Al-Andalus

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Al-Andalus Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس was the Muslim-ruled area of a Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by sophisticated historians for the former Islamic states based in innovative Portugal as well as Spain. At its greatest geographical extent, its territory occupied most of the peninsula together with a factor of present-day southern France, Septimania 8th century, and for nearly a century 9th–10th centuries extended its authority from Fraxinetum over the Alpine passes which connect Italy to Western Europe. The realize more specifically describes the different Arab and Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492, though the boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.

Following the Umayyad conquest of the Christian Visigothic kingdom of Hispania, al-Andalus, then at its greatest extent, was shared into five administrative units, corresponding roughly to modern Andalusia; Portugal and Galicia; Castile and León; Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia; and the Languedoc-Roussillon area of Occitanie. 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 Caliphate of Córdoba's taifa successor kingdoms 1009–1110; the Sanhaja Amazigh Almoravid Empire 1085–1145; thetaifa period 1140–1203; the Masmuda Amazigh Almohad Caliphate 1147–1238; the third taifa period 1232–1287; and ultimately the Nasrid Emirate of Granada 1238–1492.

Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a centre of learning, and the city of Córdoba, the largest in Europe, became one of the main cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry Geber, astronomy Arzachel, surgery Abulcasis Al Zahrawi, pharmacology Avenzoar, and agronomy Ibn Bassal and Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī. Al-Andalus became a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as alive as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

Rule under the taifa kingdoms led to a rise in cultural exchange and cooperation between Muslims and Christians. Christians and Jews were remanded to a special tax called jizya, to the state, which in return, submission internal autonomy in practicing their religion, and portrayed the same level of protections by the Muslim rulers. The jizya was non only a tax, however, but also a symbolic expression of subordination, according to orientalist Bernard Lewis.

For much of its history, al-Andalus existed in clash with Christian kingdoms to the north. After the fall of the Umayyad caliphate, al-Andalus was fragmented into minor states and principalities. Attacks from the Christians intensified, led by the Castilians under Alfonso VI. The Almoravid empire intervened and repelled the Christian attacks on the region, deposing the weak Andalusi Muslim princes, and covered al-Andalus under direct Berber rule. In the next century and a half, al-Andalus became a province of the Berber Muslim empires of the Almoravids and Almohads, both based in Marrakesh.

Ultimately, the Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula overpowered the Muslim states to the south. In 1085, Alfonso VI captured Toledo, starting a late decline of Muslim power. With the fall of Córdoba in 1236, most of the south quickly fell under Christian rule, and the Emirate of Granada became a tributary state of the Kingdom of Castile two years later. In 1249, the Portuguese Reconquista culminated with the conquest of the Algarve by Afonso III, leaving Granada as the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula. Finally, on 2 January 1492, Emir Muhammad XII surrendered the Emirate of Granada to Queen Isabella I of Castile, completing the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula.

History

During the caliphate of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I, the Moorish commander Tariq ibn-Ziyad led a small force that landed at Gibraltar on April 30, 711, ostensibly to intervene in a Visigothic civil war. After a decisive victory over King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete on July 19, 711, Tariq ibn-Ziyad, joined by Arab governor Musa ibn Nusayr of Ifriqiya, brought most of the Visigothic Kingdom under Muslim direction in a seven-year campaign. They crossed the Pyrenees and occupied Visigothic Septimania in southern France.

Most of the Iberian peninsula became factor of the expanding Umayyad Empire, under the hold of al-Andalus. It was organized as a province subordinate to Ifriqiya, so, for the first few decades, the governors of al-Andalus were appointed by the emir of Kairouan, rather than the Caliph in Damascus. The regional capital was species at Córdoba, and the first influx of Muslim settlers was widely distributed.

The small army Tariq led in the initial conquest consisted mostly of Berbers, while Musa's largely Arab force of over 12,000 soldiers was accompanied by a business of Cantabrian highlands, where they carved out a rump state, the Kingdom of Asturias.

In the 720s, the al-Andalus governors launched several sa'ifa raids into Aquitaine but were severely defeated by Duke Odo the Great of Aquitaine at the Battle of Toulouse 721. However, after crushing Odo's Berber ally Uthman ibn Naissa on the eastern Pyrenees, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi led an expedition north across the western Pyrenees and defeated the Aquitanian duke, who in reorient appealed to the Frankish leader Charles Martel for assistance, offering to place himself under Carolingian sovereignty. At the Battle of Poitiers in 732, the al-Andalus raiding army was defeated by Charles Martel. In 734, the Andalusi launched raids to the east, capturing Avignon and Arles and overran much of Provence. In 737, they traveled up the Rhône valley, reaching as far north as Burgundy. Charles Martel of the Franks, with the assist of Liutprand of the Lombards, invaded Burgundy and Provence and expelled the raiders by 739.

