Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the name for the part of Spain that was ruled by Muslims during the Middle Ages. It started in the year 711 and lasted until 1492. At its biggest, it covered most of Spain and even a small part of what is now France called Septimania. Over time, different Muslim groups ruled this area, including the Umayyads, the Emirate of Córdoba, and the Caliphate of Córdoba.

The city of Córdoba became very important under the Caliphate of Córdoba, around the year 1000. It was a center for learning and trade. Many smart people from al-Andalus made big discoveries in science, medicine, and farming. These ideas helped both the Muslim world and Europe.

Al-Andalus often fought with the Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain. After the Umayyad caliphate ended, al-Andalus split into smaller states called taifas. Later, bigger Muslim empires like the Almoravids and Almohads took control. Finally, the Christian kingdoms from the north took over most of Spain. The last Muslim state, the Emirate of Granada, surrendered in 1492 to the Catholic Monarchs.

Etymology

Main article: Etymology of Andalusia

The name al-Andalus first appeared on coins made in 716 by the new Muslim rulers of Iberia. These coins, called dinars, had writing in both Latin and Arabic. People used to think the name came from the word for the Vandals, but new ideas suggest other possibilities. Some believe it might be related to the name Atlantis, while others think it could come from old Gothic or pre-Roman words.

History

See also: Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula

Province of the Umayyad Caliphate

Main article: Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula

During the rule of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I, commander Tariq ibn-Ziyad led an army that landed at Gibraltar in 711. After winning a big battle against King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete, Tariq and governor Musa ibn Nusayr of Ifriqiya brought most of the Visigothic Kingdom under Muslim control. They crossed into Septimania in southern France.

Most of the Iberian Peninsula became part of the Umayyad Empire, called al-Andalus. It was organized as a province led by the emir of Kairouan for a few decades, not the Caliph in Damascus. The capital was set at Córdoba. Many Muslim settlers arrived.

Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba

Main article: Emirate of Córdoba

Establishment

In 755, the Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman I arrived in Spain after fleeing danger. He defeated local leaders and took control of Córdoba in 756, making it the capital of the new emirate. He ruled for many years, building important buildings like the Mosque of Córdoba and defending against attacks.

Rule

Abd al Rahman's rule was peaceful at first. He was followed by his son Hisham I, then his grandson Al-Hakam I. Later rulers faced more challenges, but the emirate grew stronger under leaders like Abd al-Rahman II. Science and art flourished.

Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba

Main article: Caliphate of Córdoba

The Caliphate of Córdoba is remembered as a golden age. Córdoba became a huge and rich city, a center for learning, art, and trade. Important thinkers and doctors lived there, and their ideas spread to Europe.

Taifas period

Main article: Taifa

The Caliphate broke up into smaller states called taifas after a civil war. These small states often fought each other and paid tribute to Christian kingdoms. Some, like the Taifa of Seville, grew powerful for a time.

Almoravids and Almohads

Further information: Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate

The Almoravids from Africa helped the taifa states at first but later took control of most of al-Andalus. The Almohads followed and also ruled for a time. Christian kingdoms grew stronger and took back more land.

Emirate of Granada, its fall, and aftermath

Main article: Emirate of Granada

The last part of al-Andalus was the Emirate of Granada, ruled by the Nasrid dynasty. It lasted from 1230 until 1492 when it was taken over by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand. Many Muslims and Jews left or were forced to change their religion.

Science

In al-Andalus, many people studied science, especially in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and farming. Scholars worked on many subjects, often mixing ideas from different areas. The earliest known scientific work began during the rule of Abd ar-Rahman II, who lived from 822 to 852. Later, scientists kept learning and sharing knowledge.

Medicine

Many doctors and medical teachers lived in al-Andalus. One famous doctor, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, wrote a big book around the year 1000 about all the medical knowledge known at the time. His book included important drawings of tools doctors used and shared his own experiences, which helped other doctors learn. Another doctor, Ibn al-Baytar, wrote a book describing over 1,400 plants and their uses in medicine. The ibn Zuhr family was also well-known for their work in health and food.

