, King of Castile and León. In that year, Yusuf ibn Tashfin crossed the straits to Algeciras and inflicted a severe defeat on the Christians at the az-Zallaqah. By 1094, Yusuf ibn Tashfin had removed all Muslim princes in Iberia and annexed their states, except for the one at Zaragoza. He regained Valencia from the Christians.

The Almoravids were succeeded in the 12th century by the Almohads, another Berber dynasty, after the defeat of the Castilian Alfonso VIII at the Battle of Alarcos. In 1212 a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of the Castilian Alfonso VIII defeated the Almohads at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and forced their sultan to leave Iberia. The taifas, newly independent but now weakened, were quickly conquered by Portugal, Castile and Aragon. After the fall of Murcia (1243) and the Algarve (1249), only the Kingdom of Granada survived as a Muslim state, but only as a tributary of Castile. Most of its tribute was paid in gold from present-day Mali and Burkina Faso that was carried to Iberia through the merchant routes of the Sahara.

The last Muslim threat to the Christian kingdoms was the rise of the Marinids in Morocco during the 14th century, who took Granada into their sphere of influence and occupied some of its cities, like Algeciras. However, they were unable to take Tarifa, which held out until the arrival of the Castilian Army led by Alfonso XI. The Castilian king, helped by Afonso IV of Portugal and Pedro IV of Aragon, decisively defeated the Marinids at the Battle of Salado in 1340 and took Algeciras in 1344. Gibraltar, then under Granadian rule, was besieged in 1349-1350, Alfonso XI along with most of his army perished by the Black Death. His successor, Pedro of Castile, made peace with the Muslims and turned his attention to Christian lands, starting a period of almost 150 years of rebellions and wars between the Christian states that secured the survival of Granada.

A manuscript page of the Qur'an in the script developed in al-Andalus, 12th century.

[edit] The Emirate of Granada

Following the peace treaty made with King Pedro of Castile, Granada survived for nearly 150 years more as a state. Its Muslims were guaranteed virtual self-government, freedom of movement, complete religious freedom and even a three-year exemption from taxes after the surrender. After that they were to pay no more than they had under Nasrid rule. In 1469 the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile signaled the launching of the final assault on Granada, a campaign carefully planned and well financed. The King and Queen convinced the Pope to declare their war a crusade. The Christians crushed one center of resistance after another and finally, in January 1492, after a long siege, the Moorish king of Gharnatah (Granada), Muhammad abu Abdallah, surrendered the fortress palace, the renowned Alhambra, itself.

[edit] Society

The society of Al-Andalus was made up of three main groups: Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Muslims, though united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. Mozarabs were Christians that had long lived under Muslim domination and so had come to adopt many Arabic customs, art and words, while holding onto old Christian rituals and their own Latin-derived languages. Each of these communities inhabited a separate part of the cities.

A later illustration, depicting the Jewish Soldiers fighting alongside the forces of Muhammed IX, Nasrid Sultan of Granada, at the Battle of Higueruela, 1431.

The Arabs settled in the south and in the Ebro Valley in the north-east, while the Berbers, who made up the bulk of the invaders, lived in the mountainous regions of what is now the north of Portugal and in the Meseta Central. The Jews worked mainly as tax collectors, in trade or as doctors or ambassadors. At the end of the fifteenth century there were about 50,000 Jews in Granada and roughly 100,000 in the whole of Islamic Iberia.^[13]

[edit] Non-Muslims under the Caliphate

See also: Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula

[edit] Debate over tolerance of non-Muslims

The treatment of non-Muslims in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable interest from scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing parallels to the coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. Some argue that — for at least part of the history of al-Andalus — Jews were treated significantly better in Muslim-controlled Iberia than in Christian northern Europe. However, the exact extent and nature of this period of tolerance (sometimes called a "Golden Age") has become a subject of debate and is often used to back personal or political agendas.

Bernard Lewis states:

The claim to tolerance, now much heard from Muslim apologists and more especially from apologists for Islam, is also new and of alien origin. It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam have begun to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.^[14]

Princeton University Professor Mark Cohen, in his 1995 book on the subject,^[15] discusses how the belief of a "Golden Age" of peaceful co-existence in al-Andalus (between Muslims and dhimmis, especially Jewish ones) was primarily bolstered in the nineteenth and twentieth century by two sources. On one side, Jewish scholars like Heinrich Graetz used the story of tolerant Al-Andalus to draw contrasts to the increasing oppression of Jews in mainly Christian Eastern Europe. On the other side, Arab scholars who wanted to show that the modern State of Israel shattered a previously existing harmony between Jews and Arabs in Palestine under the Ottoman rule (see History of the Jews in Turkey) pointed to the utopia of the Golden Age as an example of previous relationships. Cohen argues that the image is overstated, but that the "countermyth" of persecution is also an oversimplification.

The debate about the conditions of non-Muslims continues however. For example, María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University, has argued that "Tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society".^[16] Menocal's 2003 book, The Ornament of the World, argues that the Jewish dhimmis living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were still better off than in other parts of Christian Europe. Jews from other parts of Europe made their way to al-Andalus, where they were tolerated - as were Christians of sects regarded as heretical by various European Christian states.

