The Conquest of Al-Andalus (711 - 732)
The Conquest of Al-Andalus (711 - 732)
The Conquest of Al-Andalus (711 - 732)
Al-Andalus Follow
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Photos and Documents
A project to document the events, well-known figures, the government
and society, and the accomplishments in literature, science and
mathematics, and philosophy of the nation in the parts of the Iberian
Peninsula and Septimania ruled by Muslims from the conquest in 711 Project Tags
to 1492. The term al-Andalus comes from "land of the Vandals."
Al-Andalus Moorish Moors
While the young Hisham II Al-Mu'ayyad became Caliph in name upon the death of his father, al-Hakam al-
Mustansir, on 1 October 976 but the effective ruler who arose from a power struggle to rule from 981 until his
death in 1022 was al-Mansur.
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Seville (Sevilla). The Abbadi (Arabic, )ﺑﻧو ﻋﺑﺎدcomprised an Arab Muslim Dynasty which arose in Al-Andalus on
the downfall of the Caliphate of Cordoba (756–1031). Abbadid rule lasted from about 1023 until 1091. The
'Abbadi family (the 'Abbadids) replaced previously powerful local Arab patrician families, the Banu l-Hajjaj and
Banu Khaldun, the latter being the family of Ibn Khaldun.
Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, the first Abbadid Hijab of Sevilla
Abu Amr al Mutadid the son of Abu al-Qasim and second Abbadid Hijab of Sevilla
Muhammad ibn 'Abbad al Mu'tamid who was known as the poet-king of Seville, the son of al-Mutadid
and the last Abbadid Hajib.
Architecture
Maslama al-Majriti (d. 1007 CE) was a mathematician and astronomer who translated Ptolemy’s Almagest, and
corrected and added to al-Khwarizmi’s astronomical tables. Al-Majriti also used advanced techniques of
surveying using triangulation.
Al-Zarqali, or Arzachel in Latin, was a mathematician and astronomer who worked in Córdoba during the 11th
century. He was skilled at making instruments for the study of astronomy, and built a famous water clock that
could tell the hours of the day and night, as well as the days of the lunar month. Al-Zarqali contributed to the
famous Toledan Tables of astronomical data, and published an almanac that correlated the days of the month on
different calendars such as the Coptic, Roman, lunar and Persian, gave the positions of the planets, and
predicted solar and lunar eclipses. He created tables of latitude and longitude to aid navigation and cartography.
Another prominent Andalusian mathematician and astronomer in Seville was al-Bitruji (d. 1204 CE), known in
Europe as Alpetragius. He developed a theory of the movement of stars described in The Book of Form. Ibn
Bagunis of Toledo was a mathematician renowned for his work in geometry. Abraham bar Hiyya was a Jewish
mathematician who assisted Plato of Tivoli with translation of important mathematical and astronomical works,
including his own Liber Embadorum, in 1145 CE. Abu al-Hakam al-Kirmani was a prominent 12th century scholar
of Al-Andalus, a scholar of geometry and logic.
No branch of mathematics is more visible in Muslim culture than geometry. Geometric design reached heights of
skill and beauty that was applied to nearly every art form, from textiles to illustration to architectural decoration.
Tessellated, or complex, overall patterns were used in Andalusian architecture to cover walls, ceilings, floors and
arches. Some scholars of Islamic arts believe that these designs were much more than artisans’ work -- they
consciously expressed the mathematical knowledge of the culture that produced them.
Philosophy
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Husayn Ibn al-Kattani (951–1029), sometimes nicknamed "al-
Mutatabbib" (the physician), was a well known Moorish scholar, philosopher, physician, astrologer, man of
letters, and poet.
Born in Córdoba in what is now Spain, he wrote books on logic, inference and deduction. For some time he was
the personal physician of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, sultan of al-Andalus and wrote The Treatment of Dangerous
Diseases Appearing Superficially on the Body (Mualajat al-amrad al-khatirah al-badiyah ala al-badan
min kharij). It was cited by later writers, but thought to be now lost, until a copy of it was discovered among the
manuscripts now at the National Library of Medicine. Much of the treatise is on the subject of poisonous bites.
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Al-Kattani also wrote an anthology of Andalusian poetry, and became especially famous by his book on
metaphor in Andalusian poetry.
Perhaps the greatest world traveler of his time was Ibn Battutah, a native of North Africa who explored the Far
East, India, and the region of the Niger in Africa (see Ibn Battutah ). In all, it is estimated that he traveled about
75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) and visited nearly every Muslim country. His Rihlah (Travels), written in about
1353, is filled with information about the cultural state of the Muslim world of his time.
The Tunisian Ibn Khaldun was one of the great social scientists of all time. His masterpiece, The Muqaddimah
(Introduction), is filled with brilliant observations on the writing of history, economics, politics, and education. It
has long been regarded as one of the finest philosophies of history ever written.
LIterature
Poetry flourished exuberantly in 11th century al-Andalus. Verse was the common expression of the day, an
arabesque of words and meaning the language of love, diplomacy and satire. Andalusians loved poetry and
virtually everyone composed it. No poet so embodied the spirit of this brilliant poetical age as did al-Mu'tamid, the
poet-king of Seville, who lived from 1040 to 1095. Al-Mu'tamid is considered one of the most outstanding
Andalusian poets of his age. "He left," wrote literary historian Ibn Bassam, "some pieces of verse as beautiful as
the bud when it opens to disclose the flower."