Astronomy

Some of the best astronomers in al-Andalus were Ibn Tufail, Ibn Rushd, and Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji. They studied the stars and tried to improve older ideas about how the sky worked. They used ideas from Aristotle instead of some older Greek thinkers. Maslama al-Majriti helped translate and explain important books about the stars. Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Zarqali improved tables that help predict where stars and planets would be.

Agronomy

People in al-Andalus also made advances in farming. They built new ways to bring water to fields, which helped grow more food. One writer, Ibn al-'Awwam, wrote a book with many tips about farming and taking care of plants. They also grew new fruits, like pomegranates, which became famous in Granada.

Culture

Society

See also: Social and cultural exchange in al-Andalus, La Convivencia, Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, and Mozarabs

The society of al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Muslims, although united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. The Arab elite regarded non-Arab Muslims as second-class citizens; and they were particularly scornful of the Berbers.

The ethnic structure of al-Andalus consisted of Arabs at the top of the social scale followed by, in descending order, Berbers, Muladies, Mozarabes, and Jews. Each of these communities inhabited distinct neighbourhoods in the cities. In the 10th century a massive conversion of Christians took place, and muladies formed the majority of Muslims.^{[citation needed]} The Muwalladun had spoken in the local Romance dialects of Latin collectively called Andalusi Romance or Mozarabic while increasingly adopting the Arabic language, which eventually evolved into the Andalusi Arabic in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians became monolingual in the last surviving Muslim state in the Iberian Peninsula, the Emirate of Granada (1230–1492). Thomas Glick claims that Muladies, together with other Muslims, comprised eighty per cent of the population of al-Andalus by 1100. Mozarabs were Christians who had long lived under Muslim and Arab rule, adopting many Arab customs, art and architecture, and words, while still maintaining their Christian and Latin rituals and their own Romance languages.

The Jewish population worked mainly as tax collectors, in trade, or as doctors or ambassadors. At the end of the 15th century there were about 50,000 Jews in Granada and roughly 100,000 in the whole of Islamic Iberia, which had been reduced to the territory of the Emirate of Granada.

Non-Muslims were given the status of ahl al-dhimma (people under protection), with adult men paying a "Jizya" tax equal to one dinar per year with exemptions for the elderly and the disabled. Those who were neither Christians nor Jews, such as pagans, 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 co-existence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world.

Jews constituted more than five per cent of the population. Al-Andalus was a key centre of Jewish life during the early Middle Ages, produced important scholars and was one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities.

The longest period of relative tolerance began after 912, with the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his son, Al-Hakam II, and the Jews of al-Andalus prospered by devoting themselves to the service of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry, especially by trading in silk and slaves, which thus promoted the prosperity of the country. Southern Iberia became an asylum for the oppressed Jews of other countries.

Under the Almoravids and the Almohads, there may have been intermittent persecution of Jews, but sources are extremely scarce and do not give a clear picture though the situation appears to have deteriorated after 1160. Muslim pogrom against Jews in al-Andalus occurred in Córdoba (1011) and in Granada (1066). However, massacres of dhimmis are believed to be rare in Islamic history.

The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusi territories by 1147, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and treated the non-Muslims harshly. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews and Christians emigrated. Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands.

Many ethnicities and religions co-existed in al-Andalus, each of which contributed to its intellectual prosperity. Literacy in Islamic Iberia was far more widespread than in many other nations in the West of the time.

Though the number of the early inhabitants of al-Andalus after the 7th-century conquest was small, many native Iberian inhabitants converted to Islam, known as Muwalladun in Arabic or Muladíes in Spanish. By 1000, according to Ronald Segal, some 5,000,000 of Iberia's 7,000,000 inhabitants, most of them descended from indigenous Iberian converts, were Muslim. There were also Sub-Saharan Africans who had been absorbed into al-Andalus to be used as soldiers and slaves. The Berber and the sub-Saharan African soldiers were known as "tangerines" because they were imported through the Mediterranean coastal city of Tangier.

