12-26-2009, 08:43 AM
assalamualaikum wr wb
the second part of Al-Anadalus:THE EMIRATE AND THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOBA
"Under the orders of the great Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid l,Tariq bin Ziyad led a small force that landed on Gibraltar on April 30 ,711.After a decisive victory at the battle of Guadalete on July 19, 711,Tariq ibn Ziyad brought most of the lberian peninsula under muslim occupation in a seven year compaign.They crossed the Pyrenese and occupied southern parts of France.,but were defeated by the Frank Charles in the Battle of Poitiers in 732.However the poitiers did not stop the progress of the Berber Arabs and in 734 Avigon was occupied,Arles was looted and and the whole of province was overrun..In 737,muslims reached Burgundy,where they captured a large quantity of slaves to take back to lberia.Charles Martel responded with continous ompaigns against Muslims in the south of Gaul between 736 and 739 and twenty years later in 759,the Franks under the leader ship of Pepin the Short,expelled the Muslims from Septimania which was one of the five Administrative areas of Al-Andalus.
The lberian peninsula except for the Kingdom of Asturias,became part of the expanding of the Umayyad Empire,under the name of Al-Andalus.The earliest attestation of the Arab name is dinar coin preserved in the Archaelogical Museum in Madrid,dating from five years after the conquest (716).The bears the word "Al-Andalus" in the Arabic script on one side and the lberian Latin "Span" on the obverse.
At first Al-Andalus was ruled by governors appointed by the caliph,most rulings for periods of three years.However ,from 740, a series of civil wars between various Muslim groups in lberia resulted in the breakdown of caliphal control,with Yusuf Al-Fihri,who emerged as the main winner,effectively becoming an independent ruler.
In 750,The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads for control of the great Arab Empire.But in 756 the exiled Umayyad prince Abd-ar-Rahman(later titled Al-Dakhil)ousted Yusuf Al-Fihri to establish himself as the Emir of Cordoba.He refused to submit to the Abbasid Caliph as Abbasid forces had killed most of his family.Over a thirty year reign ,he established a tenous rule over much of Al-Andalus,overcoming Partisans of both the Al-Fihri family and Abbasids.
For the next centuries and a half his decendents continued as emirs of Cordoba,with nominal control over the rest of al-Andalus and sometimes even the parts of North Africa,but with real control particularly over the marches along the christian border,Vacillating depending on the competence of the individual emir.Indeed the power of the emir Abdullah ibn Muhammad (circa 900) did not extend beyond Cordoba itself.But his grandson Abd-ar-Rahman lll,who succeeded him 912,not only rapidly restored Umayyad power throughout,but extended it into Western North Africa as well.In 929 he proclamed himself Caliph ,elevating the eimrate to a position competing the prestige not only with the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad but also the shi'ite Caliph in Tunis--with whom he was competing for North Africa.
The period of Caliphate is seen by Muslim writers as the Golden Age Of Al-Andalus.Crops produced using irrigation,along with food imported from the middle east,provided the area around Cordoba and some other Andalusi cities with an agricultural economic centre by far the most advanced in Europe.Among European cities ,Cordoba under the Caliphate ,with a population of perhaps 500,000,eventually overtook constantinople as the largest and most properous city in Europe.Within the Islamic world,Cordoba was one of the leading cultural centres.The wrok of its most important philosphers and sientists(notably Abulcasis and Averroes)had a major influence on the intellecctual life of medieval Europe.
Muslims and Non-Muslims often came from abroad to study in the famous libraries and universities of Al-Andalus after the reconquista of of Toledo in 1085.The most noted of these was Michael scot(c.1175-1235)who took the works of Ibn Rushud(Averroes)and Ibn Sinna(Avicenna)to Italy. This transmission was to have a significient impact on the formations of the European Rennasance".
Take care everyone
ws wr wb
Hafiza Juwayriah Haani