Al-Andlus

AL-Andalus

AL-Andlus also known as 

Moorish Iberia, was a medieval Muslim state and territorial region occupying parts of what is

 today Spain and Portugal, 

and small parts of modern

France; its precise extent 

varied over time. The name

 more generally describes parts

 of the Iberian Peninsula and 

Septimania governed by Muslims (given the generic name of Moors), at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries underwent constant changes due to wars with the Christian Kingdoms.

Following the Muslim conquest of Hispania, Al-Andalus was divided into five administrative areas roughly corresponding to Andalusia, Galicia and Portugal, Castile and León, Aragon and Catalonia, and Septimania. As a political domain or domains, 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); and the Caliphate of Córdoba's taifa (successor) kingdoms. Rule under these kingdoms saw the rise in cultural exchange and cooperation between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, al-Andalus was a beacon of learning, and the city of Córdoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres in both the Mediterranean Basin and the Islamic world.

Province of the Caliphate

During the caliphate of 

the Umayyad Caliph 

Al-Walid I, the Berber 

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 occupation in a seven-year campaign. They crossed the Pyrenees and occupied Visigothic Septimania in southern France.

Most of the Iberian peninsula became part of the expanding Umayyad empire, under the name 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 set at Córdoba, and the initial influx of Muslim colonists were widely distributed - Arab colonists were assigned to the south and east, while Berber colonists were scattered across the west and center. Visigothic lords who agreed to recognize Muslim suzerainity were allowed to retain their fiefs (notably, in Murcia, Galicia and the Ebro valley). Resistant Visigoths took refuge in the Cantabrian highlands, where they carved out a rump state, the Kingdom of Asturias.

In the 720s, the Andalusian governors launched several sa'ifa raids into Aquitaine. Duke Odo the Great of Aquitaine appealed to the Frankish mayor Charles Martel for assistance, offering to place himself under Carolingian sovereignty. At the Battle of Poitiers in 732, an Andalusian raiding army was defeated by Charles Martel. In 734, the Andalusians launched raids to the east, capturing Avignon and Arles and overran much of Provence. In 737, they climbed up the Rhône valley, reached as far as Burgundy. Charles Martel of the Franks, with the assistance of Liutprand of the Lombards, invaded Burgundy and Provence and expelled the raiders by 739.

Emirate and Caliphate of Córdoba

In 756, the exiled Umayyad

 prince Abd al-Rahman I

 (nicknamed al-Dākhil, the

 'Immigrant') ousted Yūsuf 

al-Fihri to establish himself

 as the Emir of Córdoba. 

He refused to submit to the Abbasid caliph, as Abbasid forces had killed most of his family. Over

a thirty year reign,he 

established a tenuous rule over much of alAndalus,overcoming partisans of both

 the al-Fihri family and of 

the Abbasid caliph.

 For the next century and a half, his descendants continued as emirs of Córdoba, with nominal control over the rest of al-Andalus and sometimes parts of western North Africa, but with real control, particularly over the marches along the Christian border, vacillating depending on the competence of the individual emir. Indeed, the power of emir Abdallah ibn Muhammad (circa 900) did not extend beyond Córdoba itself. But his grandson Abd-al-Rahman III, who succeeded him in 912, not only rapidly restored Umayyad power throughout al-Andalus but extended it into western North Africa as well. In 929 he proclaimed himself Caliph, elevating the emirate to a position competing in prestige not only with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad but also the Shi'ite caliph in Tunis—with whom he was competing for control of North Africa.The Caliphate of Cordoba c. 1000 at the apogee of Al-Mansur.

Infrastructure

Industrial water mills were built in Al-Andalus between the 11th and 13th centuries. Fulling mills, steel mills, and other mills, spread from Al-Andalus to Christian Iberia by the 12th century. The first windmills were built in Sistan, Afghanistan, sometime between the 7th century and 9th century, as described by Muslim geographers. These were horizontal axis windmills with rectangle shaped blades, geared to long vertical drive shafts. These were introduced to Europe through Spain. The bridge mill was a unique type of water mill that was built as part of the superstructure of a bridge. The earliest record of a bridge mill is from Córdoba in the 12th century. The first forge to be driven by a hydro powered water mill rather than manual labour, also known as a finery forge, was invented in 12th century Al-Andalus. Stamp mills were used by miners in Samarkand from as early as 973. They were used in medieval Persia for the purpose of crushing ore. By the 11th century, stamp mills were in widespread use throughout the Islamic world, including Al-Andalus.

Many Damdams (or dams), acequias, and qanat water supply systems, and "Tribunal of Waters" irrigation systems, were built during the Islamic Golden Age and are still in use today in Islamic countries and in formerly Islamic Provinces in Europe such as Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in the Andalusia, Aragon and Valencia Provinces of Spain. The Arabic systems of irrigation and water distribution were later adopted in the Canary Islands and Americas due to the Spanish and are still used including in Texas, New Mexico, Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

Muslim cities such as Córdoba had advanced domestic water systems with sanitary sewers, public baths, drinking fountains, piped drinking water supplies, and widespread private and public toilet and bathing facilities. The first street lamps were built in the Arab Empire, especially in Córdoba, which also had the first facilities and waste containers for litter collection.

Non-Muslims under the Caliphate

Treatment of non-Muslims

The non-Muslims were given the status of ahl aldhimma (the people under protection), adults paying a "Jizya"tax, 

equal to one Dinar per year with exemptions for old people, women, children and the disabled, whenever there was a Christian authority in the community. When there was no Christian authority, the non-Muslims were given 

the status of majus.

The treatment of non-Muslims in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing parallels to the coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature, has argued that "tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society". In her view, the Jewish and Christian dhimmis living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were much better off than minorities in Christian parts of Europe.

Rise and fall of Muslim power

Medieval Spain and Portugal 

was the scene of almost 

constant warfare between 

Muslims and Christians. The 

last Muslim bastion, Nasrid 

Granada fell around 1492. 

By this time the Moors in 

Castile numbered "half a million within the realm, 

100,000 had died or been enslaved, 200,000 emigrated,and 200,000 remained as the residual population. Many of the Muslim elite, including Muhammad XII, who had been given the area of the Alpujarra Mountain as a principality,found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into North Africa"

North Africa and Spain

When the Abbasids captured Damascus, one of the Umayyad princes escaped and made the long journey from there to Spain to found Umayyad rule there, thus beginning the golden age of Islam in Spain. Cordoba was established as the capital and soon became Europe's greatest city not only in population but from the point of view of its cultural and intellectual life. The Umayyads ruled over two centuries until they weakened and were replaced by local rulers.

Meanwhile in North Africa, various local dynasties held sway until two powerful Berber dynasties succeeded in uniting much of North Africa and also Spain in the 12th and 13th centuries. After them this area was ruled once again by local dynasties such as the Sharifids of Morocco who still rule in that country. As for Spain itself, Muslim power continued to wane until the last Muslim dynasty was defeated in Granada in 1492 thus bringing nearly eight hundred years of Muslim

Rule in Spain to an end.

Islamic History after the Mongol Invasion

The Mongols devastated the eastern lands of Islam and ruled from the Sinai Desert to India for a century. But they soon converted to Islam and became known as the Il-Khanids. They were in turn succeeded by Timur and his descendants who made Samarqand their capital and ruled from 1369 to 1500. The sudden rise of Timur delayed the formation and expansion of the Ottoman empire but soon the Ottomans became the dominant power in the Islamic world.