In the 11th century, the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (base 10) had reached Europe via al-Andalus through Spanish Muslims, together with knowledge of astronomy and instruments like the astrolabe, which was first imported by Gerbert of Aurillac. For that reason, the numerals came to be known in Europe as Arabic numerals despite their origins in India.

From the earliest days, the Umayyads wanted to be seen as intellectual rivals to the Abbasids and for Córdoba to have libraries and educational institutions to that of their rival, Baghdad. Although there was a clear rivalry between the two powers, there was freedom to travel between the two caliphates,^{[citation needed]} which helped spread new ideas and innovations over time.

Language

Multilingualism, language contact, and code-switching were important features of the shifting linguistic landscape in al-Andalus, which included Arabic, in vernacular Andalusi Arabic and formal Classical Arabic registers, vernacular Andalusi Romance and formal Latin, Hebrew, and al-lisān al-gharbī or Berber. Multilingual households were an attested phenomenon.

Initially, most of the population spoke Romance dialects. The dialects of Iberian Romance that were spoken in al-Andalus are collectively referred to as Andalusi Romance or Mozarabic. What is hypothesised about these dialects is based on sparse evidence, including Romance topographical and personal names and the kharjas of some muwaššaḥ poetry.

Arabic arrived with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and spread gradually over the following centuries, primarily through conversion to Islam. Arabic in al-Andalus became the language of administration and of literature and a "vehicle for a higher culture, a literate and literary civilization." It was widely adopted by the end of the 9th century, even among Andalusi Christians and Jews, who wrote Arabic in Hebrew letters but did not have a distinct dialect. The vernacular varieties of Arabic spoken in al-Andalus, referred to as Andalusi Arabic, were Maghrebi Arabic dialects influenced by their contact with Romance, just as Arabic influenced Spanish. By about 1260, following the Almohad period, most Christians had migrated to the north and Muslim territories in Iberia were reduced to the Emirate of Granada, in which more than 90% of the population had converted to Islam and Arabic-Romance bilingualism seems to have largely disappeared.

The literary traditions of Hebrew—which was used for prayer and ceremonial writings, but not for oral communication—experienced a revolution through contact with Arabic and its literary traditions. Consuelo López Morillas writes that Jews in al-Andalus "wrote Hebrew poetry using Arabic prosodic models and adopted nearly the entire range of Arabic poetic genres and stylistic devices in Hebrew," looking to Biblical Hebrew as a source for literary expression as Muslims looked to Quranic Arabic.

Berber languages, referred to in contemporary sources as al-lisān al-gharbī (اللسان الغربي, Arabic for 'the western tongue'), were especially present in periods of Berber rule, particularly under the Almoravids and Almohads. Under Almohad rule, it was compulsory to deliver the khuṭba (sermon) at Friday prayer in Arabic and al-lisān al-gharbī.

Literature and poetry

Main article: Literature of al-Andalus

In al-Andalus, there are 11,831 known scholars who were active and 13,730 known works that were written or transmitted from the eighth to fifteenth centuries. Of these scholars, those who are well known and remembered in the West, such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Hazm, or Ibn Arabi, are not necessarily the same scholars that are remembered in Islamic culture, such as Abū ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū l-Walīd al-Bājī, Ibn ʿAtịyya, Ibn al-ʿArīf, or Abū Isḥāq aš-Šāṭibī.

Poetry was considered the prime literary genre in Arabic. Traditional forms of Arabic poetry from the Mashriq, or Muslim East, especially the monometer, monorhyme qaṣīda and the prosimetric maqāma, were adopted in al-Andalus. The major Andalusi innovation in poetry was the 'rhyme revolution' embodied in the 10th-11th century strophic song form called the muwaššaḥ ('girdled'; pl. muwaššaḥāt). The muwaššaḥ features a complex rhyme scheme usually containing five aghsān ('branches'; sing. ghusn), with uniform rhyme within each strophe, interspersed with asmāṭ ('threads for stringing pearls'; sing. simṭ) with common rhyme throughout the song, as well as a terminal kharja, the song's final simṭ, which could be in a different language. Andalusi zajal was strophic poetry in Andalusi vernacular Arabic, usually associated with Ibn Quzman. Andalusi strophic poetry had an impact on poetic expression in Western Europe, especially the Old Occitan/Provençal lyric of the troubadours, and in the wider Muslim world.

