Andalusia was colonized at about the 9th
century BC by the Phoenicians, who founded the
coastal town of Gadir (now Cadiz), and by the 5th
century BC Carthaginians and Greeks had settled in
the region. In 210-206 BC the Romans conquered
Andalusia, and the region eventually became the Roman
province of Baetica. This province flourished under
Roman rule and was the birthplace of the emperors
Trajan and Hadrian. Roman rule lasted until the
Vandals(Germanics) and then the Visigoths overran the
region in the 5th century AD.
In 711 AD Muslim Arabs crossed the
Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier and invaded southern
Spain, ending Visigothic rule there. The Arabic name
Al-Andalus was originally applied by the Muslims (Moors).
It means "Country of the Vandals"--the
Germanic people who had invaded Spain in the 5th
century. In the 11th century, when the Christians
began to reconquer most of the peninsula, Al-Andalus,
or Andalusia, came to mean only the area still under
Muslim control and thus became permanently attached
to the modern-day region.
After the Muslim conquest, Andalusia
became part of the independent Ummayad caliphate of Córdoba,
which was founded by 'Abd ar-Rahman III in 929. After
the breakup of this unified Spanish Muslim state in
the early 11th century, Andalusia was divided into a
number of small kingdoms, or taifas, the largest of
which were Málaga, Seville, and Córdoba. These
petty principalities, which warred incessantly among
themselves, had begun falling to Christian forces
based in Leon and Castile in the 11th century,
although the Berber Almoravids, were able to
establish centralized rule from about 1086 to 1147.
The Almoravids were in turn succeeded by another
force of Muslim invaders, the Almohads, who ruled
over Andalusia from about 1147 to 1212.
Despite its political instability, the
Moorish period has been regarded as the golden age of
Andalusia on account of its economic prosperity and
its brilliant cultural flowering. Agriculture, mining,
and industry flourished as never before, and a rich
commerce was carried on with North Africa. Some of
the crops grown in Andalusia today, such as sugarcane,
almonds, and apricots, were introduced by the Arabs,
and much of the region's elaborate irrigation
construction dates from the Muslim period. In the
realm of culture, a vibrant civilization arose out of
Christians, Arab Muslims, and Jews under the
relatively tolerant rule of the Muslim emirs. The
cities of Córdoba, Seville, and Granada became
celebrated as centres of Muslim architecture, science,
and learning at a time when the rest of Europe was
still emerging from the Dark Ages. The Mosque-Cathedral
of Córdoba and the fortress-palace of the Alhambra
in Granada were built during this period.
The Almohads' power in southern Spain
disintegrated after their defeat by Christian armies
led by King Alfonso VIII of Castile at the Battle of
Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The petty Muslim states
that reemerged in this power vacuum were unable to
mount a unified resistance to the Christian
reconquest, and by 1251 Ferdinand III of Castile had
reconquered all of Andalusia except the sultanate of
Granada, which survived until its capture by the
forces of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. All of
Andalusia was incorporated into the Christian kingdom
of Castile.
Andalusia continued to prosper after
the Christian reconquest, in part because the ports
of Cadiz and Seville were the gateways through which
the wealth of the New World flowed into Spain. The
Moriscos (Christianized Muslims) were expelled from
Spain in 1609 . Gibraltar was formally ceded to the
British in 1713, and Andalusia was divided into its
eight present-day provincias in 1833.
MOZÁRABE
Any of the Spanish Christians living
under Muslim rule (8th-11th century), who, while
unconverted to Islam, and culture. Separate Mozarabe
enclaves were located in the large Muslim cities,
especially Toledo, Córdoba, and Seville, where they
formed prosperous seperate communities ruled by their
own officials and were subject to a Visigothic legal
code. They also maintained their own bishoprics,
churches, and monasteries and translated the Bible
into Arabic.
Mudejar
Spanish MUDÉJAR (from Arabic mudajjan,
"permitted to remain"), any of the Muslims
who remained in Spain after the Christian reconquest
of the Iberian Peninsula (11th-15th century). In
return for the payment of a poll tax, the Mudejars
were a protected minority, allowed to retain their
own religion, language, and customs. Headed by
leaders assigned by the local Christian princes, they
formed separate communities and quarters in larger
towns, where they were subject to their own Muslim
laws. As highly skilled craftsmen, the Mudejars were
also responsible for an extremely successful blending
of Arabic and Spanish artistic elements: a Mudejar
style, marked by the frequent use of the horseshoe
arch and the vault, distinguishes the church and
palace architecture of Toledo, Córdoba, Seville, and
Valencia.
