Joined: 18-Oct-2005
Location: Sweden
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 480
QuoteReplyTopic: al Anadalus Posted: 28-Oct-2005 at 04:38
Almoravid
Berber dynasty 10561147 founded by the prophet Abdullah ibn Tashfin, ruling much of Morocco and Spain in the 11th12th centuries. The Almoravids came from the Sahara and in the 11th century began laying the foundations of an empire covering the whole of Morocco and parts of Algeria; their capital was the newly founded Marrakesh. In 1086 they defeated Alfonso VI of Castile to gain much of Spain. They were later overthrown by the Almohads
Almohad
Berber dynasty 11301269 founded by the Berber prophet Muhammad ibn Tumart (c. 10801130). The Almohads ruled much of Morocco and Spain, which they took by defeating the Almoravids; they later took the area that today forms Algeria and Tunis. Their policy of religious purity involved the forced conversion and massacre of the Jewish population of Spain. The Almohads were themselves defeated by the Christian kings of Spain in 1212, and in Morocco in 1269.
You should maybe start with the Ummayad invasion of the 7th century and
the stabilishment of the only surviving Umayyad state in Al Andalus:
the Emirate and later Caliphate of Cordoba, until 1031, when, after the
death of the last Ummayad Caliph, a despot, the state got didvided in
many small emirates called taifas (party kingdoms).
This was the situation that the breakdown of the Caliphate of Cordoba
left: for the first time in many centuries, the Christian kingdoms of
the north weren't inferior to their Muslim counterparts of the south
but actually showed to be best prepared. The death of Sancho of Navarre
brought some uncertainty but his ambituous younger sons, taking the
crowns of Castile and Aragon (counties till that moment) soon defeated
their elder brother of Navarre, got incorporated Leon and Catalonia
respectively and started the actual Reconquista.
Among the Muslim taifas the most powerful were Zaragoza and Seville.
Zaragoza, as Toledo and Badajoz (Batalyaws) were the frontier military
districts of the gone Caliphate. Zaragoza was very rich, powerful and
expansive and the temporary demise of Navarre and the limited power of
the other Pyrenaic states allowed it to stay prosperous and independent
as a major player in Iberian politics until Almoravids conquered it in
1110.
The other major Muslim power, Seville, annexed one after the other all
its neighbours but was conquered by the Almoravids in 1091.
But Christians, specially rising Castile, managed to blackmail their Muslims neighbours and extract tributes (parias)
from them. Toledo was the most unlucky of all the taifas, in the sense
that it was absorbed by Castile (1085). But the relationship of the
Emir of Toledo with Castile was strong enough that they made him Emir
of Valencia instead.
I'm not sure if it was this expansion into Toledo what caused the
arrival of the Almoravids but what is sure that instead of helping
their Iberian neighbours, what they did was to conquer them one after
the other. Apart of Valencia the Almoravids did not gain much to the
Christian kingdoms but what they actually did was to depose the
westernized and ilustrated taifa emirs with the pretext that they had
separated from the ways of Islam.
The Almohads eventually became less fanatical than they were initially
and the greatest of Almohad emirs, Al Mansur, who won some victory
against Castile too, was also an illustrated man that protected
philosophy and science.
But the Almohads were eventually defeated by an alliance of Christian
kings, after the Pope had called for a crusade. In 1212, the battle of
Las Navas de Tolosa was a decisive break in the stalemate that
Christian and Muslim forces had kept and in few decades all the
Almohad empire felt down, and only a small emirate, Granada,
survived, paying strong tributes to Castile.
An anecdotic legacy of Almohads is that in Spanish, pillow is said almohada.
I'm interested in knowing just how much of a contribution Al-Andalus made to the rest of Europe in terms of culture and science. I've heard differing opinions on that topic.
And another question: how close was the Califate of Cordoba to conquering the last remaining Christian areas in the north?
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi
Many contributions were made in the fields of medicine (the field of
surgery in particular), arcitechture, art, philosphy (Averroes,
Abu al Wahid ibn Ruchd in arabic)... but also in the spanish and
portuguese languages.
In fact PORTUGAL still has many authentic traces of this time (old
maure houses with scripts...) and a city called FATIMA, where,
according to the ladgend, the virgin mary appeared.
Anyway, in spanish a great number of words come from arabic:
abarcoq-Al barqoq-apricot, alcazar-al ksr-castle, aceitounas-al
zeitoun-olives... names of cities like Malag, Algeciras-Al jazira,
Albacete-Al mbaset (the flat one)...
