The Reconquista is the historical term used to describe the military campaigns that Christian kingdoms waged against the Moors from the 8th century until 1492, in order to retake—or reconquer—the Iberian territories which were lost due to 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 Arab-Berber 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 united Spanish Crown of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
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 and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and a part of present-day southern France, Septimania. For nearly a century, from the 9th century to the 10th century, Al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids. The name describes the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. These boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.
The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which, intermittently, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished.
Musa ibn Nusayr served as an Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa (Ifriqiya), and directed the Islamic conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania.
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.
The Nasrid dynasty was an Arab dynasty that ruled the Emirate of Granada from 1230 to 1492. It was the last Muslim dynasty in the Iberian Peninsula. Twenty-three emirs ruled Granada from the founding of the dynasty in 1230 by Muhammad I until 2 January 1492, when Muhammad XII surrendered all lands to Queen Isabella I of Castile. Today, the most visible evidence of the Nasrid dynasty is part of the Alhambra palace complex built under their rule.
The Muslim conquest of Spain was an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate, occurring from approximately 710 to 780. The conquest resulted in the defeat of the Visigothic Kingdom and the establishment of the Umayyad Wilayah of Al-Andalus.
The Emirate of Córdoba or Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba was a medieval Islamic kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula.
Muladí were Muslims of local Iberian descent or of mixed Arab, Berber, and Iberian origin who lived in al-Andalus during the Middle Ages. 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.
Spain is a Christian majority country, with Islam being a minority religion, practised mostly by the immigrants and their descendants from Muslim majority countries. As of 2019, 4.45% of the Spanish population are Muslims.
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr, also known as Ibn al-Aḥmar and by his honorific al-Ghalib billah, was the first ruler of the Emirate of Granada, the last independent Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula, and the founder of its ruling Nasrid dynasty. He lived during a time when Iberia's Christian kingdoms—especially Portugal, Castile and Aragon—were expanding at the expense of the Islamic territory in Iberia, called Al-Andalus. Muhammad ibn Yusuf took power in his native Arjona in 1232 when he rebelled against the de facto leader of Al-Andalus, Ibn Hud. During this rebellion, he was able to take control of Córdoba and Seville briefly, before he lost both cities to Ibn Hud. Forced to acknowledge Ibn Hud's suzerainty, Muhammad was able to retain Arjona and Jaén. In 1236, he betrayed Ibn Hud by helping Ferdinand III of Castile take Córdoba. In the years that followed, Muhammad was able to gain control over southern cities, including Granada (1237), Almería (1238), and Málaga (1239). In 1244, he lost Arjona to Castile. Two years later, in 1246, he agreed to surrender Jaén and accept Ferdinand's overlordship in exchange for a 20-year truce.
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.
The Emirate of Granada, also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, was an Islamic realm in the southern Iberian Peninsula during the Late Middle Ages. It was the last independent Muslim state in Western Europe.
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 history of Moorish Gibraltar began with the landing of the Muslims in Hispania and the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in 711 and ended with the fall of Gibraltar to Christian hands 751 years later, in 1462, with an interregnum during the early 14th century.
The Oran fatwa was a responsum fatwa, or an Islamic legal opinion, issued in 1502 to address the crisis that occurred when Muslims in the Crown of Castile were forced to convert to Christianity in 1500–1502. The fatwa sets out detailed relaxations of the sharia requirements, allowing the Muslims to conform outwardly to Christianity and perform acts that are ordinarily forbidden in Islamic law, when necessary to survive. It includes relaxed instructions for fulfilling the ritual prayers, the ritual charity, and the ritual ablution, and recommendations when obliged to violate Islamic law, such as worshipping as Christians, committing blasphemy, and consuming pork and wine.
Mudéjar refers to the group of Muslims who remained in Iberia in the late medieval period despite the Christian reconquest. It is also a term for Mudejar art, which was much influenced by Islamic art, but produced typically by Christian craftsmen for Christian patrons.
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.