The work of Menocal and other such scholars has been the subject of criticism from commentators such as Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom, who regard Menocal's description of al-Andalus as a myth that ignores the realities of dhimmi life. These critics cite Muslim restrictions on dhimmis: they could not build new churches or synagogues or repair old ones, they had to practice their faiths quietly and privately, and they were not to proselytize. Dhimmis were required to wear an identifying belt called the zunnar, which was easily recognized because of its color - blue for Christians and yellow for Jews. Dhimmis were also prohibited from employing Muslims and had to pay a poll tax (jizya). They were also forbidden from holding public office. According to David Wasserstein of Tel Aviv University, however,

In economic life there were scarcely any real restrictions on Jews qua Jews or dhimmis. In religious life real constraints on Jewish practice were minimal and relatively unimportant... In literary activity, there was scarcely any discrimination against Jews, and indeed it may be argued, with great force, that, at least in literary terms, the Jewish encounter with Arab Islam was highly productive, and especially so in al-Andalus.^[17]

Others point out that there were many examples of dhimmis holding state offices, despite the technical prohibition. One notable Andalusian example among these is that of Hasdai ibn Shaprut (915-990), a prominent Jew who controlled the customs (among other duties) in Córdoba, but other Jews served as Viziers (e.g. Samuel Hanagid) or court physicians. Proponents argue that dhimmis enjoyed considerable autonomy within the Islamic state; in matters of family law and religious practice, they were governed by their own authorities. These authorities collected the poll tax and mediated between the state and the dhimmi community. Within their allotted bounds, the dhimmis had a certain freedom, yet were always second-class citizens when compared to Muslims.

However, it is widely stated that non-Muslims were treated with more tolerance in Islamic Iberia than were non-Catholic Christians (e.g. Arians), Jews or Muslims elsewhere in Western Europe at the time.

[edit] Rise and fall of tolerance

Image of a Jewish cantor reading the Passover story in al-Andalus, from a 14th century Spanish Haggadah.

The Caliphate treated non-Muslims differently at different times. The longest period of tolerance began after 912, with the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his son, Al-Hakam II where the Jews of Al-Andalus prospered, devoting themselves to the service of the Caliphate of Cordoba, to the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry, especially to trading in silk and slaves, in this way promoting the prosperity of the country. Southern Iberia became an asylum for the oppressed Jews of other countries.^{[citation needed]}

Christians, braced by the example of their co-religionists across the borders of al-Andalus, sometimes asserted the claims of Christianity and knowingly courted martyrdom, even during these tolerant periods. For example, forty-eight Christians of Córdoba were decapitated for religious offences against Islam. They became known as the Martyrs of Córdoba. Muslim sources consider that many Christians deliberately courted martyrdom by publicly declaiming against Islam inside mosques, insulting Muhammad and making declarations of Christian religious beliefs considered blasphemous in Islam.^{[citation needed]} These deaths played out, not in a single spasm of religious unrest, but over an extended period of time; dissenters were fully aware of the fates of their predecessors and chose to protest against Islamic rule.^[18]

With the death of al-Hakam III in 976, the situation worsened for non-Muslims in general. The first major persecution occurred on December 30, 1066 when the Jews were expelled from Granada and fifteen hundred families were killed when they did not leave. Starting in 1090 with the invasion of the Almoravids, the situation worsened further.^{[citation needed]} Even under the Almoravids, however, it is believed that most Jews prospered.^{[citation needed]}

During these successive waves of violence against non-Muslims, many Jewish and even Muslim scholars left the Muslim-controlled portion of Iberia for the then-still relatively tolerant city of Toledo, which had been reconquered in 1085 by Christian forces. Some Jews joined the armies of the Christians (about 40,000), while others joined the Almoravids in the fight against Alfonso VI of Castile.

[edit] Culture

C.W. Previte-Orton writes in his Cambridge medieval history,^[19]

"The brilliant Saracenic civilization of Moslem Spain rendered the Moors, even during their declines under the Reyes de Taifas, the most cultured people of the West."

Many tribes, religions and races co-existed in Andalus, each contributing to the intellectual prosperity of Andalusia. Literacy in Islamic Iberia was far more widespread than any other country of the West.^[20]

[edit] Philosophy

The intellectual history of al-Andalus is distinguished by the output of its Islamic (and indeed Jewish) theologians.

From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as intellectual rivals to the Abbasids, and for Córdoba to have libraries and educational institutions to rival Baghdad's. Although there was a clear rivalry between the two powers, freedom to travel between the two Caliphates was allowed, which helped spread new ideas and innovations over time.

The historian Said Al-Andalusi wrote that Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III had collected libraries of books and granted patronage to scholars of medicine and "ancient sciences". Later, al-Mustansir (Al-Hakam II) went yet further, building a university and libraries in Córdoba. Córdoba became one of the world's leading centres of medicine and philosophical debate.