Here is some more insight my friends:
Rise and Fall of Tolerance
Image of a Jewish cantor reading the Passover story in Al-Andalus, from a 14th century Spanish Haggadah.
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 Spain
became an asylum for the oppressed Jews of other countries.
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 Crdoba were decapitated for religious offences against Islam. They
became known as the Martyrs of Crdoba. Many of the Christians executed deliberately courted martyrdom by publicly declaiming against Islam inside mosques, insulting Muhammad
and making declarations of Christian religious beliefs considered
blasphemous in Islam. These deaths played out, not in a single spasm of
religious unrest, but over an extended period of time; dissenters who
were fully aware of the fates of their predecessors chose what amounted
to suicide as a form of protest against the Islamic state[2].
With the death of Al-Hakam III in 976, however, 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. Starting in 1090
with the invasion of the Almoravides, the situation worsened further.
Even under the Almoravides, however some Jews prospered (although far
more so under Ali III, than under his father Yusuf ibn Tashfin). With the defeat of the Almoravides in 1148
by the puritanical Almohades, the Jews were forced to accept the
Islamic faith; the conquerors confiscated their property and sold many
captives into slavery. The most famous Jewish educational institutions were closed, and synagogues everywhere destroyed.
During these successive waves of narrowly interpreted Islam, many
Jewish and even Muslim scholars left the Muslim-controlled portion of
Spain for the then still relatively tolerant city of Toledo, which had been reconquered in 1085 by Christian forces. Jews joined the armies of Alfonso VI of Castile and as many as 40,000 joined in the fight against the Almoravides, who also had large numbers of Jewish troops in their armies.
One of the most significant contributions made in Al-Andalus was to the advancement of theological philosophy.
From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as
intellectual rivals to the Abbasids, and for Crdoba to have libraries
and educational institutions to rival Baghdad. 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. The historian Said Al-Andalusi wrote that the Caliph Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Rahman had collected libraries of books and patroned men to study medicine and "ancient sciences". Later Al-Mustansir (Al-Hakam II)
vastly improved this by importing philosophical volumes as well as
varying series of books on diverse subjects, including medicine and
music from the East to his new university and libraries in Crdoba.
Under his reign Crdoba had become one of the worlds most important
cities for medicine and philosophical debate.
However, when his son Hisham II took over, his 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. It was not long, however, after the death of Al-Mansur (1002) that interest in philosophy sparked up again. Numerous scholars came to the forefront, including Abu Uthman Ibn Fathun, who wrote and taught extensively on a wide variety of subjects including Music and Grammar but whose masterwork was the philosophical treatise the Tree of Wisdom. Another outstanding scholar in astronomy and astrology was Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (died 1008), an intrepid traveller who journeyed all over the Islamic countries, and beyond, and who kept in touch with the Brethren of Purity. Indeed, it is said to have been him who brought the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
to al-Andalus and who added the compendium to these 51 books, although
it is strongly possible that this was added later by another of the
name al-Majriti. Another book believed to be his is the Ghayat al-Hakim (The aim of the Sage), a book which dealt with varying philosophical ideas including 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 did keep studies of it.
A prominent follower of al-Majriti was Abu al-Hakam al-Kirmani, who aside from the studies of philosophy was also a particularly keen scholar of Geometry. A follower of his was the great Abu Bakr Ibn al-Sayigh, known to most Arabic Speakers as Ibn Bajjah, known mostly to the west as Avempace.
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 Almohades.
The etymology of the word "al-Andalus" is uncertain. The word is popularly thought to be derived from the Vandals, the Germanic
tribe who settled in southern Iberia and Northern Africa. However,
scholars are by no means in agreement. The notion of it originating
with the Vandals, who supposedly devastated southern Spain so severely in a mere twenty-two years of tenure (407-429)
as to leave their name forever imprinted on it, gained in popularity
over time and survives - but it is a theory put forth without much
basis, bolstered perhaps by homophony.
Three possible etymologies have been advanced in recent times. The
first, the Vandal link, is largely disregarded now, and the question of
the origin of the Arabic name, given to the entire peninsula, is still open to debate.
I'm interested in knowing just how much of a
contribution Al-Andalus made to the rest of Europe in terms of culture
and science. I've heard differing opinions on that topic.
It would seem that among all Muslim countries, Al Andalus was the
one of the most prolific, maybe because the intense mixture of diferent
peoples of diferent religions, despite of the restrictions imposed by
dhimmitude. The intense Muslim-Christian-Jewish interaction wasn't only
something happenning inside each state but actually permeated all
borders (up to a point) so the Muslim discoveries and recoveries could
actually reach to Western Europe via this region.
