The Islamisation of Al-Andalus: Recent Studies and Debates

Describing al-Andalus – that is, the Muslim-ruled lands that now comprise Spain and Portugal – in the tenth century, the geographers al-Muqaddasi and Ibn Hawqal convey a landscape filled with Islamic markers such as mosques and religious scholars while lacking others such as storytellers (quṣṣāṣ). Ibn Hawqal refers to some rural areas where thousands of Christians ignorant of urban life resided. These rebelled from time to time, taking refuge in fortresses from which they fought ferociously and persistently against Muslim armies, and risking eventual extermination through their fierce resistance to being brought to obedience.1 This description fits the first decades of the tenth century, when the eighth Umayyad amir of Cordoba, ʿAbd al-Rahman III, proceeded to ‘pacify’ those territories of al-Andalus where not only Christians but also Arabs, Berbers and new converts defied Umayyad rule. This successful endeavour eventually led to his proclamation as caliph in the land that an army of Arab and mostly Berber Muslims had conquered back in 711.