Caliphs and Kings the Art and Influence of Islamic Spain

Introduction

Islamic Spain (711-1492)

The Courtroom of the Lions, Alhambra, Espana ©

Islamic Spain was a multi-cultural mix of the people of three dandy monotheistic religions: Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Although Christians and Jews lived under restrictions, for much of the time the three groups managed to become along together, and to some extent, to benefit from the presence of each other.

It brought a degree of civilization to Europe that matched the heights of the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance.

Outline

In 711 Muslim forces invaded and in seven years conquered the Iberian peninsula.

Information technology became one of the great Muslim civilisations; reaching its summit with the Umayyad caliphate of Cordovain the 10th century.

Muslim rule declined after that and ended in 1492 when Granada was conquered.

The heartland of Muslim rule was Southern Espana or Andulusia.

Periods

Muslim Spain was non a single period, just a succession of different rules.

• The Dependent Emirate (711-756)
• The Independent Emirate (756-929)
• The Caliphate (929-1031)
• The Almoravid Era (1031-1130)
• Reject (1130-1492)

Audio journey

The Alhambra Palace, the finest surviving palace of Muslim Spain, is the beginning of a historical journey in this audio feature, In the Footsteps of Muhammad: Granada.

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Conquest

The conquest

The traditional story is that in the year 711, an oppressed Christian main, Julian, went to Musa ibn Nusair, the governor of N Africa, with a plea for aid against the tyrannical Visigoth ruler of Spain, Roderick.

Musa responded by sending the young general Tariq bin Ziyad with an regular army of 7000 troops. The proper name Gibraltar is derived from Jabal At-Tariq which is Arabic for 'Rock of Tariq' named after the place where the Muslim ground forces landed.

The story of the appeal for help is not universally accepted. At that place is no dubiety that Tariq invaded Espana, but the reason for it may have more to exercise with the Muslim drive to enlarge their territory.

The Muslim army defeated the Visigoth regular army easily, and Roderick was killed in battle.

After the offset victory, the Muslims conquered most of Spain and Portugal with picayune difficulty, and in fact with petty opposition. By 720 Spain was largely nether Muslim (or Moorish, every bit it was chosen) control.

Reasons

One reason for the rapid Muslim success was the generous surrender terms that they offered the people, which contrasted with the harsh atmospheric condition imposed by the previous Visigoth rulers.

The ruling Islamic forces were made up of dissimilar nationalities, and many of the forces were converts with uncertain motivation, so the institution of a coherent Muslim state was non easy.

Andalusia

The heartland of Muslim dominion was Southern Kingdom of spain or Andulusia. The name Andalusia comes from the term Al-Andalus used past the Arabs, derived from the Vandals who had been settled in the region.

A Gilt Age

Stability

Stability in Muslim Spain came with the establishment of the Andalusian Umayyad dynasty, which lasted from 756 to 1031.

The credit goes to Amir Abd al-Rahman, who founded the Emirate of Cordoba, and was able to get the various dissimilar Muslim groups who had conquered Spain to pull together in ruling information technology.

The Gilded Age

The Muslim flow in Kingdom of spain is often described every bit a 'golden age' of learning where libraries, colleges, public baths were established and literature, poetry and compages flourished. Both Muslims and non-Muslims fabricated major contributions to this flowering of culture.

A Gilt Age of religious tolerance?

Islamic Kingdom of spain is sometimes described as a 'golden age' of religious and ethnic tolerance and interfaith harmony between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Some historians believe this idea of a gilded historic period is false and might lead modern readers to believe, wrongly, that Muslim Spain was tolerant past the standards of 21st century Britain.

The true position is more complicated. The distinguished historian Bernard Lewis wrote that the status of non-Muslims in Islamic Espana was a sort of second-grade citizenship simply he went on to say:

Second-grade citizenship, though second class, is a kind of citizenship. It involves some rights, though non all, and is surely amend than no rights at all...

...A recognized condition, albeit one of inferiority to the dominant grouping, which is established by constabulary, recognized by tradition, and confirmed by popular assent, is non to be despised.

Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1984

Life for not-Muslims in Islamic Spain

Jews and Christians did retain some freedom nether Muslim rule, providing they obeyed certain rules. Although these rules would now exist considered completely unacceptable, they were non much of a burden by the standards of the time, and in many ways the non-Muslims of Islamic Spain (at to the lowest degree before 1050) were treated better than conquered peoples might take expected during that menses of history.

• they were not forced to live in ghettoes or other special locations
• they were not slaves
• they were non prevented from post-obit their religion
• they were not forced to convert or die under Muslim dominion
• they were not banned from whatever particular ways of earning a living; they oft took on jobs shunned by Muslims;
  • these included unpleasant work such as tanning and butchery
  • only also pleasant jobs such as banking and dealing in gold and silver
• they could work in the civil service of the Islamic rulers
• Jews and Christians were able to contribute to society and culture

The culling view to the Golden Age of Tolerance is that Jews and Christians were severely restricted in Muslim Spain, by being forced to live in a state of 'dhimmitude'. (A dhimmi is a non-Muslim living in an Islamic state who is non a slave, but does non have the same rights as a Muslim living in the aforementioned state.)

In Islamic Spain, Jews and Christians were tolerated if they:

• acknowledged Islamic superiority
• accepted Islamic ability
• paid a tax called Jizya to the Muslim rulers and sometimes paid college rates of other taxes
• avoided blasphemy
• did not try to convert Muslims
• complied with the rules laid downwards by the authorities. These included:
  • restrictions on clothing and the need to wear a special badge
  • restrictions on building synagogues and churches
  • not allowed to carry weapons
  • could not receive an inheritance from a Muslim
  • could non bequeath anything to a Muslim
  • could not own a Muslim slave
  • a dhimmi human being could not marry a Muslim woman (but the reverse was acceptable)
  • a dhimmi could not requite evidence in an Islamic court
  • dhimmis would get lower compensation than Muslims for the same injury

At times there were restrictions on practicing i'southward faith likewise manifestly. Bell-ringing or chanting too loudly were frowned on and public processions were restricted.

Many Christians in Kingdom of spain assimilated parts of the Muslim civilization. Some learned Arabic, some adopted the same clothes equally their rulers (some Christian women even started wearing the veil); some took Arabic names. Christians who did this were known as Mozarabs.

The Muslim rulers didn't requite their non-Muslim subjects equal status; equally Bat Ye'or has stated, the non-Muslims came definitely at the bottom of society.

Order was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the meridian of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized equally equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the calibration came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude, 2002

The Muslims did not explicitly hate or persecute the non-Muslims. As Bernard Lewis puts information technology:

in contrast to Christian anti-Semitism, the Muslim mental attitude toward non-Muslims is ane non of hate or fear or envy but simply of contempt

Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1984

An example of this antipathy is found in this 12th century ruling:

A Muslim must non massage a Jew or a Christian nor throw away his reject nor clean his latrines. The Jew and the Christian are better fitted for such trades, since they are the trades of those who are vile.

12th Century ruling

Why were non-Muslims tolerated in Islamic Espana?

There were several reasons why the Muslim rulers tolerated rival faiths:

• Judaism and Christianity were monotheistic faiths, so arguably their members were worshipping the same God
  • despite having some wayward beliefs and practices, such as the failure to accept the significance of Muhammad and the Qur'an
• The Christians outnumbered the Muslims
  • and then mass conversion or mass execution was not applied
  • outlawing or controlling the beliefs of so many people would have been massively expensive
• Bringing non-Muslims into government provided the rulers with administrators
  • who were loyal (because not attached to any of the diverse Muslim groups)
  • who could be easily disciplined or removed if the need arose. (One Emir went and so far every bit to accept a Christian every bit the head of his babysitter.)
• Passages in the Qur'an said that Christians and Jews should be tolerated if they obeyed certain rules

Oppression in later Islamic Spain

Not all the Muslim rulers of Espana were tolerant. Almanzor looted churches and imposed strict restrictions.