Rithā' al-Andalus is considered the most significant of a series of poems that were written in the classical tradition of rithā' (which denotes both lamentation and a literary genre in itself) by Andalusi poets who had taken inspiration from the fall of Andalusi cities and territories. Jewish poetry from Al-Andalus also developed, mostly but not exclusively in Hebrew, with significant consonance with Arabic poetry in both theme and form.

One specialist of al-Andalus' intellectual history, Maria Luisa Avila, says that "biographical dictionaries have recorded information about thousands of distinguished people in every period from al-Andalus, who were “cultivators of knowledge”, particularly in the legal-religious sciences as well as authors", and that "the exact number of scholars which appears in the biographical sources has not been established yet, but it surely exceeds six thousand." It has been estimated that in the 10th century between 70,000 and 80,000 manuscripts were copied on a yearly basis in Córdoba alone.

Music

Main article: Andalusi classical music

The music of al-Andalus is part of an influential musical tradition. Ziryaba, a poet and musician, who came from the Abbasid Caliphate and arrived in Córdoba in 822, played a role in Andalusi music as well as other aspects of Andalusi culture. Poetic forms such as the muwashshah and its kharja, the nawba, and the zajal are prominent in Andalusi music.

Philosophy

Al-Andalus philosophy

See also: Early Islamic philosophy and Sufism in al-Andalus

The historian Said al-Andalus wrote that Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III had collected libraries of books and granted patronage to scholars of medicine and "ancient sciences". Later, al-Mustansir (Al-Hakam II) went yet further, building a university and libraries in Córdoba. Córdoba became one of the world's leading centres of medicine and philosophical debate.

When Al-Hakam's son Hisham II took over, real power was ceded to the hajib, al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir. Al-Mansur was a distinctly religious man and disapproved of the sciences of astronomy, logic, and especially of astrology, so much so that many books on these subjects, which had been preserved and collected at great expense by Al-Hakam II, were burned publicly. With Al-Mansur's death in 1002, interest in philosophy revived. Numerous scholars emerged, including Abu Uthman Ibn Fathun, whose masterwork was the philosophical treatise "Tree of Wisdom". Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti (died 1008) was an outstanding scholar in astronomy and astrology; he was an intrepid traveller who journeyed all over the Islamic world and beyond and kept in touch with the Brethren of Purity. He is said to have brought the 51 "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity" to al-Andalus and added the compendium to this work, although it is quite possible that it was added later by another scholar with the name al-Majriti. Another book attributed to al-Majriti is the Ghayat al-Hakim, "The Aim of the Sage", which explored a synthesis of Platonism with Hermetic philosophy. Its use of incantations led the book to be widely dismissed in later years, although the Sufi communities continued to study it.

A prominent follower of al-Majriti was the philosopher and geometer Abu al-Hakam al-Kirmani who was followed, in turn, by Abu Bakr Ibn al-Sayigh, usually known in the Arab world as Ibn Bajjah, "Avempace".

The al-Andalus philosopher Averroes (1126–1198) was the founder of the Averroism school of philosophy, and his works and commentaries influenced medieval thought in Western Europe. Another influential al-Andalus philosopher was Ibn Tufail.

Jewish philosophy and culture

Main article: Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

As Jewish thought in Babylonia declined, the tolerance of al-Andalus made it the new centre of Jewish intellectual endeavours. Poets and commentators like Judah Halevi (1086–1145) and Dunash ben Labrat (920–990) contributed to the cultural life of al-Andalus, but the area was even more important to the development of Jewish philosophy. A stream of Jewish philosophers, cross-fertilising with Muslim philosophers (see joint Jewish and Islamic philosophies), culminated with the widely celebrated Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, Maimonides (1135–1205), though he did not actually do any of his work in al-Andalus, his family having fled persecution by the Almohads around 1159.

