The Abbadid dynasty or Abbadids was an Arab dynasty from the tribe of Banu Lakhm of al-Hirah, which ruled the Taifa of Seville in al-Andalus following the downfall of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 1031. After the collapse, they were the most powerful Taifa and before long absorbed most of the others. Abbadid rule lasted from about 1023 until 1091, but during the short period of its existence it exhibited singular energy and typified its time.
The Almohad Caliphate or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Islamic–Jewish relations comprise the human and diplomatic relations between Jewish people and Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and their surrounding regions. Jewish–Islamic relations may also refer to the shared and disputed ideals between Judaism and Islam, which began roughly in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam in the Arabian peninsula. The two religions share similar values, guidelines, and principles. Islam also incorporates Jewish history as a part of its own. Muslims regard the Children of Israel as an important religious concept in Islam. Moses, the most important prophet of Judaism, is also considered a prophet and messenger in Islam. Moses is mentioned in the Quran more than any other individual, and his life is narrated and recounted more than that of any other prophet. There are approximately 43 references to the Israelites in the Quran, and many in the Hadith. Later rabbinic authorities and Jewish scholars such as Maimonides discussed the relationship between Islam and Jewish law. Maimonides himself, it has been argued, was influenced by Islamic legal thought.
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-day Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain, and Southern 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.
Hasdai ben Abraham Crescas was a Spanish-Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist. Along with Maimonides ("Rambam"), Gersonides ("Ralbag"), and Joseph Albo, he is known as one of the major practitioners of the rationalist approach to Jewish philosophy.
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. He is known for his philological commentary, Teshuvot Dunash, and for his liturgical poems D'ror Yiqra and D'vai Haser.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut born about 915 at Jaén, Spain; died about 970 at Córdoba, Andalusia, was a Jewish scholar, physician, diplomat, and patron of science.
Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ was an Andalusi Jewish rabbi philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born in Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138. Ibn Ezra is considered to have had great influence in the Arabic literary world. He is considered one of Spain's greatest poets and was thought to be ahead of his time in terms of his theories on the nature of poetry. One of the more revolutionary aspects of Ibn Ezra's poetry that has been debated is his definition of poetry as metaphor and how his poetry illuminates Aristotle's early ideas. The impact of Ibn Ezra's philosophical works was minor compared to his impact on poetry, but they address his concept of the relationship between God and man.
Samuel ibn Naghrillah, mainly known as Samuel the Prince and Isma’il ibn Naghrilla, was a medieval Sephardic Jewish Talmudic scholar, grammarian, philologist, soldier, merchant, politician, and an influential poet who lived in Iberia at the time of the Moorish rule. He held the position of Prime Minister of the Taifa of Granada and served as the battlefield commander of the Granadan army, making him arguably the most politically influential Jew in Islamic Spain.
Convivencia is an academic term, proposed by the Spanish philologist Américo Castro, regarding the period of Spanish history from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early eighth century until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. It claims that in the different Moorish Iberian kingdoms, the Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in relative peace. According to this interpretation of history, this period of religious diversity differs from later Spanish and Portuguese history when—as a result of expulsions and forced conversions—Catholicism became the sole religion in the Iberian Peninsula.
This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.
The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.
Jonah ibn Janah or ibn Janach, born Abū al-Walīd Marwān ibn Janāḥ, , was a Jewish rabbi, physician and Hebrew grammarian active in al-Andalus. Born in Córdoba, ibn Janah was mentored there by Isaac ibn Gikatilla and Isaac ibn Mar Saul, before he moved around 1012, due to the sacking of the city by Berbers. He then settled in Zaragoza, where he wrote Kitab al-Mustalhaq, which expanded on the research of Judah ben David Hayyuj and led to a series of controversial exchanges with Samuel ibn Naghrillah that remained unresolved during their lifetimes.
The 1066 Granada massacre took place on 30 December 1066 when a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, in the Taifa of Granada, killed and crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela, and massacred much of the Jewish population of the city.
The Taifa of Granada or Zirid Kingdom of Granada was a Berber Muslim kingdom that was formed in al-Andalus in 1013 following the deposition of Caliph Hisham II in 1009. The kingdom was centered on Granada, its capital, and it also extended its control to Málaga for a period. Four kings succeeded each other during its nearly 80 years of existence, all of them belonging to an offshoot of the Zirid dynasty of North Africa, a Sanhaja Berber clan. The Taifa of Granada was considered to be the wealthiest out of all of the taifa kingdoms. It was eventually conquered by the Almoravids in 1090, putting an end to Zirid rule in Granada.
Almohad doctrine or Almohadism was the ideology underpinning the Almohad movement, founded by Ibn Tumart, which created the Almohad Empire during the 12th to 13th centuries. Fundamental to Almohadism was Ibn Tumart's radical interpretation of tawḥid—"unity" or "oneness"—from which the Almohads get their name: al-muwaḥḥidūn (المُوَحِّدون).
Muslims, Christians, and Jews co-existed for over seven centuries in the Iberian Peninsula during the era of Al-Andalus states. The degree to which the Christians and the Jews were tolerated by their Muslim rulers is a subject widely contested among historians. The history of Al-Andalus indicates that Muslims, Christians, and Jews who lived within Al-Andalus had relatively peaceful relations, with the exception of a few scattered revolts, and times of religious persecution. The great amount of cultural and social interaction that took place between these three distinct social and religious groups led to the creation of a unique and diverse culture that continued to flourish even after the Reconquista.
The Maimonidean Controversy is the series of ongoing disputes between so called “philosophers” and so called “traditionalists”. The principal part of the controversy took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, but the questions raised have remained unresolved until today. The debates initially centered around Maimonides’ writings after they had been made accessible to French rabbinic scholars by translation to Hebrew from Judeo-Arabic and stood in direct relation to Maimonides’ project of mediating Jewish tradition and Greco-Arabic philosophy and science. However, characters within the controversy can often not be clearly ascribed to one camp, these are simplified and polemic categories, used in the literature contemporary to the controversy itself.
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.
