Encyclopedia of Islam

Andalusia

  

41  J

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Andalusia. The indigenous subject populations 

consisted of Christians (mostly Roman Catho-

lic) and Jews known as the Sephardim (Spanish 

Jewry). Non-Muslims were treated as dhimmis

(protected subjects) under the 

sharia

, despite 

sporadic persecution at the hands of some zeal-

ous Muslim rulers. The interrelationship between 

Muslim and non-Muslim in Andalusia produced a 

unique mix of cultural identities: Arab and Berber 

immigrants, local converts to Islam (muwallads), 

Christian admirers of Arab culture (Mozarabs), 

Arabized Jews, m

UdeJars

 (Muslims living under 

Christian rule), Conversos (Jews forcibly bap-

tized as Christians during the Reconquista), and 

Moriscos (Muslims forcibly baptized as Chris-

tians after 1492). These groups spoke a mixture 

of languages—Arabic, Berber, and Latin-based 

Romance dialects.

Historians have called the golden age of har-

monious coexistence shared by Andalusian Mus-

lims and non-Muslims the convivencia. It began 

with the U

mayyad

  c

aliphate

, which was trans-

planted from d

amascUs

 to Cordova in 756. The 

Umayyads ruled Andalusia until 1009, when their 

caliphate

 disintegrated and subsequent Muslim 

leaders turned against each other, while simulta-

neously they tried to hold off invading Christian 

armies from the north. The ideal of the convivencia

nevertheless persisted, as exemplified in Anda-

lusian (Moorish) 

architectUre

, poetry, 

mUsic

,

and philosophy. Among the stellar individuals 

contributing to this unique mix of cultures were 

religious thinkers and philosophers such as i

bn

h

azm

 (d. 1064), i

bn

 r

Ushd

 (d. 1198), and Moses 

Maimonides (d. 1204, Jewish author of Guide for 

the Perplexed); poets such as Ibn Zaydun (d. 1070) 

and Judah Halevi (d. 1174, Jewish philosopher-

poet); and mystics such as i

bn

  a

rabi

 (d. 1240) 

and Moses de Leon (d. 1305), author of the Zohar,

a Jewish mystical text. Some of the great philo-

sophical and literary works of these men eventu-

ally were translated into European languages and 

helped enhance intellectual life in the high Middle 

Ages and Renaissance. The cultural heritage of 

the golden age is also reflected in cuisine, as new 

foods and flavors introduced by the Arabs from 

the east changed the eating habits of Andalusian 

peoples. Rice dishes, citrus fruits, and aromatic 

spices found their way into Andalusian palaces 

and homes and later enriched the eating traditions 

of Europe, just as Andalusian learning and the arts 

enriched the cultural life of Islamicate lands and 

the west.

See also 

agricUltUre

;  a

lmohad

 

dynasty

; 

a

lmorvid

 

dynasty

; b

erber

; c

hristianity

 

and

 i

slam

; 

e

Urope

; J

Udaism

 

and

 i

slam

; s

ephardic

 J

eWs

.