The position of non-Muslims in Spain deteriorated substantially from the centre of the 11th century as the rulers became more than strict and Islam came nether greater pressure from outside.

Christians were non allowed taller houses than Muslims, could non employ Muslim servants, and had to requite style to Muslims on the street.

Christians could not display any sign of their religion outside, not even carrying a Bible. At that place were persecutions and executions.

I notorious event was a pogrom in Granada in 1066, and this was followed by further violence and discrimination as the Islamic empire itself came under pressure.

As the Islamic empire declined, and more territory was taken back by Christian rulers, Muslims in Christian areas found themselves facing similar restrictions to those they had formerly imposed on others.

But, on the whole, the lot of minority faith groups was to become worse after Islam was replaced in Espana by Christianity.

The Court of the Lions, Alhambra, Spain ©

At that place were likewise cultural alliances, particularly in the architecture - the 12 lions in the courtroom of Alhambra are heralds of Christian influences.

The mosque at Cordoba, now converted to a cathedral is still, somewhat ironically, known as La Mezquita or literally, the mosque.

The mosque was begun at the end of the eighth century by the Ummayyad prince Abd al Rahman ibn Muawiyah.

Under the reign of Abd al Rahman Three (r. 912-961) Spanish Islam reached its greatest power as, every May, campaigns were launched towards the Christian frontier, this was too the cultural superlative of Islamic civilisation in Espana.

Cordoba

Cordoba

Mezquita mosque in Cordoba ©

In the 10th century, Cordoba, the capital of Umayyad Spain, was unrivalled in both East and the West for its wealth and civilisation. I author wrote most Cordoba:

in that location were half a 1000000 inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the urban center and its 20-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit...There were bookshops and more than than seventy libraries.

Muslim scholars served as a major link in bringing Greek philosophy, of which the Muslims had previously been the principal custodians, to Western Europe.

In that location were interchanges and alliances between Muslim and Christian rulers such as the legendary Spanish warrior El-Cid, who fought both against and alongside Muslims.

Muslim, Jewish and Christian interaction

How did Muslims, Jews and Christians interact in practice? Was this flow of credible tolerance underpinned by a respect for each other's sacred texts? What led to the eventual collapse of Cordoba and Islamic Spain? And are we guilty of over-romanticising this period as a golden age of co-existence?

Three contributors discuss these questions with Melvyn Bragg. They are: Tim Winter, a convert to Islam and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Kinesthesia of Divinity at Cambridge University; Martin Palmer, an Anglican lay preacher and theologian and author of The Sacred History of Britain; and Mehri Niknam, Executive Director of the Maimonides Foundation, a joint Jewish-Muslim Interfaith Foundation in London.

Decline and autumn

Decline and autumn

Toledo fell to Christianity in 1085 ©

The collapse of Islamic rule in Spain was due not only to increasing assailment on the function of Christian states, but to divisions amid the Muslim rulers. The rot came from both the centre and the extremities.

Early in the eleventh century, the unmarried Islamic Caliphate had shattered into a score of modest kingdoms, ripe for picking-off. The outset big Islamic centre to fall to Christianity was Toledo in 1085.

The Muslims replied with forces from Africa which under the general Yusuf bin Tashfin defeated the Christians resoundingly in 1086, and by 1102 had recaptured most of Andalusia. The general was able to reunite much of Muslim Spain.

Revival

It didn't last. Yusuf died in 1106, and, equally one historian puts information technology, the "rulers of Muslim states began cut each other'southward throats again".

Internal rebellions in 1144 and 1145 further shattered Islamic unity, and despite intermittent military successes, Islam's domination of Spain was concluded for proficient.

The Muslims finally lost all power in Espana in 1492. By 1502 the Christian rulers issued an order requiring all Muslims to convert to Christianity, and when this didn't work, they imposed cruel restrictions on the remaining Spanish Muslims.

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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/spain_1.shtml

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