Muslim Women In Southern Spain by Gunther Dietz

The story of the appeal for help is not universally accepted. The name Gibraltar is derived from Jabal At-Tariq which is Arabic for 'Rock of Tariq' named after the place where the Muslim army landed. Musa responded by sending the young general Tariq bin Ziyad with an army of 7000 troops. The traditional story is that in the year 711, an oppressed Christian chief, Julian, went to Musa ibn Nusair, the governor of North Africa, with a plea for help against the tyrannical Visigoth ruler of Spain, Roderick. The Alhambra Palace, the finest surviving palace of Muslim Spain, is the beginning of a historical journey in this audio feature, In the Footsteps of Muhammad: Granada. Muslim Spain was not a single period, but a succession of different rules.

The heartland of Muslim rule was Southern Spain or Andulusia. Muslim rule declined after that and ended in 1492 when Granada was conquered. It became one of the great Muslim civilisations reaching its summit with the Umayyad caliphate of Cordovain the tenth century. In 711 Muslim forces invaded and in seven years conquered the Iberian peninsula.

It brought a degree of civilisation to Europe that matched the heights of the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Islamic Spain was a multi-cultural mix of the people of three great monotheistic religions: Muslims, Christians, and Jews.Īlthough Christians and Jews lived under restrictions, for much of the time the three groups managed to get along together, and to some extent, to benefit from the presence of each other.

Muslim Women In Southern Spain by Gunther Dietz