by Robert Bovington
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In 711 an army of 7000 under the command
of the Berber Tarik-ibn-Zehad crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and
defeated Roderic the Visigothic King of Hispania. The Muslim armies
swept through Hispania and conquered Toledo which was then the capital
of the Visigothic kingdom. This marked the beginning of Muslim
domination of a large chunk of the Iberian Peninsula.
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| The Lions Courtyard Alhambra photo: Robert Bovington |
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The Arabs named this vast region
Al-Andalus. Initially it comprised five administrative areas roughly
corresponding to Andalucía; Galicia and Portugal; Castile and Léon;
Aragón and Catalonia; and Septimania which apparently was where the
modern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon is located. So Al-Andalus
was pretty big! At that juncture, Al-Andalus was merely a province of
the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus.
Over the centuries, Al-Andalus was ruled
by varying Arab dynasties. For example, the Abbasid dynasty assassinated
the Umayyads and seized power, and Al-Andalus became a kingdom also
known as the Emirate of Córdoba (c. 750-929). Successively it became the
Caliphate of Córdoba (929-1031); then a collection of Taifa kingdoms.
The last of the Arab kingdoms was the Nasrid kingdom of Granada
(1232-1492), which by then was merely the territories of Almería,
Málaga, and Granada. This gradual yet massive reduction in the size of
this once great kingdom was, of course, due to the Reconquest of Spain
by the Christians. Al-Andalus ceased to exist in 1492 when Boabdil
surrendered the city of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.
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an extract of my Pinterest pinboard ‘Al-Andalus’ is shown below…
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To see more pics click on:-
http://pinterest.com/robertbovington/al-andalus/
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more blogs by Robert Bovington…
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“Spanish Impressions”
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“postcards from Spain”
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“you couldn’t make it up!”
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“a grumpy old man in Spain”
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“bits and bobs”
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“Spanish Expressions”
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“Spanish Art”
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“Books About Spain”
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