It seems that some statesmen (emirs, caliphs and their ministers)
were quite fundamentalist, with book burnings and intelectual setbacks
at some times (Hakam II, Almoravids, early Almohads), while in other
(longer) periods intelectual and scientifical study was strong and
promoted by the princes.
The first taifa emirs were particularly illustrated (and relaxed in
religious matters), competing with each other not just in the military
field but specially in the intelectual splendour of their courts.
And another question: how close was the Califate of Cordoba to conquering the last remaining Christian areas in the north?
I would say that after the initial expansion they never tried it
seriously. For centuries a status quo was stabilished in the line
running along the Duero river and south of the Pyrenees.
Pamplona was a very solid country with the full support of its
naturals (Basques) and south of it there was the Muslim autonomous
state of Tudela (Banu Qasi) which was dynastically and ethnically tied
to Pamplona. They buffered each other until Zaragoza conquered Tudela
in the first taifa period. Actually the main problem of Pamplona (later
Navarre) weren't its Muslim neighbours but the Christian ones,
specially Castile.
Leon was also a pretty solid crusader state of Visigothic roots.
Once a stable border was consolidated at the Duero all military
interaction was that of pillaging each other now and then. The lands
south of Leon (and later Castile and Portugal) were not particularly
rich nor strongly populated, so the interest of the Caliphs in the
plateau and the Atlantic coasts was pretty limited (and also the
interest of Christian states to expand into those areas). The scarcely
populated military districts of Badajoz and Toledo took care of the
defense of those borders for the Caliphate in semi-autonomous fashion.
The Pyrenaic states of the Hispanic Mark (Catalan and other
counties) had initially the support of the Frankish/French state and
had been created by Charlemagne. They may have been weaker, specially
because the border district of Zaragoza was, unlike the other Muslim
frontiers, rich and strong, and Muslims did have a clear interest in
that irrigation area. For the time that Catalonia was declared
independent the Caliphate was already in decadence, so they only had to
fight their inmediate neighbours, mostly Zaragoza.
Notice that, while Cordova was a strong power, it didn't have the
expansive capability that the original pan-Islamic Caliphate had.
France, while not very active in the crudading process, would have
never allowed its dependent and allied states to fall and anhow, as I
mentioned before, they were pretty strong, counting often with the
sympathies of a big sector of the Caliphate's population: the Christian
Mozarabs. At times it would
seem that strongest emirs/caliphs would consider the Christian states
their vassals and did manage to get tributes payed in exchange for
peace. At other times war was waged but the semidesertic plateau wasn't
a place where you could expect to keep for long unless you did what
Christians (specially Leon-Castile) did: repopulate or colonize and
build castles like crazy. Pillage raids were the more common type of
warfare therefore.
Only when Toledo felt (of "natural death") in the taifa period and when
the Almoravids and later the Almohads, with strong reserves from North
Africa came into the scene, war (and the Reconquista process)
became more real. But the loss of Toledo would prove a strong weakness
for Al Andalus, as the route to Andalusia proper (Baetica) was half
open. As said before, the decissive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was
crucial to open the Andalusian passes fully and get Muslim Spain done.
Pillow in portuguese is almofada, along with many other arabic origin words like azeite (olive oil), azul (blue), arroz (rice), acar (sugar), alcatifa (carpet), alccer (castle), oxal (god will) etc.
Except for carpet (which is alfombra, probably another Arab loan), all those words are almost identical to the Castilian ones. Yet azul is not Arabic, I believe, it comes from Latin azur, which is still used in heraldic.
One has to be careful of attributions of culture to islamic origins. Al Andalusia comes from an Arabic perversion of the name of the Vandals, just as Istambol is a perversion of Constantinopolis.
The Culture of Islamic spain was segregated and fragmented. The Arabs were above all, the Berbers next, and converted muslims next. The dimmis, people of the book, Christians and Jews were oppressed, but were also able briefly to contract for good terms (as El Cid did) as allies or leaders.
Kind of funny how noone ever seems to hear of Muslims being decapitated inside Christian chapels, while Muslims think decapitation of devout Chrisitians is a normal way of doing business, and of course it must be the fault of the person being killed by them. Odd morality, I would say.
As for insulting Mohammed, I am convinced that it is not possible.
You talk a lot and read little: it's been pointed out earlier in this
topic that the Vandals origin of the name Andalusia is very disputed.
Most likely it's a corruption of the Arabic name for Atlantis, the
country of the Atlantic Ocean (this hasn't been mentioned but it is a
serious peossibility).