A number of musical instruments used in classical music, particularly in Spanish music, are believed to have
been derived from Arabic musical instruments used in Al-Andalus: the lute was derived from the al'ud, the rebec
(ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-
buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-
tinbal,[91] the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind
instruments,[92] the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),[93] the shawm and dulzaina from the
reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,[94] the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,[95] the harp
and zither from the qanun,[citation needed] canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,[96] and the theorbo
from the tarab.[97] It is also commonly acknowledged by flamenco performers that the vocal, instrumental, and
dance elements of modern flamenco were greatly influenced by the Arab performing arts.
Medlands points out that the Banu Qasi family rose to considerable prominence during the 9th and early 10th
centuries in north-western Spain in the area adjacent to the Carolingian "March" of Spain. The names "Fortun"
and "Lubb" are significant names of this family, and the former is recorded frequently among Navarrese nobility
and the latter presumably was transformed into the equally common "Lope" and its Basque equivalent "Ochoa".
Linguistic Heritage
There are some tricks to finding the words of Arabic origin in Spanish (and there are many such words). Guad
associated with a Spanish name for a body of water derives from the word for "river" or Wadi in Arabic. Words
that begin with "al" which is the definite article ("the") in Arabic are generally of Arabic origin. Here is an article
about the Arabic influence on Spanish.
Sources
1. Kennedy, Hugh, Muslim Spain and Portugal. Longman, 1998.
2. Reilly, Bernard F., The Medieval Spains. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
3. Medieval Lands: Moorish Spain, Charles Cawley.
4. website on Islamic Spain, Mathematics page
5. The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Studien Und Texte Zur Geistesgeschichte Des Mittelalters,), Salma Khadra
Jayyusi, Brill Academic Publishers, 2000.
6. online article about The Poet-King of Seville
7. online article about Ishbiliyah: Islamic Seville
============
The Spanish Golden Age (Spanish: Siglo de Oro, Golden Century) period of flourishing in arts and literature in
Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty.
El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual
century. It begins no earlier than 1492, with the end of the Reconquista (Reconquest), the sea voyages of
Christopher Columbus to the New World, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's Gramática de la lengua
castellana (Grammar of the Castilian Language). Politically, it ends no later than 1659, with the Treaty of the
Pyrenees, ratified between France and Habsburg Spain. The last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderon de
la Barca, died in 1681, and his death usually is considered the end of El Siglo de Oro in the arts and literature.
The Habsburgs, both in Spain and Austria, were great patrons of art in their countries. El Escorial, the great royal
monastery built by King Philip II of Spain, invited the attention of some of Europe's greatest architects and
painters.
Diego Velázquez, regarded as one of the most influential painters of European history and a greatly respected
artist in his own time, cultivated a relationship with King Philip IV and his chief minister, the Count-Duke of
Olivares, leaving us several portraits that demonstrate his style and skill.
El Greco, another respected artist from the period, infused Spanish art with the styles of the Italian renaissance
and helped create a uniquely Spanish style of painting. Some of Spain's greatest music is regarded as having
been written in the period.
Such composers as Tomás Luis de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero, Luis de Milán and Alonso Lobo helped to shape
Renaissance music and the styles of counterpoint and polychoral music, and their influence lasted far into the
Baroque period which resulted in a revolution of music.
Spanish literature blossomed as well, most famously demonstrated in the work of Miguel de Cervantes, the
author of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Spain's most prolific playwright, Lope de Vega, wrote possibly as many as one thousand plays during his
lifetime, of which over four hundred survive to the present day.
1. Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of
Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Little, Brown, 2002)
2. Chris Lowney, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment (Free Press, 2005)
3. David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (Norton, 2009)
4. Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient
Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages (Harcourt, 2003)
6. The Song of the Cid (Translated by Burton Raffel, Introduction by Maria Rosa Menocal, Penguin Books, 2009)
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7. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin and Michael Sells, editors, The Cambridge History of Arabic
Literature: The Literature of Al-Andalus (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
8. Peter Cole, translator and editor, The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain
950-1492 (Princeton University Press, 2007)
9. Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (Doubleday, 2008)
10. Jose Faur, In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity (State University of New
York Press, 1992)
Sephardic pedigrees
See also List of Jewish surnames, Spanish and Portuguese names, List of Sephardic
People, List of Iberian Jews
Abravanel
Abulafia
Camondo
Carabajal
De Castro
Harari
Maimon
Paredes
Silva
Islamic Spain
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Isaac Alfasi
Joseph ibn Migash
Judah al-Bargeloni
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Abraham ibn Ezra
Moses ibn Ezra
Judah ha-Levi
Bahya ibn Paquda
הרמב״םMaimonides (1138-1204)
Christian Spain
Nahmanides
Solomon ben Adret
Yom Tob of Seville (the Ritba)
Nissim of Gerona
Asher ben Jehiel (Ashkenazi by birth, became Chief Rabbi of Toledo)
Jacob ben Asher
Moses de Leon
David Abudirham
Isaac Campanton
Isaac Aboab
After the expulsion
David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra
Jacob Berab
Levi ibn Ḥabib
Joseph Caro
Bezalel Ashkenazi
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero
Ḥayim Vital
Moses Alshech
Solomon Nissim Algazi
Yaakov Culi
Hayim Palaggi
Slavery in Al-Andalus
Saqaliba - Slavic slaves in Islamic territories
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