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Spain AL ANDALUS
Early in the eighth century, armies from North Africa
began
probing the Visigothic defenses of Spain and ultimately
they
initiated the Moorish epoch that would last for centuries.
The
people who became known to West Europeans as Moors were
the
Arabs, who had swept across North Africa from their Middle
Eastern homeland, and the Berbers, inhabitants of Morocco
who had
been conquered by the Arabs and converted to Islam.
In 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber governor of Tangier,
crossed
into Spain with an army of 12,000 (landing at a promontory
that
was later named, in his honor, Jabal Tariq, or Mount
Tariq, from
which the name, Gibraltar, is derived). They came at the
invitation of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising
against
King Roderic. Roderic died in battle, and Spain was left
without
a leader. Tariq returned to Morocco, but the next year
(712) Musa
ibn Nusair, the Muslim governor in North Africa, led the
best of
his Arab troops to Spain with the intention of staying. In
three
years he had subdued all but the mountainous region in the
extreme north and had initiated forays into France, which
were
stemmed at Poitiers in 732.
Al Andalus, as Islamic Spain was called, was organized
under
the civil and religious leadership of the caliph of
Damascus.
Governors in Spain were generally Syrians, whose political
frame
of reference was deeply influenced by Byzantine practices.
Nevertheless, the largest contingent of Moors in Spain
consisted of the North African Berbers, recent converts to
Islam,
who were hostile to the sophisticated Arab governors and
bureaucrats and were given to a religious enthusiasm and
fundamentalism that were to set the standard for the
Islamic
community in Spain. Berber settlers fanned out through the
country and made up as much as 20 percent of the
population of
the occupied territory. The Arabs constituted an
aristocracy in
the revived cities and on the latifundios that they
had
inherited from the Romans and the Visigoths.
Most members of the Visigothic nobility converted to
Islam,
and they retained their privileged position in the new
society.
The countryside, only nominally Christian, was also
successfully
Islamized. Nevertheless, an Hispano-Roman Christian
community
survived in the cities. Moreover, Jews, who constituted
more than
5 percent of the population, continued to play an
important role
in commerce, scholarship, and the professions.
The Arab-dominated Umayyad dynasty at Damascus was
overthrown
in 756 by the Abbasids, who moved the caliphate to
Baghdad. One
Umayyad prince fled to Spain and, under the name of Abd al
Rahman
(r. 756-88), founded a politically independent amirate
(the
Caliphate of Cordoba), which was then the farthest
extremity of
the Islamic world. His dynasty flourished for 250 years.
Nothing
in Europe compared with the wealth, the power, and the
sheer
brilliance of Al Andalus during this period.
In 929 Abd al Rahman III (r. 912-61), who was half
European--
as were many of the ruling caste, elevated the amirate to
the
status of a caliphate. This action cut Spain's last ties
with
Baghdad and established that thereafter Al Andalus's
rulers would
enjoy complete religious and political sovereignty.
When Hisham II, grandson of Abd al Rahman, inherited
the
throne in 976 at age twelve, the royal vizier, Ibn Abi
Amir
(known as Al Mansur), became regent (981-1002) and
established
himself as virtual dictator. For the next twenty-six
years, the
caliph was no more than a figurehead, and Al Mansur was
the
actual ruler. Al Mansur wanted the caliphate to symbolize
the
ideal of religious and political unity as insurance
against any
renewal of civil strife. Notwithstanding his employment of
Christian mercenaries, Al Mansur preached jihad, or holy
war,
against the Christian states on the frontier, undertaking
annual
summer campaigns against them, which served not only to
unite
Spanish Muslims in a common cause but also to extend
temporary
Muslim control in the north.
The caliphate of Cordoba did not long survive Al
Mansur's
dictatorship. Rival claimants to the throne, local
aristocrats,
and army commanders who staked out taifas (sing.,
taifa), or independent regional city-states, tore
the
caliphate apart. Some taifas, such as Seville
(Spanish,
Sevilla), Granada, Valencia, and Zaragoza, became strong
amirates, but all faced frequent political upheavals, war
among
themselves, and long-term accommodations to emerging
Christian
states.
Peaceful relations among Arabs, Berbers, and Spanish
converts
to Islam were not easily maintained. To hold together such
a
heterogeneous population, Spanish Islam stressed ethics
and
legalism. Pressure from the puritanical Berbers also led
to
crackdowns on Mozarabs (name for Christians in Al Andalus:
literally, Arab-like) and Jews.
Mozarabs were considered a separate caste even though
there
were no real differences between them and the converts to
Islam
except for religion and liability to taxation, which fell
heavily
on the Christian community. They were essentially urban
merchants
and artisans. Their church was permitted to exist with few
restrictions, but it was prohibited from flourishing. The
episcopal and monastic structure remained intact, but
teaching
was curbed and intellectual initiative was lost.
In the ninth century, Mozarabs in Cordoba, led by their
bishop, invited martyrdom by publicly denouncing the
Prophet
Muhammad in public. Nevertheless, violence against the
Mozarabs
was rare until the eleventh century, when the Christian
states
became a serious threat to the security of Al Andalus.
Many
Mozarabs fled to the Christian north.
Data as of December 1988
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