In al-Andalus, Jews played a significant role in the medical sphere and achieved prominence as physicians. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a Jewish court official and physician in 10th-century Córdoba, was involved in the Arabic translation of Dioscorides' Materia Medica, collaborating with both Christian and Muslim scholars. In 11th-century Zaragoza, Jonah ibn Janah authored a pharmacological treatise that provided multilingual drug names and detailed discussions of weights and measures used in medicine. His contemporary, Jonah ibn Biklārish, compiled a medical dictionary for Zaragoza's rulers, presenting materia medica in tabular form across several languages, including Syriac, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Spanish. According to historian Y. Tzvi Langermann, Andalusian medicine evolved distinctive characteristics and, by the 11th century, increasingly shifted away from eastern Islamic models in favour of closer ties with North African traditions. The influence of Andalusian medicine is evident in later Jewish figures such as Maimonides (1135–1204), whose teachers were trained in this tradition and who himself adopted its emphasis on holistic, Galenic approaches to care.

Art and architecture

Main articles: Moorish architecture and Mudéjar art

In Córdoba, Abd ar-Rahman I built the Great Mosque of Córdoba in 785. It was expanded multiple times up until the 10th century, and after the Reconquista it was converted into a Catholic cathedral. Its key features include a hypostyle hall with marble columns supporting two-tiered arches, a horseshoe-arch mihrab, ribbed domes, a courtyard (sahn) with gardens, and a minaret (later converted into a bell tower).^{: 17–21, 61–79}  Abd ar-Rahman III, at the height of his power, began construction of Madinat al-Zahra, a luxurious palace-city to serve as a new capital.^: 51–58  The Umayyads also reconstructed the Roman-era bridge over the Guadalquivir River in Córdoba, while the Almohads later added the Calahorra Tower to the bridge.^{: 39, 45, 101, 137}  The Bab al-Mardum Mosque (later converted to a church) in Toledo is a well-preserved example of a small neighbourhood mosque built at the end of the Caliphate period.^: 79 

The official workshops of the Caliphate, such as those at Madinat al-Zahra, produced luxury goods for use at court or as gifts for guests, allies, and diplomats, which stimulated artistic production. Many objects produced in the caliph's workshops later made their way into the collections of museums and Christian cathedrals in Europe. Among the most famous objects of this period are ivory boxes which are carved with vegetal, figurative, and epigraphic motifs. Notable surviving examples include the Pyxis of al-Mughira, the Pyxis of Zamora, and the Leyre Casket.

During the Taifas period, art and culture continued to flourish despite the political fragmentation of al-Andalus. The Aljaferia Palace of Zaragoza is the most significant palace preserved from this period, featuring complex ornamental arcades and stucco decoration. In other cities, a number of important palaces or fortresses were begun or expanded by local dynasties such as the Alcazaba of Málaga and the Alcazaba of Almería. Other examples of architecture from around this period include the Bañuelo of Granada, an Islamic bathhouse.^{: 116–128} 

In Seville, Almohad rulers built the Great Mosque of Seville (later transformed into the Cathedral of Seville), which consisted of a hypostyle prayer hall, a courtyard (now known as the Patio de los Naranjos or Court of Oranges), and a massive minaret tower now known as the Giralda. The minaret was later expanded after being converted into a bell tower for the current cathedral.^{: 130–133}  Almohad architecture promoted new forms and decorative designs such as the multifoil arch and the sebka motif, probably influenced by the Caliphate-period architecture of Córdoba.^{: 232–234, 257–258} 

