(Redirected from Al Andalus)
'Al-Andalus' (
Arabic: الأندلس ''al-andalus'') was the Arabic name given to those parts of the
Iberian Peninsula governed by
Muslims, or '
Moors', at various times in the period between 711 and 1492.
[1] It refers to the
Umayyad Caliphate province (
711-
750),
Emirate of Córdoba (c.
750-
929) and
Caliphate of Córdoba (
929-
1031) and its "''
taifa''" ("successor") kingdoms.
As the
Iberian Peninsula was eventually regained by
Christians re-expanding southward in the 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 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.
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.
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 . 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 1980s, 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.
History
:''see also
Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula''
Conquest and early years
The Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula, who ruled between 711 and 1492, are commonly known as the
Moors. The 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.
The Age of the Caliphs
In France, the Muslims were defeated at the
Battle of Tours by
Charles Martel in
732 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, This went on until
975.
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, they constituted mainly
Arabs and
Berbers of
North Africa. There was also, by 770, 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. After
Abd-ar-Rahman III proclaimed himself caliph of the West in 929 his capital, Córdoba, became the largest and probably the most cultured city in Europe.
[12]
Prior to the arrival of the
Moors, the
Visigothic rivals of King
Roderic had gathered along with
Jews and
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).
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.
[13]
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.
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 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 Europe. Among European cities, Córdoba under the Caliphate, with a population of perhaps 500,000, eventually overtook
Constantinople as the largest and most prosperous city in Europe.
[Tertius Chandler. ''Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census'' (1987), St. David's University Press (etext.org). ISBN 0-88946-207-0.] Within the Islamic world, Córdoba was one of the leading cultural centres. The work of its most important philosophers and scientists (notably
Abulcasis and
Averroes) had a major influence on the intellectual life of medieval 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.
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.
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.
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.
Society
The society of Al-Andalus was made up of three main groups: Christians, Muslims 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 adopted many Arabic customs, art and words, while still maintaining their Christian rituals and their own Latin-derived languages. Each of these communities inhabited a separate part of the cities.
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.
[14]
Non-Muslims under the Caliphate
''See also:
Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula''
Treatment of non-Muslims
The treatment of non-Muslims in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing parallels to the coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. It has been argued that Jews (and other religious minorities) were treated significantly better in Muslim-controlled Iberia than in Christian western Europe, living in a unique "golden age" of tolerance, respect and harmony. Though ''al-Andalus'' was a key center of Jewish life during the early
Middle Ages, producing important scholars and one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities, there is no clear scholarly consensus over whether the relationship between Jews and Muslims was truly a paragon of interfaith relations, or whether it was simply similar to the treatment Jews received elsewhere at the same time.
María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at
Yale University, has argued that "Tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society".
[15] 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.
Bernard Lewis takes issue with this view, arguing its modern use is ahistorical and apologetic:
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.[16]
All and all, it appears, however, that Jews living under Muslim rule in Al-Andaluz did live significantly better than Jews living in Christian lands, although this changed once the fundamentalist
Almoravids Muslims of Western Africa took control of the penninsula, and persecution of
dhimmi Jews and Christians became every bit as bad as that under Christian rule.
Rise and fall of Muslim power
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.
[17][18]
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. 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.
[19]
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. Under the
Almoravids and the
Almohads there may have been intermittent persecution of Jews,
[20] but sources are extremely scarce and do not give a clear picture, though the situation appears to have deteriorated after 1160.
[21]
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.
The first pogrom in Al-Andalus took place in
1066, and although 3,000 Jews were killed in the violence no other pogrom followed.
[22]
The
Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories by
1147,
[Islamic world. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 2, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.] far surpassed the them in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the ''dhimmis'' harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews emigrated.
[Frank and Leaman, 2003, p. 137-138.] Some, such as the family of
Maimonides, fled south and east to more tolerant Muslim lands,
[ while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[23][24] However, the Almohads also encouraged the arts and letters, especially the ''falsafah'' movement that included Ibn Tufail, Ibn al-Arabi and Averroes.]
Culture
C.W. Previte-Orton writes in his Cambridge medieval history,[25]
"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 al-Andalus, each contributing to the intellectual prosperity of Andalusia. Literacy in Islamic Iberia was far more widespread than any other country of the West.[26]
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.
In the 10th century, the city of Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had up to 600,000 books. In comparison, the largest library in Christian Europe at the time had no more than 400 manuscripts, while the University of Paris library still had only 2,000 books later in the 14th century. The libraries, copyists, booksellers, paper makers and colleges across al-Andalus are said to have published as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations each year.[27] In comparison, modern Spain publishes 46,330 books per year on average (according to figures from 1996).[28]
Philosophy
Andalusian Islamic philosophy
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".
