Concept
Al-Andalus
Overview
Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس, romanised: al-ʾAndalus) refers to the various Muslim ruled territories on the Iberian Peninsula that existed between 711 and 1492. At its height, it covered the entirety of Spain and Portugal, as well as parts of southern France. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula as well as Septimania under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed through a series of conquests that Western historiography has traditionally characterised as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.
As a political domain, it successively constituted a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, initiated by the Caliph al-Walid I (711–750); the Emirate of Córdoba (c. 750–929); the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031); the first taifa kingdoms (1009–1110); the Almoravid Empire (1085–1145); the second taifa period (1140–1203); the Almohad Caliphate (1147–1238); the third taifa period (1232–1287); and ultimately the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238–1492). Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, the city of Córdoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres of the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Jabir ibn Aflah), astronomy (al-Zarqali), surgery (al-Zahrawi), pharmacology (Ibn Zuhr), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abu'l-Khayr al-Ishbili). Al-Andalus became a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.
For much of its history, al-Andalus existed in conflict with Christian kingdoms to the north. After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba by 1031, al-Andalus was fragmented into taifa states and principalities, some of which (such as the Taifa of Toledo, the Taifa of Zaragoza, the Taifa of Seville and the Taifa of Badajoz) reached considerable territorial extent. After the Christian capture of Toledo in 1085, the Almoravid empire intervened and repelled attacks on the region, then brought al-Andalus under direct Almoravid rule. For the next century and a half, al-Andalus became a province of the Muslim empires of the Almoravids and their successors, the Almohads, both based in Marrakesh.
Ultimately, the northern Christian kingdoms overpowered the Muslim states to the south. In the 13th century, most of the south quickly fell under Christian rule, with Gharb al-Andalus, the Guadalquivir Valley and Eastern al-Andalus falling to Portuguese, Castilian, and Aragonese conquests. This left the Emirate of Granada as the remaining Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula, which became a tributary state of the Crown of Castile, before surrendering in 1492 to the Catholic Monarchs.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In this particular their governments are also alike: the ephori have the same power with those of Crete, who are called _kosmoi_; with this difference only, that the number of the one is five, of the other ten. The senators are the same as those whom the Cretans call the council. There was formerly also a kingly power in Crete; but it was afterwards dissolved, and the command of their armies was given to the…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Al-Andalus is; the author is tied to Al-Andalus in the knowledge graph.
Whenever the useful bees kill any of them, they endeavour to do so outside of the hive; and if any of them die in the hive, they carry them out. Those which are called thieves injure their own combs, and if they can do it in secret, they will enter those of other bees, but if discovered they are killed. It is, however, difficult to enter unperceived, for there are guards placed at each entrance; and if one contrives…
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
States what Al-Andalus is; the author is tied to Al-Andalus in the knowledge graph.
114 124. When therefore Dareios came to the desert region, he ceased from his course and halted his army upon the river Oaros. Having so done he began to build eight large fortifications at equal distances from one another, that is to say about sixty furlongs, of which the ruins still existed down to my time; and while he was occupied in this,…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
States what Al-Andalus is.
Philosophers who discussed Al-Andalus
- Bahya ibn Paquda
- Ibn Hazm
- Moses ibn Ezra
- Maimonides
- Ibn Arabi
- Thomas Aquinas
- Renaissance
- Roger Bacon
- Jews
- Judah Halevi
- Muhammad Iqbal
- Averroes
- Solomon ibn Gabirol
- Yehuda Alharizi
- Al-Ma'arri
- Isaac ibn Ghiyyat
Related ideas
- Narbonne
- Fall of Constantinople
- De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
- Ibn Tufayl
- Galen
- Princeton University Press
- Galicia (Spain)
- Historiography
- Hebrew language
- Language contact
- Philosophy
- The Canon of Medicine
- Ibn Hazm
- Almagest
- Book burning
- Almoravid dynasty
- Byzantine Empire
- Latin
- Lombards
- Medication
- Christians
- Málaga
- Mathematics
- Middle Ages
Place in the tradition
Part of Averroism.