Artists and intellectuals took refuge at Granada after the Christian kingdoms expanded significantly in the 13th century. The palaces of the Alhambra and the Generalife in Granada reflect the culture and art of the last centuries of Muslim rule of al-Andalus. The complex was begun by Ibn al-Ahmar, the first Nasrid emir, and the last major additions were made during the reigns of Yusuf I (1333–1353) and Muhammad V (1353–1391).^: 152  It integrates buildings and gardens with the natural qualities of the site and is a testament to Andalusi culture and to the skills of the Muslim artisans, craftsmen, and builders of their era. Nasrid architecture continued the earlier traditions of Andalusi architecture while also synthesising them into its own distinctive style, which had many similarities with contemporary Marinid architecture in North Africa.^{: 219, 224  : 149–168  : 78–82}  It is characterised by the use of the courtyard as a central space and basic unit around which other halls and rooms were organised. Courtyards typically had water features at their centre, such as a reflective pool or a fountain. Decoration was focused on the inside of buildings and was executed primarily with tile mosaics on lower walls and carved stucco on the upper walls. Geometric patterns, vegetal motifs, and calligraphy were the main types of decorative motifs. Additionally, "stalactite"-like sculpting, known as muqarnas, was used for three-dimensional features like vaulted ceilings, particularly during the reign of Muhammad V and after.^{: 164–167} 

Even after Muslim territories were conquered by the Christian kingdoms, Andalusi art and architecture continued to appear for many centuries as a prestigious style under new Christian patrons employing Muslim craftsmen, originating the Mozarabic art in the Kingdom of Leon during the 10th century and becoming what is known as the Mudéjar style (named after the Mudéjars or Muslims under Christian rule). Numerous examples are found in the early churches of Toledo (e.g. the Church of San Román, 13th century) and in the cities of Aragon such as Zaragoza and Teruel.^{: 361–368}  Among the most famous examples is the Alcázar of Seville, the former Abbadid and Almohad palace redeveloped by Christian rulers such as Peter of Castile, who in 1364 started adding new Moorish-style sections with the help of Muslim craftsmen from Granada and Toledo.^: 171  Some surviving 13th and 14th-century Jewish synagogues were also built (or rebuilt) in Mudéjar style under Christian rule, such as the Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca in Toledo (rebuilt in its current form circa 1250), the Synagogue of Córdoba (1315), and the Synagogue of El Tránsito (1355–1357).

Food and agriculture

Main articles: Arab Agricultural Revolution, Mediterranean cuisine, and Qanat

Crops produced using irrigation, along with food imported from the Middle East, provided areas around Andalusī cities with an agricultural economic sector that was the most advanced in Europe by far, sparking the Arab Agricultural Revolution. A variety of foodstuffs, spices and crops were introduced to Spain and Sicily during Arab rule, via the commercial networks of the Islamic world. These include sugarcane, rice, cotton, alfalfa, oranges, lemons, apricots, spinach, eggplants, carrots, saffron and bananas. The Arabs also continued extensive cultivation and production of olive oil (the Spanish words for 'oil' and 'olive'—aceite and aceituna, respectively—are derived from the Arabic al-zait, meaning 'olive juice'), and pomegranates (the heraldic symbol of Granada) from classical Greco-Roman times.

Arabic influence still lingers on in Spanish cuisine through these fruits, vegetables, spices and cooking and agricultural techniques. One of the largest palm groves in the world, called the Palmeral of Elche, was established by the Arabs between the 7th–10th centuries to facilitate fruit (including pomegranate and date crops) and vegetable growth underneath the cool shade of palm trees and irrigation channels, and is cited by UNESCO as an example of the transfer of agricultural practices from one continent (North Africa) to another (Iberian Peninsula of Europe).

The period of Arab rule also involved the extension of Roman irrigation channels as well as the introduction of novel irrigation techniques from the Persianate world, such as the acequia (deriving from the classical Arabic as-sāqiya) – subterranean channels used to transport water from highland aquifers to lowland fields in arid environments –first originating in either the Arabian Peninsula or the Persian Empire (referred to as qanat or karez in the Middle East). These structures are still found in Andalusia province, particularly in Granada.

The confection alfajor (supposedly from الفاخر) has its origins in al-Andalus.