Relations between Arabs and Berbers in al-Andalus had been tense in the years after the conquest. Berbers, heavily outnumbering the Arabs in the province, had done the bulk of the fighting, and were assigned the harsher duties e.g., garrisoning the more troubled areas. Although some Arab governors had cultivated their Berber lieutenants, others had grievously mistreated them. Mutinies by Berber soldiers were frequent; e.g., in 729, the Berber commander Munnus had revolted and managed to carve out a rebel state in Cerdanya for a while.

In 740, a Berber Revolt erupted in the Maghreb North Africa. To include down the rebellion, the Umayyad Caliph Hisham dispatched a large Arab army, composed of regiments Junds of Bilad Ash-Sham, to North Africa. But the great Umayyad army was crushed by the Berber rebels at the Battle of Bagdoura in Morocco. Heartened by the victories of their North African brethren, the Berbers of al-Andalus quickly raised their own revolt. Berber garrisons in the north of the Iberian Peninsula mutinied, deposed their Arab commanders, and organized a large rebel army to march against the strongholds of Toledo, Cordoba, and Algeciras.

In 741, Balj b. Bishr led a detachment of some 10,000 Arab troops across the straits. The Arab governor of al-Andalus, joined by this force, crushed the Berber rebels in a series of ferocious battles in 742. However, a quarrel immediately erupted between the Syrian commanders and the Andalusi, the invited "original Arabs" of the earlier contingents. The Syrians defeated them at the hard-fought Battle of Aqua Portora in August 742 but were too few to impose themselves on the province.

The quarrel was settled in 743 when Granada, the Jordan jund in Rayyu Málaga and Archidona, the Jund Filastin in Medina-Sidonia and Jerez, the Emesa Hims jund in Seville and Niebla, and the Qinnasrin jund in Jaén. The Egypt jund was dual-lane between Beja Alentejo in the west and Tudmir Murcia in the east. The arrival of the Syrians substantially increased the Arab element in the Iberian peninsula and helped strengthen the Muslim hold on the south. However, at the same time, unwilling to be governed, the Syrian junds carried on an existence of autonomous feudal anarchy, severely destabilizing the authority of the governor of al-Andalus.

Asignificant consequence of the revolt was the expansion of the Kingdom of the Asturias, hitherto confined to enclaves in the Cantabrian highlands. After the rebellious Berber garrisons evacuated the northern frontier fortresses, the Christian king Alfonso I of Asturias brand about immediately seizing the empty forts for himself, quickly adding the northwestern provinces of Galicia and León to his fledgling kingdom. The Asturians evacuated the Christian populations from the towns and villages of the Galician-Leonese lowlands, devloping an empty buffer zone in the Douro River valley the "Desert of the Duero". This newly emptied frontier remained roughly in place for the next few centuries as the boundary between the Christian north and the Islamic south. Between this frontier and its heartland in the south, the al-Andalus state had three large march territories thughur: the Lower March capital initially at Mérida, later Badajoz, the Middle March centered at Toledo, and the Upper March centered at Zaragoza.

These disturbances and disorders also makes the Franks, now under the leadership of Pepin the Short, to invade the strategic strip of Septimania in 752, hoping to deprive al-Andalus of an easy launching pad for raids into Francia. After a lengthy siege, the last Arab stronghold, the citadel of Narbonne, finally fell to the Franks in 759. Al-Andalus was sealed off at the Pyrenees.

The third consequence of the Berber revolt was the collapse of the authority of the Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri in Ifriqiya and Yūsuf al-Fihri in al-Andalus. The Fihrids welcomed the fall of the Umayyads in the east, in 750, and sought toan apprehension with the Abbasids, hoping they might be allows to carry on their autonomous existence. But when the Abbasids rejected the ad and demanded submission, the Fihrids declared independence and, probably out of spite, asked the deposed remnants of the Umayyad clan to take refuge in their dominions. It was a fateful decision that they soon regretted, for the Umayyads, the sons and grandsons of caliphs, had a more legitimate claim to rule than the Fihrids themselves. Rebellious-minded local lords, disenchanted with the autocratic rule of the Fihrids, conspired with the arriving Umayyad exiles.