However, when Al-Hakam's son Hisham II took over, real power was ceded to the hajib, al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir. Al-Mansur was a distinctly religious man and disapproved of the sciences of astronomy, logic and especially astrology, so much so that many books on these subjects, which had been preserved and collected at great expense by Al-Hakam II, were burned publicly. However, with Al-Mansur's death in 1002 interest in philosophy revived. Numerous scholars emerged, including Abu Uthman Ibn Fathun, whose masterwork was the philosophical treatise "Tree of Wisdom". An outstanding scholar in astronomy and astrology was Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (died 1008), an intrepid traveller who journeyed all over the Islamic world and beyond, and who kept in touch with the Brethren of Purity. Indeed, it is said to have been he who brought the 51 "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity" to al-Andalus and who added the compendium to this work, although it is quite possible that it was added later by another scholar of the name al-Majriti. Another book attributed to al-Majriti is the Ghayat al-Hakim "The Aim of the Sage", a book which explored a synthesis of Platonism with Hermetic philosophy. Its use of incantations led the book to be widely dismissed in later years, although the Sufi communities kept studies of it.

A prominent follower of al-Majriti was the philosopher and geometer Abu al-Hakam al-Kirmani. A follower of his in turn was the great Abu Bakr Ibn al-Sayigh, usually known in the Arab world as Ibn Bajjah, "Avempace".

[edit] Jewish philosophy and culture

With the relative tolerance of al-Andalus and the decline of the previous center of Jewish thought in Babylonia, al-Andalus became the center of Jewish intellectual endeavors. Poets and commentators like Judah Halevi (1086-1145) and Dunash ben Labrat (920-990) contributed to the cultural life of al-Andalus, but the area was even more important to the development of Jewish philosophy. A stream of Jewish philosophers, cross-fertilizing with Muslim philosophers, (see joint Jewish and Islamic philosophies) culminated in the most important Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, Maimonides (1135-1205), though he did not actually do any of his work in al-Andalus, as, when he was 13, his family fled persecution by the Almohads.

[edit] See also

• History of Spain
• History of Portugal
• Islam in Spain
• Al'Garb Al'Andalus
• Andalusia
• Caliphate of Córdoba
• Dhimmi
• Golden Age of Islam
• Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula
• History of Islam
• Reconquista
• Silves
• Timeline of the Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula
• Umayyad dynasty
• Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
• Jews and Judaism in Africa

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Bibliography

• Al-Djazairi, S.E. (2005). The Hidden Debt to Islamic Civilisation. Bayt Al-Hikma Press. ISBN 0-9551156-1-2
• Bossong, Georg. 2002. Der Name Al-Andalus: Neue Überlegungen zu einem alten Problem. In David Restle and Dietmar Zaefferer, eds, Sounds and systems: studies in structure and change. A festschrift for Theo Vennemann. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 149-164. (In German) Also available online: see External Links below.
• Cohen, Mark (1995). Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01082-X
• Collins, Roger (1989). The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–797, Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19405-3
• Halm, Heinz. 1989. Al-Andalus und Gothica Sors. Der Islam 66:252-263.
• Hamilton, Michelle M., Sarah J. Portnoy, and David A. Wacks, eds. Wine, Women, and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature in Medieval Iberia. Newark, Del.: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2004.
• Kennedy, Hugh (1996).Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus, Longman. ISBN 0-582-49515-6
• Kraemer, Joel (Jul, 1997). Comparing Crescent and Cross. The Journal of Religion, 77(3), pp. 449-454. (Book review)
• Lafuente y Alcántara, Emilio, translator. 1867. Ajbar Machmua (colección de tradiciones): crónica anónima del siglo XI / dada a luz por primera vez, traducida y anotada por Emilio Lafuente y Alcántara. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia y Geografía. In Spanish and Arabic. Also available in the public domain online, see External Links.
• Luscombe, David et al. (Eds.). (2004). The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, c.1024-c.1198, Part 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-41411-3
• Marín, Manuela et al. (Eds.). (1998). The Formation of Al-Andalus: History and Society. Ashgate. ISBN 0-86078-708-7
• Menocal, Maria Rosa (2002). Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Back Bay Books. ISBN 0-316-16871-8
• Monroe, James T. Hispano-Arabic Poetry: A Student Anthology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.
• Netanyahu, Benzion (1995). The Origins Of The Inquisition In Fifteenth Century Spain. Random House, Inc. ISBN 0-679-41065-1
• Omaar, Rageh, An Islamic History of Europe. video documentary , BBC Four: August 2005.
• Sanchez-Albornoz, Claudio (1974) El Islam de España y el Occidente. Madrid.
• Wasserstein, David J. (1995). Jewish élites in Al-Andalus. In Daniel Frank (Ed.). The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society and Identity. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10404-6

[edit] Films

• Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain (Unity Productions Foundation documentary)

[edit] External links

• Paper by Georg Bossong evaluating proposals for the etymology of "al-Andalus". In German.
• Photocopy of the Ajbar Machmu'a, translated by Lafuente 1867
• The routes of al-Andalus (from the unesco web site)
• Muslim contributions to Andalus
• history and influences of Andalusian music
• THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE, A History of Spain and Portugal, Volume 1, Stanley G. Payne, Chapter Two: Al-Andalus[1]