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.
Medicine
Muslim physicians from al-Andalus contributed significantly to the field of medicine, including the subjects of anatomy and physiology. Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis), regarded as the "father of modern surgery",[29] contributed greatly to the discipline of medical surgery with his ''Kitab al-Tasrif'' ("''Book of Concessions''"), a 30-volume medical encyclopedia which was later translated to Latin and used in European and Muslim medical schools for centuries.
See also
Footnotes
1. "Andalus, al-" ''Oxford Dictionary of Islam''. John L. Esposito, Ed. Oxford University Press. 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 12 June, 2006.
2. Bossong 2002[online]:1
3. Bossong 2002
4. The village of Andaluz (41°31', -2°49') lies at the foot of Andaluz Mountain on the Duero River in the province of Soria, and within 10 km of it are the villages of Torreandaluz and Centenera de Andaluz. A brook named Andaluz is said to flow in the province of Guadalajara out of the Cueva de la Hoz (41°00', -2°18'). Bossong[online]:10-11, but the coordinates given are according to Google Maps and differ slightly from those in Bossong.
5. Dozy, Reinhart P. 1881. Recherches sur l'histoire et la littérature des Arabes d'Espagne pendant le Moyen-Age.
6. Bossong 2002[online]:2
7. Vallvé Bermejo, Joaquín. 1986. The Territorial Divisions of Muslim Spain. Madrid: CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas).
8. Bossong[online]:3. The document in question is the Akhbar Majmu'a fi fath al-Andalus, "Collection of traditions on the conquest of al-Andalus". It was published in Spanish translation in 1867 by Emilio Lafuente y Alcántara. Its subtitle indicates it dates from the 11th c., but several historians today say the 10th c. instead, during the rule of caliph 'Abd al-Rahman III.
9. Punta de Tarifa
10. Halm 1989
11. Compare the modern Spanish word for raffle, 'sorteo'.
12. Córdoba. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 2, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
13. Halm 1989:254
14. Wasserstein, 1995, p. 101.
15. The Ornament of the World by María Rosa Menocal, Accessed, 12 June, 2006.
16. In Chapter 1 on page 4 of his book ''The Jews in Islam''.
17. Stavans, 2003, p. 10.
18. Kraemer, 2005, pp. 10-13.
19. Orthodox Europe: St Eulogius and the Blessing of Cordoba, Accessed 12 June, 2006.
20. O'Callaghan, 1975, p. 286.
21. Roth, 1994, pp. 113-116.
22. Harzig, Hoerder & Shubert, 2003, p. 42.
23. Sephardim
24. Kraemer, 2005, pp. 16-17.
25. Previte-Orton (1971), vol. 1, pg. 376
26. Previte-Orton (1971), vol. 1, pg. 377
27. Dato' Dzulkifli Abd Razak, Quest for knowledge, ''New Sunday Times'', 3 July 2005.
28. UNESCO. Europe, Book production: number of titles by UDC classes, UNESCO Institute of Statistics.
29. A. Martin-Araguz, C. Bustamante-Martinez, Ajo V. Fernandez-Armayor, J. M. Moreno-Martinez (2002). "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its influence on medieval scholastic medicine", ''Revista de neurología'' '34' (9), p. 877-892.
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
★ Frank, Daniel H. and Leaman, Oliver (2003). ''The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy''. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521655749
★ 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.
★ Harzig, Christiane, Hoerder, Dirk and Shubert, Adrian (2003). ''The Historical Practice in Diversity''. Berghahn Books. ISBN 1571813772
★ 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)
★ Kraemer, Joel (2005). Moses Maimonides: An Intellectual Portrait. In Kenneth Seeskin (Ed.). ''The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides''. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521819741
★ 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
★ O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (1975). ''A History of Medieval Spain''. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801492645
★ Omaar, Rageh, ''An Islamic History of Europe''. video documentary , BBC Four: August 2005.
★ Reilly, Bernard F. (1993). ''The Medieval Spains''. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521397413
★ Roth, Norman (1994). ''Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict''. Brill. ISBN 9004061312
★ Sanchez-Albornoz, Claudio (1974) ''El Islam de España y el Occidente''. Madrid.
★ Stavans, Ilan (2003). ''The Scroll and the Cross: 1,000 Years of Jewish-Hispanic Literature''. London: Routledge. ISBN 041592930X
★ 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
Films
★ Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain (Unity Productions Foundation documentary)
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
★ Al-Andalus Chronology and Photos
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