El Cid wasn't any normal dhimmi: he was a Castilian aristocrat in
exile. He didn't belong to Al Andalus but to Castile. When he finally
became lord of Valencia, he confirmed his vasallage to the Castilian
king, though he was 100% autonomous.
Anyhow the taifa period Al Andalus was probably the most open of all periods in Muslim Iberia.
The two last paragraphs of your post seem just nonsenses and
provokations. In any case, Muslims, Jews, converts (Moriscos) and
Pagans were tortured and set ablaze later. I don't know where you get
those ideas that Muslims decapitated Christians anyhow. It's the first
time I hear about them.
Pillow in portuguese is almofada, along with many other arabic origin words like azeite (olive oil), azul (blue), arroz (rice), acar (sugar), alcatifa (carpet), alccer (castle), oxal (god will) etc.
Don't forget garrafa, algibeira, atalaia, and fulano.
Vou votar nas putas. Estou farto de votar nos filhos delas
Regarding language contribution, here is an older topic in AE that might interest some of you:
Imagine If You Write "estoy cansado" in Arabic Letters? Aljamiado development and Its contribution to how Arabic Words Became Part of Castilian (Spanish today)?
The cross to Andalucia or the Iberian Peninsula was in 711 AD and the Islamic expansion was put to an end in Western Europe in 714 in the battle of Buatie in the depth of France.
The Muslim Spain or Andalucia has survived as a propsper society of different ethnics and langauges. In fact, the society was bilingual or trilingual. Besides Arabs, Berbers, Jews, and inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, Vandals, Celtics, and other European races have mixed with the new comers of Arabs and Berbers. Arab and Berber intermarriages were very common also.
In terms of Languages, the official language was Arabic. Berber, Hebrew, and Iberian Romance langauges existed. One common Iberian Romance Langauge that existed within Muslim spain was spoken what is known later as Mozarabic. Aljamiado is Mozarabic too. Mozarabs are those Christian who lived within Muslim Spain and spoke an Iberian Romance Latin language close to Catalonese but written in Arabic alphabets and scripts, forming Aljamiado. It does not exist anymore but it contributed in adding Arabic origin words to the later Iberian Langauges such as the Castilian and the Portuguese.
For example, at some point of time, Catalon and Aragonese were two languages spoken besides Castilian in Spain. In Northwest Spain and above portugal, a language known as Galician is spoken also till today. However, Galician speakers interacted with the Mozarabs as they advanced down in the Reconquesta forming Portuguese as a seperate language with a lot of Arabic borrowed words and seperate from Galician. Politics also changed languages. The fact that as Castilian became the official language or what is known today as Spanish, was in fact pushed by the Spanish crown and influencing all the languages under the kingdom including Galician itself and widening the differences between Portugese and Galician eventhough they share one origin.
Granada felt to the Spanish Crown in 1492, January 2nd. Muslims and Mozarabs were left to live in Spain under the agreement of Granada. However, later crowns pushed for conversion of Muslims in Spain and caused the revolt of 1500-1502. Also later, Arabic was banned and Muslim dress was banned also causing the revolt of 1568-1572 that was barely put down by the help of John of Austria. Finally, the presecution of Muslims contributed to the cooperation between Spanish Muslim and Turkish Ottoman Empire faciliating an asualt on Southern Spanish shores, leading to final expelling of Muslims in Spain in 1609. Thus, ending the period of direct interaction between Arabic and other Iberian Romance languages.
I wouldn't put that emphasis in "Vandals, Celtics and other European
races", it's just messing things. Celts were in Iberia since 1300BCE
and for the time of Muslim invasion they were all Romanized, so they
fully fall in the concept of original inhabitants of Iberia. Most
vandals probably re-migrated to Africa when they invaded it. Alans
seemingly were exterminated and anyhow the Continental apportation
seems small overall.
The below map rather shows successive the lines of partition of the
Peninsula between Christian and Muslim states, we can imagine that
Mozarabic receeded with Muslim domain but this is not sure. We know
that Mozarabic influenced the northern Romances and we know that
Andalusian dialect is claimed to be descendant of Mozarabic or at least
very influenced by it.
I wouldn't put that emphasis in "Vandals, Celtics and other European races", it's just messing things. Celts were in Iberia since 1300BCE and for the time of Muslim invasion they were all Romanized, so they fully fall in the concept of original inhabitants of Iberia. Most vandals probably re-migrated to Africa when they invaded it. Alans seemingly were exterminated and anyhow the Continental apportation seems small overall.