Homosexuality and pederasty

The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality states that "Al-Andalus had many links to Hellenistic culture, and except for the Almoravid and Almohadic periods (1086–1212), it was hedonistic and tolerant of homosexuality, indeed one of the times in world history in which sensuality of all sorts has been most openly enjoyed. Important rulers such as Abd al-Rahman III, al-Hakam II, Hisham II, and al-Mu-tamid openly chose boys as sexual partners, and kept catamites. Homosexual prostitution was widespread, and its customers came from higher levels of society than those of heterosexual prostitutes." The verses of Ibn Quzman describe an openly bisexual lifestyle. Andalusi anthologies of poetry such as the Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyazīn are known in part for their homoerotic and "abundant pederastic poetry". Such themes were also found in the Sephardic Jewish poetry of the time.

In the book Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, Daniel Eisenberg describes homosexuality as "a key symbolic issue throughout the Middle Ages in Iberia", stating that "in al-Andalus homosexual pleasures were much indulged in by the intellectual and political elite. Evidence includes the behaviour of rulers, such as Abd al-Rahmn III, Al-Hakam II, Hisham II, and Al Mu'tamid, who openly kept male harems; the memoirs of Abdallah ibn Buluggin, last Zirid king of Granada, makes references to male prostitutes, who charged higher fees and had a higher class of clientele than did their female counterparts: the repeated criticisms of Christians; and especially the abundant poetry. Both pederasty and love between adult males are found. Although homosexual practices were never officially condoned, prohibitions against them were rarely enforced, and usually there was not even a pretense of doing so." Male homosexual relations allowed nonprocreative sexual practices and were not seen as a form of identity. Very little is known about the homosexual behaviour of women.

Slavery

Main article: Slavery in al-Andalus

Slavery existed in Muslim al-Andalus as well as in the Christian kingdoms, and both sides of the religious border followed the custom of not enslaving people of their own religion. Consequently, Muslims were enslaved in Christian lands, while Christians and other non-Muslims were enslaved in al-Andalus.

The Moors imported white Christian slaves from the 8th century until the end of the Reconquista in the late 15th century. The slaves were exported from the Christian section of Spain, as well as Eastern Europe (Saqaliba). Saqaliba slavery in al-Andalus was especially prominent in the Caliphate of Córdoba where white slaves constituted most of the administrative personnel in the courts and palaces.

The slaves of the Caliph were often European saqaliba slaves trafficked from Northern or Eastern Europe. While male saqaliba could be given work in a number of tasks, such as offices in the kitchen, falconry, mint, textile workshops, the administration or the royal guard (in the case of harem guards, they were castrated), female saqaliba were placed in the harem.

The harem could contain thousands of slave concubines; the harem of Abd al-Rahman I consisted of 6,300 women. They were appreciated for their light skin. The concubines (jawaris) were educated in accomplishments to please their master, and many became known and respected for their knowledge in a variety of subjects from music to medicine. Jawaris concubines who gave birth to a child attained the status of an umm walad, which meant that they could no longer be sold and were to be set free after the death of her master.

Omitting sensitive content

The article contains sections on sensitive topics that are not suitable for children aged 8, specifically:

• Homosexuality and pederasty: This section discusses adult sexual behavior in ways that are inappropriate for young children.
• Slavery: While slavery is a historical fact, the details about harems, concubines, and the treatment of slaves could be disturbing.

These sections will be omitted entirely from the Safekipedia version. The remaining content focuses on the society, language, literature, music, philosophy, art, architecture, and food of al-Andalus, which are appropriate for young readers.

Legacy

See also: Islamic Golden Age, Moorish architecture, and Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe

When Christian kingdoms like Leon and Castile took over cities in al-Andalus, leaders such as Alfonso X of Castile began translating the many books from these cities into Latin. These books included ideas from Ancient Greece and new thoughts from the Islamic Golden Age. Along with meetings during the Crusades and the Fall of Constantinople, which brought Greek scholars to the west, these translations helped begin the Renaissance. Important thinkers like Averroes and Al-Zahrawi shared ideas that still influence the world today.

Al-Andalus also gave us beautiful buildings. Some of the best examples of architecture from that time can still be seen today, such as the Cathedral of Córdoba, the Alhambra, and the Giralda.