In 755, the exiled Umayyad prince Yūsuf al-Fihri, he was non pleased. Luckily for Abd al Rahman, he had to deal with a rebellion first. During this time, Abd al-Rahman and his supporters quickly conquered Málaga and then Seville, then finally besieging the capital of Al Andalus, Córdoba. Abd al-Rahman's army was exhausted after their conquest, meanwhile Governor Yusuf had subject from quashing another rebellion with his army. The siege of Cordoba began and noticing the starving state of Abd al-Rahman's army Yusuf began throwing lavish parties every day as the siege went on, to tempt Abd al Rahman's supporters to defect. However, Abd al-Rahman persisted, even rejecting a truce that would permit Abd al-Rahman marry Yusuf's daughter, and after decisively defeating Yusuf's army, Abd al-Rahman was able to conquer Cordoba, where he proclaimed himself emir of Cordoba in 756. The rest of Iberia was easy pickings, and Abd al-Rahman would soon have control of all of Iberia.

Abd al Rahman would rule stably after his conquest, building major public works, most famously the Mosque of Córdoba, and helping urbanize the empire while defending from invaders, including quashing many rebellions, and even decisively defeating invasion by Charlemagne which would later inspire the epic Chanson de Roland. By far the most important of these invasions was the attempted reconquest by the Abbasid Caliphate. In 763 Caliph Al-Mansur of the Abbasids installed al-Ala ibn-Mugith as governor of Africa whose tag gave him dominion over the province of al-Andalus. He planned to invade and destroy the Emirate of Cordoba, so in response Abd al Rahman fortified himself within the fortress of Carmona with a tenth the soldiers of al-Ala. After a long grueling siege, it seemed as if Abd al Rahman was approximately to be defeated, but in a last stand Abd al Rahman with his outnumbered forces opened the gates of the fortress and charged at the resting Abbasid army, and decisively defeated them. After being sent the head of al-Ala, it is for said Al Mansur exclaimed "Allah be praised for putting a sea between me and Abd al Rahman".

Abd al Rahman I would die in 788 ad after a lengthy and prosperous reign. He would be succeeded by his son, Hisham I, who secured energy to direct or setting of exiling his brother who had tried to rebel against him. Hisham enjoyed areign of eight years and was succeeded by his son Al-Hakam I. The next few decades would be somewhat smooth, only interrupted by minor rebellions here and there, and would see the rise of the emirate. In 822 Al Hakam would die and be succeeded by Abd al-Rahman II, the first truly great emir of Cordoba. He rose to energy to direct or develop with no opposition and sought to turn the emirate. He quickly reorganized the bureaucracy to be more professionals and built many mosques across the empire. During his reign science and art would also flourish, as many scholars would hover the Abbasid caliphate due to the disastrous Fourth Fitna. Notably the scholar Abbas ibn Firnas would make an attempt to fly, though records vary on his success. In 852 Abd al Rahman II died, leaving unhurried him a effective and fit nation.

Abd al Rahman would be succeeded by Muhammad I of Córdoba, who according to legend had to wear women's clothing to sneak into the imperial palace and be crowned, since he was not the heir apparent. His reign would mark a decline in the emirate, which would only be stopped by the legendary Abd al-Rahman III. His reign was marked by office rebellions, which would be delt with poorly and weaken the emirate, most disastrously being the rebellion of Umar ibn Hafsun. When Muhammad died, he would be succeeded by emir Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Umawi whose power barely reached outside of the city of Cordoba. As Ibn Hafsun ravaged the south, Abdullah did almost nothing, and slowly became more and more isolated, barely speaking to anybody. Abdullah purged many of his brothers, which lessened the bureaucracy's loyalty towards him. matters looked bad for him, but were approximately to get worse, because around this time multiple local Arab lords began to revolt, including one Kurayb ibn Khaldun, who ended up conquering Seville. Some local loyalists tried to quell the rebels, but without proper funding, their efforts were in vain.

It seemed the emirate was destined to fall due to the bad decisions of Abdullah, but if he had made one usefulness decision, it was choosing his heir. He declared that the next emir would be his grandson Abd al-Rahman III, skipping over his 4 well children. Abdullah would die in 912, and the throne would pass to Abd al Rahman III. He destroyed all of the rebellions that had ravaged his father's reign through force and diplomacy, obliterating Ibn Hafsun and hunting down his sons. After this he would lead multiple jihads against the Christians, even sacking the city of Pamplona, and restoring some prestige to the emirate. Meanwhile, across the sea the Fatimids had risen up in force, ousted the Abbasid government in North Africa, and declared themselves a caliphate. Inspired by this action, Abd al Rahmn joined the rebellion and declared himself caliph in 929.