The Almoravid dynasty was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almohads in 1147. The dynasty emerged from a coalition of the Lamtuna, Gudala, and Massufa, nomadic Berber tribes living in what is now Mauritania and the Western Sahara, traversing the territory between the Draa, the Niger, and the Senegal rivers. During their expansion into the Maghreb, the Almoravids founded the city of Marrakesh as a capital, c. 1070.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar was a Castilian knight and ruler in medieval Spain. Fighting both with Christian and Muslim armies during his lifetime, he earned the Arabic honorific as-Sayyid, which would evolve into El Çid, and the Spanish honorific El Campeador. He was born in Vivar, a village near the city of Burgos. As the head of his loyal knights, he came to dominate the Levante of the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 11th century. He reclaimed the Taifa of Valencia from Muslim control for a brief period during the Reconquista, ruling the principality as its lord from 17 June 1094 until his death in 1099. His wife, Jimena Díaz, inherited the city and maintained it until 1102 when it was reconquered by the Moors.
The Iberian Peninsula, also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in Southwestern Europe, defining the westernmost edge of Eurasia. It is divided between Peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprising most of the region, as well as Andorra, Gibraltar and a small part of Southern France. With an area of approximately 583,254 square kilometres (225,196 sq mi), and a population of roughly 53 million, it is the second-largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula.
The Reconquista or the reconquest of al-Andalus was the series of military campaigns that Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga, in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. Its culmination came in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.
The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim populations of the Maghreb, al-Andalus, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that the term had "no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, and Muslim Europeans.
The Mozarabs, or more precisely Andalusi Christians, were the Christians of al-Andalus, or the territories of Iberia under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492. Following the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania, the Christian population of much of Iberia came under Muslim control.
Al-Andalus was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern Spain, Portugal, and France. The name describes the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and part of present-day southern France (Septimania) under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed constantly through a series of conquests Western historiography has traditionally characterized as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.
Andalusi Romance, also called Mozarabic or Ajami, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance that developed in Al-Andalus, the parts of the medieval Iberian Peninsula under Islamic control. Romance, or vernacular Late Latin, was the common tongue for the great majority of the Iberian population at the time of the Umayyad conquest in the early eighth century, but over the following centuries, it was gradually superseded by Andalusi Arabic as the main spoken language in the Muslim-controlled south. At the same time, as the northern Christian kingdoms pushed south into Al-Andalus, their respective Romance varieties gained ground at the expense of Andalusi Romance as well as Arabic. The final extinction of the former may be estimated to 1300 CE.
The taifas were the independent Muslim principalities and kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, referred to by Muslims as al-Andalus, that emerged from the decline and fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba between 1009 and 1031. They were a recurring feature of al-Andalus history.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, also Tashafin, Teshufin, was leader of the Berber Almoravid empire. He co-founded the city of Marrakesh and led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Sagrajas. Yusuf ibn Tashfin came to Al-Andalus from the Maghreb to help the Muslims fight against Alfonso VI, eventually achieving victory in Sagrajas and promoting an Islamic system in the region. In 1061 he took the title “Amir al-Muslimeen” recognising the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate. He was married to Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, whom he reportedly trusted in political matters.
This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.
Muladí were the native population of the Iberian Peninsula who adopted Islam after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century. The demarcation of muladíes from the population of Arab and Berber extraction was relevant in the first centuries of Islamic rule, however, by the 10th century, they diluted into the bulk of the society of al-Andalus. In Sicily, Muslims of local descent or of mixed Arab, and Sicilian origin were also sometimes referred to as Muwallad. They were also called Musalimah ('Islamized'). In broader usage, the word muwallad is used to describe Arabs of mixed parentage, especially those not living in their ancestral homelands.
SisnandoDavides was a Mozarab nobleman and military leader of the Reconquista, born in Tentúgal, near Coimbra. He was a contemporary and acquaintance of El Cid, but his sphere of activity was in Iberia's southwest.
The Berbers are an indigenous ethnic group of the Maghreb region of North Africa. Following the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, most Berber tribes eventually became Muslims. Presently, about one-sixth of the population of Maghreb speaks one of the Berber languages, but most of them also speak some form of Arabic. Berbers are the first non-Arab people to have established an Islamic state.
Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī ākhbār mulūk al-andalus wa'l-maghrib by Ibn Idhāri of Marrakech in the Maghreb ; an important medieval Arabic history of the Maghreb and Iberia, written at Marrakech ca. 1312 / 712 AH. Generally known by its shorter title al-Bayān al-Mughrib, or even just as the Bayān, it is valued by modern researchers as a unique source of information, and for its preservation of excerpts from lost works.
The Caliphate of Córdoba, also known as the Córdoban Caliphate, was an Arab Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 929 to 1031. Its territory comprised Iberia and parts of North Africa, with its capital in Córdoba. It succeeded the Emirate of Córdoba upon the self-proclamation of Umayyad emir Abd ar-Rahman III as caliph in January 929. The period was characterized by an expansion of trade and culture, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture.
Abu-l-Hasan Ali ibn Ruburtayr or Reverter was the younger son of Reverter I viscount of Barcelona, and a Muslim Catalan mercenary commander. He left the Christian faith and territories, and converted to Islam. His Christian name is unknown.
The Almoravid dinar was a gold dinar coin minted under the Almoravid dynasty in the Maghreb and Iberia. The mints that produced them were supplied by the West African gold mines south of the Sahara desert. The Almoravid dinars circulated widely beyond the reach of the empire; the Christian kingdoms of Iberia called them "marabotins" and "maravedís".
The literature of al-Andalus, also known as Andalusi literature, was produced in al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, from the Muslim conquest in 711 to either the Catholic conquest of Granada in 1492 or the expulsion of the Moors ending in 1614. Andalusi literature was written primarily in Arabic, but also in Hebrew, Latin, and Romance.
Almoravid architecture corresponds to a period from the 11th to 12th centuries when the Almoravids ruled over the western Maghreb and al-Andalus. It was an important phase in the development of a regional Moorish architecture, as the styles and craftsmanship of al-Andalus were further imported and developed in North Africa. The Almoravids founded the city of Marrakesh as their capital and built many mosques in the region, although much of what they built has not preserved. The Almoravids were overthrown by the Almohads in the 12th century, after which Almohad architecture continued to develop some of the same trends in the Maghreb and al-Andalus.