With the fall of Granada, the last
Muslim stronghold in Spain (1492), however, the
situation of the Mudejars rapidly deteriorated.
Mudejars were dubbed Moriscos and forced to leave the
country or convert to Christianity; thus, by 1614 the
last of an estimated 3,000,000 Spanish Muslims (which
included the Berbers)were expelled from Spain.
Moriscos
One of the Spanish Muslims (or their
descendants) who became baptized Christians. The
Moriscos, however, continued to speak, write, and
dress like Muslims. Ill-taught in their new faith,
yet punished for ignorance by Church and Inquisition,
the Moriscos turned outside Spain for Muslim support.
They obtained legal opinions (fatwas) that assured
them that it was permissible to practice Islam in
secret (taqiyah), then produced books known as
aljamiados, written in Spanish, using the Arabic
alphabet, to instruct fellow Moriscos in Islam. In
1566 Philip II issued an edict forbidding the Granada
Moriscos their language, customs, and costume. The
Moriscos revolted in 1569. After two years of war
they were removed en masse, and royal order for
deportation on Sept. 22, 1609 was given. The Morisco's
expulsion was completed some five years later. An
estimated 300,000 Moriscos relocated mainly in
Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. They were assimilated
after several generations.
Bereber
The Berbers (who look Middle Eastern),
were a group of predominantly but not entirely
migratory tribes who spoke a recognizably common
Hamito-Semitic language with significant dialectal
variations. Berber tribes could be found from present-day
Morocco to present-day Algeria. The first allies of
Carthage and then clients of the Roman Empire. The
Berbers were eventually were assimilated into the
Arab community in the 7th century AD, and converted
to Islam. Also adopted Arabic as their language. Two
distinct confederations of Berber-- the Almoravids
and Almohads--spread islam to what is today Andalucia,
Spain in the 11th-13th century. In the 12th century a
wave of invading Bedouin Arabs wrecked the Berbers'
peasant economy in coastal North Africa and converted
many of the settled Berber tribes into nomads. Today,
there are about 4 million Berbers living in Europe,
primarily in France.
Moro
In English usage, a Moroccan or,
formerly, a member of the Muslim population of Spain,
who created the Arab Andalusian civilization and
subsequently settled as refugees in North Africa
between the 11th and 17th centuries. By extension (corresponding
to the Spanish moro), the term occasionally denotes
any Muslim in general as in the case of the Moors of
Sri Lanka(Ceylon) or of the Philippines.
Marrano
In Spanish history, a Jew who
converted to the Christian faith to escape
persecution but who continued to practice Judaism
secretly. It was a term of abuse and also applies to
any descendants of Marranos.
As a result of popular agitation, a
great pogrom against the Jews erupted in 1391 and
rapidly spread throughout the peninsula. Forced to
choose Christianity or death, many Jews converted. A
number of these conversos, freed of earlier legal
restraints, now attained prominence in public life,
but they were always suspected of continuing
privately to observe Jewish practices. The demand
that they demonstrate limpieza de sangre--i.e., that
their ancestry was unsullied by Jewish or Muslim
blood--was intended to exclude them from any
important place in government or the church.
To the Jews, the Marranos were pitiful
martyrs. The Jews maintained religious bonds with the
Marranos and kept strong their faith in the God of
Israel. The Inquisitors finally became convinced,
however, that only the total expulsion of the Jews
from Spain could end Jewish influence in the national
life. Purity of faith became the national policy of
the Catholic sovereigns, and thus came about the
final tragedy, the edict of expulsion of all the Jews
from Spain on March 31, 1492. Portugal promulgated an
edict of expulsion in 1497 and Navarre in 1498.
A considerable minority of Jews saved
themselves from expulsion by baptism, thus adding
strength and numbers to the Marranos, but the mass of
Spanish Jews refused conversion and went into exile.
The physical separation of the Marranos from their
piritual sympathizers, however, did not make them
more amenable to inquisitorial discipline. The Jewish
religion remained deeply rooted in their hearts, and
they continued to transmit their beliefs to the
succeeding generations. Many Marranos did eventually
choose emigration, however, principally to North
Africa and to other western European countries.
Marranism had disappeared in Spain by the 18th
century owing to this emigration and to gradual
assimilation within Spain.