You bring a very interesting point Maju. Maybe you can post something about it in the Anthropology thread. A lot of theories roam around the origin of Northern African inhabitants esepcially the Berbers. Some say that they are European German tribes (Vandals) that immigrated to Northern Africa. Some of them got mixed with other population that neigbhored them, or invading wave of other races, like the Arab. You can suprisingly find in remote closed places in the moutanious areas of Algeria and Morocco some blonde and red haired berber!
Originally posted by Maju
The below map rather shows successive the lines of partition of the Peninsula between Christian and Muslim states, we can imagine that Mozarabic receeded with Muslim domain but this is not sure. We know that Mozarabic influenced the northern Romances and we know that Andalusian dialect is claimed to be descendant of Mozarabic or at least very influenced by it.
Actually the map shows the progress of the Reconquista over time. It is not necessary an indication of Mozarabic culture immigrating to the south. As far as I understood, that actually Mozarabs are one of a group of Spanish Christians who adopted certain aspects of Arab culture under Muslim rule but practiced a modified form of Christian worship. It will make more sense that they welcome the Reconquista and remain in their towns and cities. However, the article draws the connecting line that most of the Arabic to the Iberian Romance languages was a result of Christian Mozarabs who integrated with the new comers to the south of Castilian and Catalonian speakers.
D.J. Kaufman
Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening ... when youd have preferred to talk.
I don't have enough ethnographic info on North Africa but basically
Berbers seem 99% native of that region. Guess that whatever the minimal
influence that Vandals or Romans may have exerted there, these alien
minorities are more likely to have been Arabized than Berberized. I
think that most of those blondisms are just part of the natural
variability of Caucasoid types.
More likely are prehistoric migrations from Europe into North Africa,
specially as the late North African cultures seem derivate from
European Magdalenian, and also some Egyptian pre-dynastic sulture seems
stragely alien and "Iberian", as Arfunda recently commented in another
topic.
In any case, for the bulk of the genetics, the strait of Gibraltar
seems to have acted as an effective barrier between North Africa and
Iberia. Most exceptions seem relatively recent (and minor).
...
On Mozarabs, I think they were Catholics like the rest of Spaniards,
Arrianism had been abandoned longbefore Muslim invasion and was anyhow
an elite Visigothic cult. If they were any around at the time of the
invasion, they probably converted to Islam the first.
Mozarabs surely got assimilated into the invading (or liberating ,
depending on the point of view) Christian cultures/nationalities. Can't
say about Portugal but, in Spain, the region of Toledo was fully
integrated in Castile (repopulation helped probably). In the East, they
became Aragonese and Catalans by language, though Aragonese actually
came to speak a dialect of Castilian (not sure when that transition
happened and how).
The southernmost regions of Andalusia, Extremadura (Badajoz) and Murcia
instead show diferent dialects and accents that may well be an
inheritance of Mozarabic. These regions, along with most of Aragonese
new conquests were only limitedly colonized and most of the people
living now there are descendants of the ones that were when Muslims
ruled. In this southern area, Muslim lands were alloted as feuds to the
king or aristocrats, and modernly it has been the region that has
claimed most some sort of agrarian reform (not done yet), as most rural
people have no lands at all, depending often on a special kind of rural
welfare (in the last decades only).
Maju, I think it would be more accurate to call the mozarabs Nicaean christians, as opposed to the Arrians, who did not follow the Nicaean creed.
ok ge, some Mozarabs fled northwards. One historian says that's why Castille became so romanized, when the region from which the country had originated hadn't even been romanized during the Visigothic period. Most of them fled northards during the Almoravid and Almohad period, but some migrated before that. The county of Portucale (Portugal) was populated by people from Coimbra (this in 863 a.D.), which was then under Moorish rule. Who else but Mozarabs could have done it
p.s. Buatie???
Vou votar nas putas. Estou farto de votar nos filhos delas
Spain was a Roman province, therefore romaniced since a couples of centuries B.C. Spanish itself is a derivation of Latin. Even after the Visigotic conquest, Spain was still very much Roman. Moreover, Moors called the Christians "Romani".
There is a continuity in the Roman mentality of Spain, indeed, perhaps even more than in Italy. The Roman Catholic church also help to transmit the Roman traditions in goverment and culture. Even more Hispania is the Roman name of the Iberian peninsulae. Spain has never forgotten that.
Now, a Mozarab was a Christian under Moorish rule. In other terms, a subjugated Roman.
From my poin of view Spain is one of the most interesting and miserable countries of the world - some kind of mixture of Europe, Africa and Asia and recommended dosage levitra but still indigenous
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum