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Al-Āndalus (Arabic الأندلس) was the Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims from 711 to 1492.[1]
This statement should be better expressed, because the name is- as far as i'm aware- originally a latin word "Vandalus" that refers to the Vandals. Read3r 20:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC) [Forget this contribution, i had not read all the article ;)]
Really, I don't know if there's anything in Islam in Spain that's not already here but my impresion is that both articles deal about exactly the same thing and this one is much better. -- Sugaar 18:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Please Merge. -- Arabist 10:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the following: "Within two decades a majority of the inhabitants of Andalus, especially most of the Unitarian Christians and the oppressed class, accepted Islam freely in recognition of the peace, security and the freedom of religion and expression under the Muslim rule. (Gothic Princess Sara). By 770 C.E. people of all races from North Africa and Arabia migrated to Andalusia (Spain and Portugal). They intermarried with various nationalities including the native Spanish-Muslim population, with the result that Spain became a fairly homogeneous country within a few generations." All the books I have read on the subject show this assertion - that Andalusia became mostly Muslim within two decades, and that there was homogeneity within a few generations - to be false. To quote but one scholar, "By about 800 only some 8% of the indigenous population of al-Andalus had become Muslims. This had rised to about 12.5% by the middle of the ninth century. Thereafter the figure increased by leaps and bounds.... By about the year 1000 the proportion stood at something like 75%, after which the [conversion] curve flattened out." - Richard Fletcher, "Moorish Spain," p37-38. Similarly, Bernard Reilly writes that "...a very sizeable Christian majority remained within the area of Spanish Islam until well into the 10th Century." ("The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain", p19). These assertions are based on the work of Richard Bulliet in "Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period" (1979), which is seen as the authority on the subject by scholars in the field (Thomas Glick and Bernard Reilly to name two others). So the picture of a majority of Andalusian Christians converting to Islam within TWO DECADES is patently absurd. Twenty years is not a very long time for something so major to take effect, and the gradual conversion, as posited by Bulliet and others, is much more realistic. Kalukembe 09:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It is reasonable to suppose then that the corresponding Gothic designation "Landahlauts" (allotted, inherited, drawn land), in its phonetic form — "landalos" — became easily and spontaneously, to Arabic ears, "Al-Andalus". Maybe. But it's not totaly true : landahlauts was pronounced landaχlɔts. I don't think arabic would have missed the χ. -- Sajasaze 19:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Within just the last week, I have wanted to link this article to a concise description of Visigothic Spain. My internal link has twice been undone by "The Ogre", who raises false justifications, some of them baseless obsessions. It is a weak argument to say that the History of Spain has too broad a scope to be a good choice. There are many subdivisions in the History of Spain article. In particular, for now (i.e., until somebody were to edit it) there is a section entitled "Visigothic Hispania". "The Ogre's" approach of linking *separately* to "Visigoths" and "Hispania" is obviously a bad idea for the user becaues either you have to synthesize separate articles or you have to duplicate information between two articles. Even "The Ogre's" second argument, that you *have* to always choose to link to the article of narrower scope, is a weak argument. The Ogre has a disturbing insistence on the false idea that the political entities in Iberia before 1000 A.D. were not Spain. Despite "The Ogre", Spanish history starts at least with the Roman occupation. "The Ogre" inadvertently revealed himself to be a Spanish speaker (by using a Spanish verb in place of an English one), so it is especially annoying for this reasoning to be coming out of him. One last point, a practical point. The article on the Visigoths happens to be very badly written. It is clumsy, inaccurate, overlong. Also, even if it were well writen, it gives too much detail for what I'm after in the Al-Andalus article. Hurmata 00:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Hurmata, but there is confusion! An encyclopedia should correct long standing errors, such as calling Spain to Iberia or Hispania. The word "Spain" in modern English (and its counterparts in other languages) means the country of Spain (and it links there!), not all of the Iberian peninsula or Hispania (as the respective articles show). The fact is that Castilian expansionism over the centuries (ask not only the Portuguese, but also the Galicians, the Basques or the Catalans...) tried to monopolize the definition of Iberia in a way that satisfied its imperial interests. In fact, even if Spain was used in ancient times to refer to the whole of Iberia, today it is not. In this sense, given that the Kingdom of Spain only emerges with the union of Castile and Aragon in 1492 (and this is disputed since Navarre was only incoporated in 1512; for a presentation of this issue, see Kings and Queens of Spain), one can almost say that there was never a Spain, in the modern sense, before that! It was Iberia that began being conquered by the Roman Republic, a conquest finalized by the Roman Empire, who called it Hispania. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Hispania that was conquered by Suevi, Buri, Vandals, Alans and Visigoths. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Visigothic Hispania that was conquered by the Moors. The country of Spain didn't exist then. The Moorish conquest was of Iberia or Hispania (that should not be confused with Spain, even if the modern usage of the term Hispanic is used to denote Spanish speaking peoples). This conquest and subsequent occupation led to a Christian reaction know as the Reconquista from which several Christian kingdoms emerged (such as Asturias, León, Castile, Portugal, Navarre, etc.). Over time Castile came to dominate most of Iberia (but not Portugal, except for a small period between 1580 and 1640) and the use of the castilian word "España" (which is the castilian derivative of the latin Hispania) started as a political strategy to curb autonomy or independence from centralist Madrid (for the same reason Castilian language started to be known as Spanish, implying the irrelevance of other Iberian languages - this was still a problem in the Spain of the 20th century, with the active repression of languages and identities other than Castilian, see Languages of Spain and Nationalities in Spain). Furthermore, if you call Spain to the Iberian peninsula or Hispania, this not only is simply not true, but is felt as profoundly offensive at least by the Portuguese. For all these reasons and more, this article should not emply that Spain is Iberia or Hispania, and that there is an exclusive direct descent from ancient Hispania to modern Spain. Please my friend, acknowledge my good faith and desire for exactness! I have nothing against Spain! quite the opposite. And you should notice that I am a member both of WikiProject Portugal and WikiProject Spain! For all these reasons I believe the link Visigothic Hispania (how about creating a new article just dealing with that?) should not direct to History of Spain, not only this is too broad a scope, but it is wrong, since it implies Spain is Hispania, excluding Portugal. Furthermore, why should there be a link when there is already a box of the "History of Spain"? And even more when in that box the link regarding the period of "Visigothic Hispania" is directly to the article Visigoths (as a sub-entry to the Spanish history stub Medieval Spain)? Hope you do understand my reasonings. I'm not going to change the link just now. I believe we should reach some sort of agreement. Thank you. The Ogre 14:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello Hurmata. I do not see how do I muck up the historical facts - people that confuse Spain and Hispania (or Iberia - yes! Historically the same thing, but not in the modern geographical sense, I agree) are the one who are mucking up historical facts! And I agree with your reasoning that "Visigothic Spain and Portugal" is historically unjustified in the present context, not only because Portugal did not yet exist during the Visigothic period as a political entity, but also because Spain did not yet exist during the Visigothic period as a political entity! What existed was Hispania - Visigothic Hispania. Let us remeber that this is just a discussion about a link. I disagree with your choice to redirect it to the History of Spain article, though I do give some credit to your idea of not having it linked to two different articles. The best choice would be indeed to have an article called Visighotic Hispania. Why don't we work on it? Meanwhile I'm redirecting the link not just to History of Spain but more specifically to History of Spain#Visigothic Hispania. The Ogre 13:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
"Meanwhile I'm redirecting the link [. . .] more specifically to [[History of Spain#Visigothic Hispania." Oh, Wikipedia provides the functionality of linking to a section of an article. I am glad to learn of this.
We need for "somebodies" with existing expertise to clean up several articles in this field. I found an account of the Muslim invasion of Iberia which confused the invaders Tarif and Tariq (I thought I saw that in "Visigoths"). The article History_of_Portugal is awful because it is crudely reverential as opposed to encylopedic, and because it is thin as to factual depth.
Ogre, I agree with you, from time to time the good editing of one Wikipedia article requires the editing of articles being linked to. In past moments, it was not feasible for me to take on that much extra work.
I am familiar with the great ignorance of world geography to be found among even Americans with college degrees. Some of them suppose Brazil to be a Spanish speaking country. During the Cold War, a German computer programmer working in the US met coworkers who didn't realize there were two Germanies. Hurmata 16:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
A followup to my preceding comment, off topic and strictly for the amusement of the readers. One of the fifty American states is New Mexico. Many educated Americans think that New Mexico is either part of Mexico or a sovereign nation. An entire book has been written about this phenomenon (by Richard Sandoval in 1986). Hurmata 16:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello Hurmata and Corlyon! I really do not have time, just right now, to elaborate on a reply. I'll do latter on. Let me just remark two things, Corlyon:
Do you see my point? Cheers! I'll be back in a while. The Ogre 13:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The quote by Bernard Lewis is taken out of context. There is important information before it and after it. Jews of Islam can be accessed from books.google.com (limited access). Also, I believe that Bernard Lewis was talking about Jews of Islam in general and in this case this quote MUST be moved to Dhimmis may be or Minorities in Islam or whatever. -- 152.14.80.167 14:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
These templates seem really intrusive & irrelivant, is there any way to modify them so they are hidden, etc. They don't seem to be that well designed either. Fennessy 18:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The first paragraph seems to deal with the situation after the peace treaty with Castile and the provisions of this treaty. However, it is as least confusing, if not simply wrong, to say in this context that the muslims of Granada were granted tax exemption for three years and a limtitation of taxation to the amounts paid under Nasrid rule. This suggests to imply that Granada then was under direct Castilian rule, which it wasn't for another 150 years as the first sentence rightfully says, and the Nasrid dynasty wasn't in power any longer, which it actually was until the end of Muslim rule in 1492.
Further, it is not entirely clear what is meant with the statement that muslims - in a state under muslim rule! - had religious freedom and what it meant at that time and under these conditions that muslims had freedom of movement (within Granada, beyond its borders?). Finally, I simply don't understand what "virtual self government" should mean in the context of a medieval monarchy - Rule of the dynasty in power at that time to be unchallenged by christian neighbors? neutrality of the christian states in case of internal struggle? Both has nothing to do with self government in a modern understanding.)
It seems to me as if this part needs a bit of clarification. 217.19.182.234 ( talk) 12:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The two paragraphs under the heading "Society" seem to me rather disappointing as they mention in a very unsystematic manner some features of the various groups of the Iberian population of the time. What is said about the main occupation of jews seems to me even stereotypical. (I can't imagine that ambassadors made up a numerically significant part of the population.) 217.19.182.234 ( talk) 20:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
In the subsection entitled "Treatment of Non-Muslims" I found two uses of the word "pagan" apparently referring to Christians and Jews. In both cases I changed the word "pagan" to "non-Muslim". All Christians and Jews would strongly object to the use of this word when referring to their faiths. If you happen to know the original editor meant to use the word in reference to pre-Christian, polytheistic religions then please feel free to change it back and edit the paragraph to make it clear what the word "pagan" refers to. LuisGomez111 ( talk) 23:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Wainwright":
Reference named "Montada":
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 06:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Gingerich":
{{
citation}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (
link)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 06:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Bieber":
Reference named "Lucas-65":
Reference named "Lucas-10":
Reference named "Zaimeche":
Reference named "Katz":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 16:01, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
American logger that had an ox named babe. Babe died and Paul moved to Alaska —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.199.161.168 ( talk) 00:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I've heard a lot about the Muslims in Granada, Córdoba, and other parts of Spain. But what about the history of Muslims in what is now Portugal? After all, the Moors conquered both countries. I always receive detailed info in Spain articles, but whenever I try to find information about the Moors in Portugal, even on Wikipedia, it isn't sufficient enough. I've put up a request for an article called "Moorish Portugal" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Other_categorization_schemes#Portugal), and I want someone to start it. Can anyone help? Thanks!
-Stallions2010 P.S. If anyone can help, I have starting information on the article.
I don't know if this answers your question, but you can see in the history of portugal article that, before the Christian "Reconquista", you cannot speak of Portugal as an independent country (or even a political entity). Hence the non-differentiation.
-- 129.104.247.2 23:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
but you cant call it "spain" either. spain is not hispania and this "mistake" is rampant everywhere including many articles in wikipedia. if we use the correct names reflecting the times then there would be no one asking, "what about portugal?"
Lusitano Transmontano 17:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, There's an article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silves Hope that helps. Marina (from Olhao, Algarve, Portugal), 11 February 2006
I agree that Muslim Andalus achieved great things, and I myself added a sentence to summarize that to the introduction. My sentence alludes to sourced statements made later in the article. Nevertheless, this article has over time attracted many sentences of a fawning nature that exceed the historical facts or that seem to paint Islamic civilization in too rosy a tint. There was a fair amount of material which seems like pro-Islamic POV. Perhaps the most prominent example of this was a comparison that seems intended to obscure a finding in a recent report by Arab academics commissioned by the United Nations to evaluate the state of the Arab World. This report was released some time after 2000. One of its findings that was widely publicized in the West was that very little translation into Arabic is done, so little that -- as the report itself noted -- the publishing industry in Spain today does more translation into Spanish in one year than the entire Arabic world has done into Arabic in all history. One contributor to this article made a different contention about publishing in Muslim Spain: that Muslim Spain in the time of the Caliphate of Cordoba produced more publications annually than Spain does today. Maybe it's true. And it's also true that the above mentioned comparison of translation volume has nothing to do with an article on Al-Andalus. Nevertheless, the mention seems POV to me. If we can confirm the reliability of the source given, then it would be OK to restore that sentence to the article. Hurmata ( talk) 22:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Here are further examples of previous bad faith edits. Consider the following single passage: "In France, the Muslims were defeated at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel in 732. This place is known as 'The Pavement of the Martyrs' and in Muslim chronicles as 'Balaat ash-Shuhada'. Muslim control of Toulouse, Narbonne, Lyon and nearby territories varied from time to time. This went on until 975." This is full of historical inaccuracies which consistently serve to overstate Muslim influence and therefore overglorify it. Obviously, only Muslims call the site of the Moors' decisive defeat in France "Pavement of the Martyrs", and that phrase is just the translation of "Balaat ash-Shuhada". Muslims never controlled Lyon -- although they did sack nearby Grenoble and they occupied large parts of Provence 889-955. Muslim control of Toulouse and Narbonne did not "vary from time to time". Toulouse is well inland, near. Moors may have raided the Mediterranean port of Narbonne, but they never ruled it after the defeat of 732. Hurmata ( talk) 03:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
"In addition, as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year in Al-Andalus.[37] In comparison, modern Spain published 46,330 books per year as of 1996.[38]" A single hand-written treatise, poem or polemic can't be validly compared to a modern printed book. Most of these formats today are published in newspapers or periodicals, not books. It's misleading, POV. Besides, the citation source [37]is a letter to the editors of the Malaysian "New Sunday Times" by Prof. Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abd Razak. He's the Naib Canselor of a Malaysian University, but neither a historian nor has he published scientifically on the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.39.156.128 ( talk) 05:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Image of Christian and Muslim playing ouds, miniature from Catinas de Santa Maria by king Alfonso X. Feel free to insert this image into the article. Phg ( talk) 20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The description has that the painting represents Jews fighting alongside Muslims. While this almost certainly happened, I don't see any evidence of this in the painting. The only thing notably Jewish are the Stars of David, which were also heavily used by Muslims until creation of Israel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.117.246.172 ( talk) 02:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
why not move one map to the top of the page? 93.86.201.173 ( talk) 09:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there any source or reference for the green-white flag? -- maxrspct ping me 13:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
"However Poitiers [Tours] did not stop the progress of the Berber Arabs and in 734 Avignon was conquered, Arles was attacked and the whole of Provence was overrun. " The Battle of Tours was one of the most decisive battles in history, and it did stop Moslem conquest into Europe. The fact a few pillaging raids were made doesn't take away from that. I believe there is an attempt to detract from Charles Martel's strategic triumph that day. 69.119.207.171 ( talk) 01:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
= The Turkish pronunciation of the name Al-Andalus Böri ( talk) 13:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The entire legacies section needs some serious work. The fact that the legacies section exists at all seems to indicate that the Moorish influence on the Iberian peninsula after the Reconquista ceased to exist and evolve. Perhaps changing the name of this section and editing some of the content to make it geared more towards explaining the continuing influence the Moors had within Spain after the Reconquista, that would be more indicative of the meshing of Christian and Islamic culture. Also the articles on pottery and aviation seem a bit ambiguous and perhaps belong in different articles, I do not think these very specific topics are deserving of their own subheadings. Another suggesting I would make would be to incorporate the "Legacy" section into the main body of the article. I think this would eliminate the idea that these contributions are the only lasting "legacies" of Moorish Spain and that the Moors within Spain itself after the Reconquista did not continue to impact Spanish society. I am open to suggestions anyone might have, as to how to go about achieving this task. 17:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Alexion (Alexander Ion) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexion ( talk • contribs)
I'm wondering if the Legacies section should be renamed something more along the lines of "Lasting Legacies." That may help to make the Moorish influence more permanent. I also agree that the Aviation and Pottery section may want to be transferred to a different area or maybe have a sentence or two that helps tie them back to the main article. Spartemis ( talk) 00:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)Spartemis
I think that this section is too short and in is structurally unsound. Depending on who was in charge, the treatment of non-Muslims was quite variable. Each ruler had their own objectives and motives and depending on what those where, their subjects were offered different amounts of right and respects. Muslim rulers are not all the same and by such a glossed over topic, it takes away the agency of the people and the rulers of the time. Spartemis ( talk) 20:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)Spartemis
Although this section says that it is discussing a controversial subject, it cites only the views of María Rosa Menocal. This sounds biased. Why is the opposing viewpoint not also cited here?
I feel as though this article jumps around far to much and needs more dates to give it a better sense of a timeline. The way it is written seems very sporadic. Its good that if you are looking for a specific aspect of Moorish Spain that it is easy to find, but having everything segmented the way it is makes it more difficult to get an overall view of what Moorish Spain was like. Reorganizing it chronologically seems as though it would make more sense. Voitik2 ( talk) 00:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
To me there seems to be an issue with the title of the the article. "Al-Andalus" refers specifically to the rule of the Caliphate of Damascus over the area, as well to a very specific region in Spain, Andalucia in the far south of the Iberian Peninsula. However, the actual Muslims that invaded and came to inhabit the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula were the Berbers of North Africa, also known as Moors. Therefore I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Moorish Spain" and that a side note be included that this region was also known as Al-Andalus. The term Al-Andalus identifies more with a geographical area rather than a study of the people and culture within this area and really the blending of cultures. Moorish Spain, is also a term that is more familiar to most readers and influential historians on the subject like Richard Fletcher have titled books on this subject as "Moorish Spain" not Al-Andalus. 18:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Alexion (alexanderion)
Fair enough, I understand your point about the Moorish lands also incorporating parts of Portugal, perhaps a more appropriate title would be "Moorish Iberia." Al-Andalus still seems a bit too specific for the type of information(especially cultural) being presented in this article. Alexion ( talk) 20:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I do not think the term is inaccurate, while it is true that the term refers to several modern ethnic groups, it was these ethnic groups that came to occupy the Iberian Peninsula. I do not think the comparing the terms Moor and Saracen is justified, the term "Saracen" came to encompass all those that practiced the Islamic faith, while the term "Moor" simple refers to the peoples of northern Africa that were predominantly Muslim during this time period. I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article about Moors " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors." This article has an entire section dedicated to the Moors of Iberia. I think it would make sense to standardize the terminology, referring to the place and people inhabiting the southern Iberian Peninsula, during this time. Alexion ( talk) 22:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Architecture during the time of Moorish Spain was definitely changing greatly to say the least. Although it mentions in the article how certain aspects of the Muslim architecture were shared with the Christians and the Jews I think that it doesn't go into enough detail about it. The architecture was greatly influenced by the Muslims and this architecture was used even after the Reconquista. However, there were many more aspects of Christian architecture that go unmentioned in the article. The mosque at Cordoba being a prime example. Many Christians sought to eradicate the Muslim's imprint on Iberia and the mosque was converted into a church. This change to the architecture was seen as a blemish on the mosque, but either way it did show that the architecture of the time was not totally influenced by the Muslims and there were many who resisted even this. More should be mentioned in the article on the effects of architecture. Voitik2 ( talk) 02:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi The section on the Caliphate at Cordoba has two maps thth use white as one of the colours. It is a very long established convention that white (or grey) is reserved for neutral areas, not affected by what is being illustrated on the map. It is very confusing to violate this convention and use white as if it were any other colour. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 15:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I propose that this article be renamed "Islamic Rule of the Iberian Peninsula." This is about more than "Andalus," which seems to refer only to a limited period, not the span of time encompassed by this article. Tapered ( talk) 07:29, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
NO NEED TO RENAME. Tapered ( talk) 18:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Fr/ now on, will eliminate namestyle 'Prophet' Muhammad. Jesus isn't styled 'Savior' Jesus. Abraham isn't 'Patriarch' Abraham. Moses isn't 'Prophet' Moses, etc,etc,etc. Tapered ( talk) 02:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
In this edition, a number of sourced paragraphs have been deleted with only this comment: removing non-pertinent content. I think that a thorough explanation is needed. Jotamar ( talk) 14:55, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
-- mustihussain 20:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I re-wrote the quote to convey the whole mean of the section from Lewis' book. As it was written it was plagiarism.
Starting from page 44 Lewis writes “The need to uphold the Holy Law by which the status of the dhimmi is established and protected was a common concern of Muslim jurists and even of rulers. ... “ He then turns his attention to the Ottoman period of which there is most information. The next paragraph says “Sometimes, when persecution occurred, we find that the instigators were concerned to justify it in terms of the Holy Law. The usual argument was that the Jews or the Christians had violated the pact by overstepping their proper place. ...” It is at this point that Lewis discusses a poem written by Abu Ishaq in 1066 to justify an anti-Jewish outbreak of that year (see page 45 for the poem). Lewis argues that poem assures Muslims that they are acting lawfully “in robbing and killing Jews”. He says in the bottom paragraph “Diatribes such as Abu Ishaq’s and massacres such as that in Granada in 1066 are of rare occurrence in Islamic history.”
Thus, Lewis says that the "persecution" and "massacre" was rationalized by a "diatribe". This breach of the dhimmi protection sections of Islamic law was rare as the law generally upheld and sustained the protection of the Jews. That is what I expressed. The plagiarized quote was "such massacres are of rare occurrence in Islamic history". Not only was it plagiarized but it didn't explain what "such" refers to. It is to Muslim violations of dhimmi protection. Generally this didn't happen until the 19th and 20th century (he points out on the next page) when modern standards changed attitudes to the institution of dhimmi and Jews wanted more freedom. Jason from nyc ( talk) 12:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
In response to the RFC [1] changes need to be made here. I am in favor of blanking the section Enduring influence on Iberian Peninsula and rebuilding it based on discussions that should take place here on the talk page. J8079s ( talk) 17:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
From [2];
There are pages on the Emirate of Cordoba (756-929) and the Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031). You could place it there, partitioning according to period. Walrasiad ( talk) 11:52, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
"Those who were neither Christians nor Jews, such as Pagans, were given the status of Majus."
The claim that there were "pagans" surviving in eighth-century Spain (or any religious group besides Christians, Jews, or Muslims) is a bold one. I found the reference to this in the Google Books edition of the footnote given, but the book by Salma Jayyusi is probably not a reliable source, as it's a "history" written by someone whose training is in poetry. Whatever the claim itself in the book is footnoted to isn't available in the preview. Suggest finding a better source for this odd claim or deleting it. Predestiprestidigitation ( talk) 23:15, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I find it offensive to refer to the (whatever) in Córdoba as a Cathedral. (See my edit which was undone today). It was built as a mosque, and the cathedral part, controversial from when it was built onwards, is about 10% of the whole. No one in Córdoba, except priests, ever calls it the Cathedral. No tourist itinerary in Spain says "we're going to take you to the Cathedral (or even Cathedral-Mosque) of Córdoba." The Mosque is beautiful, and I've yet to hear anyone call the Cathedral that. When I studied Spanish art (in Spain) it was never called the Cathedral. Legally it is true, the Catholic church controls it and calls it a Cathedral. But I think it's doing the reader a disservice, as well as being on the wrong side of history and popular opinion, to refer to it as a Cathedral. deisenbe ( talk) 16:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
No mention of Casiri's etymology, which Edward Gibbon endorsed. French Wikipedia has an article devoted to the etymology of Al-Andalus: Étymologie d'Al-Andalus et de l'Andalousie - Eroica ( talk) 14:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
@ Khestwol:, as Pinkbeast pointed out in their edit summary restoring it, I didn't add the section you removed here. It was in the history section, which was the wrong place. As can be seen from my edit summary, I think it was WP:UNDUE because it was the only aspect of the legacy of al-Andalus covered by the body of the article (although the lead has a sentence on cultural legacy). So what I did was create a Legacy section, put in a place-marker sub-section on the cultural, linguistic etc legacy with a maintenance template saying it needed expansion and added the section you removed to it as a separate sub-section. It therefore now sits in a broader context of the overall legacy - although that broader context needs significant expansion. It's a surprising omission that al-Andalus' legacy was not covered - a lot needs to be added. I intend to do so when I get some time - hopefully others will add too. DeCausa ( talk) 18:59, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
Well, so far we have a comment from Kmhkmh which is not accurate about the citations. Anyone else want a go? Pinkbeast ( talk) 14:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Actually the comment was accurate. Let me clarify and reiterate a few points here. First of all if there are indeed plenty of scholarly sources that discussing the reqconquering of al Andalus and state that it is a common theme in islamism or even just among islamic terrorism, then I have no objection against properly worded addition. However the text in question uses no scholarly sources, is questionable worded and at least at first glance doesn't strike neither as notable (for this article) nor as particularly correct either.
I'm not really an expert on the subject, but no scholarly or otherwise reputable source on Al Andalus that I've read even mentions the reconquering of it or Spain by islamism or terror groups. Similarly, while it is true that while you can find the sentiment of reconquering Al Andalus on the internet and probably find one or to quotes from an individual cleric or terrorist to that regard, none of he sources on islamism/islamic terrorism that I've seen described it as common or widespread attitude or goal.
Now let let's get the text in dispute displayed here, so that everybody following the conversation can easily see what we're talking about:
References
Now there's variety of problems which such an addition involving the notability of content, the proper reading/understanding of sources with regard to their content, the reputability and reliability of sources. The leading sentence makes a rather broad claim about leaders of islamic states and Spanish politician, which is rather unlikely to be true nor does it seem to covered in this form by the those. Which islamic leaders? Which Spanish politicians? I'm not aware of significant Spanish politician or an islamic head of state/significant politician making that a serious political issue or pursuing a discussion about it? The next line claims that bin Laden spoke several times of Al Andalus. Aside from the fact that might wonders what "spoke of" is exactly supposed to convey here, there sources merely state that the islamic terror group Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri (named after bin Laden's son in law, who died in 2001 already) claimed responsibility for Madrid terror attack of 2004. However the authenticity of the letter is unclear (according to sources and actually directly disputed in some). So how a claim of unclear authenticity by a terror group presumably associated or inspired by bin Laden turns into a statement of bin Laden about (the conquest?) of al Andalus is everybody guess. Now a word on the sources used for the content so far. The is a short superficial article by Wilkinson (published in the daily telegraph and the age, shortly after 2004 attack), the media archive with 4 press articles on the private website of a pundit and a somewhat obscure looking short article published on Spanish news agency website, that seems to refer to google and Wikipedia as sources and even gets the time frame for al andalus wrong (probably just a sloppy typo). So no scholarly sources, no well researched journalistic background articles and Wikipedia content and sources don't even really match. And all of what with well researched and well published topic like Al Andalus. To be blunt such crap has no place in Wikipedia.
Now the rest of text stating that the Muslim Brotherhood and Isis expressed the goal or interest to reconquer Al Andalus is not quite as bad and least somewhat in line with the cited sources. First of all according to the cited source the (actual) Muslim Brotherhood (and its leadership) made no such claim but rather the Islamic Society of North America. Now for the source itself, it is a blog entry published with the Daily Telegraph. Now it is true that the author of this blog is a well qualified historian, whose scholarly publications certainly might be use for WP (in other areas). But is blog piece is neither scholarly nor well researched (journalistic) background article, but a short opinion piece. Moreover neither medieval Spain or medieval Islam seem to be his field of expertise (judging from his website and the fact the he quotes the New York Times (rather scholarly literature or historical sources) for a description of medieval islamic Spain. So scholarly source here either not does it actually source the Wikipedia content. Note not everything scholar publishes anywhere is automatically a scholarly publication or notable for Wikipedia. Now final statement that Isis wants to retake Al Andalus Spain, that one is correct and although the sources are rather mediocre again the seem at least sufficient to verify the claim. They are however not really sufficient to establish the notability of that information and frankly neither does common sense. Isis states that their plans to conquer the whole islamic world and other parts of the globe do of course include Al Andalus as well. Why that is supposed to be a notable legacy of al Andalus is beyond me.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 18:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
So, the offending text is: The desire to reconquer, or more specifically re-Islamicize, Al-Andalus has been used as rhetoric by leaders of Islamic states and has been discussed by Spanish politicians. Osama bin Laden, for example, several times spoke of Al-Andalus, which was reported after the 2004 Madrid bombings.[45][46][47] The Muslim Brotherhood[48] and ISIS have also expressed an intention to "retake" al-Andalus.
DeCausa's second source supports "discussed by Spanish politicians". Several sources supports bin Laden discussing Al-Andalus. Fourth source quotes a member of the ruling Turkish political party.
So you may not like the text (in particular, I'll grant you "leaders of Islamic states" isn't in there, but there is no serious doubt that Al-Quaeda have a bee in their bonnet about Al-Andalus, no? Pinkbeast ( talk) 15:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
All you're saying now is that you don't like it. Too bad. It's cited to a wide variety of reliable sources and says what is in those sources. There is absolutely no reason to exclude this material; and it's certainly not that "this wording" has been discussed on the talk page, because I just wrote the wording now. Pinkbeast ( talk) 14:53, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Al-Āndalus (Arabic الأندلس) was the Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims from 711 to 1492.[1]
This statement should be better expressed, because the name is- as far as i'm aware- originally a latin word "Vandalus" that refers to the Vandals. Read3r 20:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC) [Forget this contribution, i had not read all the article ;)]
Really, I don't know if there's anything in Islam in Spain that's not already here but my impresion is that both articles deal about exactly the same thing and this one is much better. -- Sugaar 18:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Please Merge. -- Arabist 10:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the following: "Within two decades a majority of the inhabitants of Andalus, especially most of the Unitarian Christians and the oppressed class, accepted Islam freely in recognition of the peace, security and the freedom of religion and expression under the Muslim rule. (Gothic Princess Sara). By 770 C.E. people of all races from North Africa and Arabia migrated to Andalusia (Spain and Portugal). They intermarried with various nationalities including the native Spanish-Muslim population, with the result that Spain became a fairly homogeneous country within a few generations." All the books I have read on the subject show this assertion - that Andalusia became mostly Muslim within two decades, and that there was homogeneity within a few generations - to be false. To quote but one scholar, "By about 800 only some 8% of the indigenous population of al-Andalus had become Muslims. This had rised to about 12.5% by the middle of the ninth century. Thereafter the figure increased by leaps and bounds.... By about the year 1000 the proportion stood at something like 75%, after which the [conversion] curve flattened out." - Richard Fletcher, "Moorish Spain," p37-38. Similarly, Bernard Reilly writes that "...a very sizeable Christian majority remained within the area of Spanish Islam until well into the 10th Century." ("The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain", p19). These assertions are based on the work of Richard Bulliet in "Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period" (1979), which is seen as the authority on the subject by scholars in the field (Thomas Glick and Bernard Reilly to name two others). So the picture of a majority of Andalusian Christians converting to Islam within TWO DECADES is patently absurd. Twenty years is not a very long time for something so major to take effect, and the gradual conversion, as posited by Bulliet and others, is much more realistic. Kalukembe 09:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It is reasonable to suppose then that the corresponding Gothic designation "Landahlauts" (allotted, inherited, drawn land), in its phonetic form — "landalos" — became easily and spontaneously, to Arabic ears, "Al-Andalus". Maybe. But it's not totaly true : landahlauts was pronounced landaχlɔts. I don't think arabic would have missed the χ. -- Sajasaze 19:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Within just the last week, I have wanted to link this article to a concise description of Visigothic Spain. My internal link has twice been undone by "The Ogre", who raises false justifications, some of them baseless obsessions. It is a weak argument to say that the History of Spain has too broad a scope to be a good choice. There are many subdivisions in the History of Spain article. In particular, for now (i.e., until somebody were to edit it) there is a section entitled "Visigothic Hispania". "The Ogre's" approach of linking *separately* to "Visigoths" and "Hispania" is obviously a bad idea for the user becaues either you have to synthesize separate articles or you have to duplicate information between two articles. Even "The Ogre's" second argument, that you *have* to always choose to link to the article of narrower scope, is a weak argument. The Ogre has a disturbing insistence on the false idea that the political entities in Iberia before 1000 A.D. were not Spain. Despite "The Ogre", Spanish history starts at least with the Roman occupation. "The Ogre" inadvertently revealed himself to be a Spanish speaker (by using a Spanish verb in place of an English one), so it is especially annoying for this reasoning to be coming out of him. One last point, a practical point. The article on the Visigoths happens to be very badly written. It is clumsy, inaccurate, overlong. Also, even if it were well writen, it gives too much detail for what I'm after in the Al-Andalus article. Hurmata 00:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Hurmata, but there is confusion! An encyclopedia should correct long standing errors, such as calling Spain to Iberia or Hispania. The word "Spain" in modern English (and its counterparts in other languages) means the country of Spain (and it links there!), not all of the Iberian peninsula or Hispania (as the respective articles show). The fact is that Castilian expansionism over the centuries (ask not only the Portuguese, but also the Galicians, the Basques or the Catalans...) tried to monopolize the definition of Iberia in a way that satisfied its imperial interests. In fact, even if Spain was used in ancient times to refer to the whole of Iberia, today it is not. In this sense, given that the Kingdom of Spain only emerges with the union of Castile and Aragon in 1492 (and this is disputed since Navarre was only incoporated in 1512; for a presentation of this issue, see Kings and Queens of Spain), one can almost say that there was never a Spain, in the modern sense, before that! It was Iberia that began being conquered by the Roman Republic, a conquest finalized by the Roman Empire, who called it Hispania. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Hispania that was conquered by Suevi, Buri, Vandals, Alans and Visigoths. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Visigothic Hispania that was conquered by the Moors. The country of Spain didn't exist then. The Moorish conquest was of Iberia or Hispania (that should not be confused with Spain, even if the modern usage of the term Hispanic is used to denote Spanish speaking peoples). This conquest and subsequent occupation led to a Christian reaction know as the Reconquista from which several Christian kingdoms emerged (such as Asturias, León, Castile, Portugal, Navarre, etc.). Over time Castile came to dominate most of Iberia (but not Portugal, except for a small period between 1580 and 1640) and the use of the castilian word "España" (which is the castilian derivative of the latin Hispania) started as a political strategy to curb autonomy or independence from centralist Madrid (for the same reason Castilian language started to be known as Spanish, implying the irrelevance of other Iberian languages - this was still a problem in the Spain of the 20th century, with the active repression of languages and identities other than Castilian, see Languages of Spain and Nationalities in Spain). Furthermore, if you call Spain to the Iberian peninsula or Hispania, this not only is simply not true, but is felt as profoundly offensive at least by the Portuguese. For all these reasons and more, this article should not emply that Spain is Iberia or Hispania, and that there is an exclusive direct descent from ancient Hispania to modern Spain. Please my friend, acknowledge my good faith and desire for exactness! I have nothing against Spain! quite the opposite. And you should notice that I am a member both of WikiProject Portugal and WikiProject Spain! For all these reasons I believe the link Visigothic Hispania (how about creating a new article just dealing with that?) should not direct to History of Spain, not only this is too broad a scope, but it is wrong, since it implies Spain is Hispania, excluding Portugal. Furthermore, why should there be a link when there is already a box of the "History of Spain"? And even more when in that box the link regarding the period of "Visigothic Hispania" is directly to the article Visigoths (as a sub-entry to the Spanish history stub Medieval Spain)? Hope you do understand my reasonings. I'm not going to change the link just now. I believe we should reach some sort of agreement. Thank you. The Ogre 14:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello Hurmata. I do not see how do I muck up the historical facts - people that confuse Spain and Hispania (or Iberia - yes! Historically the same thing, but not in the modern geographical sense, I agree) are the one who are mucking up historical facts! And I agree with your reasoning that "Visigothic Spain and Portugal" is historically unjustified in the present context, not only because Portugal did not yet exist during the Visigothic period as a political entity, but also because Spain did not yet exist during the Visigothic period as a political entity! What existed was Hispania - Visigothic Hispania. Let us remeber that this is just a discussion about a link. I disagree with your choice to redirect it to the History of Spain article, though I do give some credit to your idea of not having it linked to two different articles. The best choice would be indeed to have an article called Visighotic Hispania. Why don't we work on it? Meanwhile I'm redirecting the link not just to History of Spain but more specifically to History of Spain#Visigothic Hispania. The Ogre 13:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
"Meanwhile I'm redirecting the link [. . .] more specifically to [[History of Spain#Visigothic Hispania." Oh, Wikipedia provides the functionality of linking to a section of an article. I am glad to learn of this.
We need for "somebodies" with existing expertise to clean up several articles in this field. I found an account of the Muslim invasion of Iberia which confused the invaders Tarif and Tariq (I thought I saw that in "Visigoths"). The article History_of_Portugal is awful because it is crudely reverential as opposed to encylopedic, and because it is thin as to factual depth.
Ogre, I agree with you, from time to time the good editing of one Wikipedia article requires the editing of articles being linked to. In past moments, it was not feasible for me to take on that much extra work.
I am familiar with the great ignorance of world geography to be found among even Americans with college degrees. Some of them suppose Brazil to be a Spanish speaking country. During the Cold War, a German computer programmer working in the US met coworkers who didn't realize there were two Germanies. Hurmata 16:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
A followup to my preceding comment, off topic and strictly for the amusement of the readers. One of the fifty American states is New Mexico. Many educated Americans think that New Mexico is either part of Mexico or a sovereign nation. An entire book has been written about this phenomenon (by Richard Sandoval in 1986). Hurmata 16:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello Hurmata and Corlyon! I really do not have time, just right now, to elaborate on a reply. I'll do latter on. Let me just remark two things, Corlyon:
Do you see my point? Cheers! I'll be back in a while. The Ogre 13:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The quote by Bernard Lewis is taken out of context. There is important information before it and after it. Jews of Islam can be accessed from books.google.com (limited access). Also, I believe that Bernard Lewis was talking about Jews of Islam in general and in this case this quote MUST be moved to Dhimmis may be or Minorities in Islam or whatever. -- 152.14.80.167 14:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
These templates seem really intrusive & irrelivant, is there any way to modify them so they are hidden, etc. They don't seem to be that well designed either. Fennessy 18:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The first paragraph seems to deal with the situation after the peace treaty with Castile and the provisions of this treaty. However, it is as least confusing, if not simply wrong, to say in this context that the muslims of Granada were granted tax exemption for three years and a limtitation of taxation to the amounts paid under Nasrid rule. This suggests to imply that Granada then was under direct Castilian rule, which it wasn't for another 150 years as the first sentence rightfully says, and the Nasrid dynasty wasn't in power any longer, which it actually was until the end of Muslim rule in 1492.
Further, it is not entirely clear what is meant with the statement that muslims - in a state under muslim rule! - had religious freedom and what it meant at that time and under these conditions that muslims had freedom of movement (within Granada, beyond its borders?). Finally, I simply don't understand what "virtual self government" should mean in the context of a medieval monarchy - Rule of the dynasty in power at that time to be unchallenged by christian neighbors? neutrality of the christian states in case of internal struggle? Both has nothing to do with self government in a modern understanding.)
It seems to me as if this part needs a bit of clarification. 217.19.182.234 ( talk) 12:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The two paragraphs under the heading "Society" seem to me rather disappointing as they mention in a very unsystematic manner some features of the various groups of the Iberian population of the time. What is said about the main occupation of jews seems to me even stereotypical. (I can't imagine that ambassadors made up a numerically significant part of the population.) 217.19.182.234 ( talk) 20:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
In the subsection entitled "Treatment of Non-Muslims" I found two uses of the word "pagan" apparently referring to Christians and Jews. In both cases I changed the word "pagan" to "non-Muslim". All Christians and Jews would strongly object to the use of this word when referring to their faiths. If you happen to know the original editor meant to use the word in reference to pre-Christian, polytheistic religions then please feel free to change it back and edit the paragraph to make it clear what the word "pagan" refers to. LuisGomez111 ( talk) 23:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Wainwright":
Reference named "Montada":
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 06:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Gingerich":
{{
citation}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (
link)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 06:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Al-Andalus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Bieber":
Reference named "Lucas-65":
Reference named "Lucas-10":
Reference named "Zaimeche":
Reference named "Katz":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 16:01, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
American logger that had an ox named babe. Babe died and Paul moved to Alaska —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.199.161.168 ( talk) 00:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I've heard a lot about the Muslims in Granada, Córdoba, and other parts of Spain. But what about the history of Muslims in what is now Portugal? After all, the Moors conquered both countries. I always receive detailed info in Spain articles, but whenever I try to find information about the Moors in Portugal, even on Wikipedia, it isn't sufficient enough. I've put up a request for an article called "Moorish Portugal" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles/Other_categorization_schemes#Portugal), and I want someone to start it. Can anyone help? Thanks!
-Stallions2010 P.S. If anyone can help, I have starting information on the article.
I don't know if this answers your question, but you can see in the history of portugal article that, before the Christian "Reconquista", you cannot speak of Portugal as an independent country (or even a political entity). Hence the non-differentiation.
-- 129.104.247.2 23:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
but you cant call it "spain" either. spain is not hispania and this "mistake" is rampant everywhere including many articles in wikipedia. if we use the correct names reflecting the times then there would be no one asking, "what about portugal?"
Lusitano Transmontano 17:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, There's an article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silves Hope that helps. Marina (from Olhao, Algarve, Portugal), 11 February 2006
I agree that Muslim Andalus achieved great things, and I myself added a sentence to summarize that to the introduction. My sentence alludes to sourced statements made later in the article. Nevertheless, this article has over time attracted many sentences of a fawning nature that exceed the historical facts or that seem to paint Islamic civilization in too rosy a tint. There was a fair amount of material which seems like pro-Islamic POV. Perhaps the most prominent example of this was a comparison that seems intended to obscure a finding in a recent report by Arab academics commissioned by the United Nations to evaluate the state of the Arab World. This report was released some time after 2000. One of its findings that was widely publicized in the West was that very little translation into Arabic is done, so little that -- as the report itself noted -- the publishing industry in Spain today does more translation into Spanish in one year than the entire Arabic world has done into Arabic in all history. One contributor to this article made a different contention about publishing in Muslim Spain: that Muslim Spain in the time of the Caliphate of Cordoba produced more publications annually than Spain does today. Maybe it's true. And it's also true that the above mentioned comparison of translation volume has nothing to do with an article on Al-Andalus. Nevertheless, the mention seems POV to me. If we can confirm the reliability of the source given, then it would be OK to restore that sentence to the article. Hurmata ( talk) 22:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Here are further examples of previous bad faith edits. Consider the following single passage: "In France, the Muslims were defeated at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel in 732. This place is known as 'The Pavement of the Martyrs' and in Muslim chronicles as 'Balaat ash-Shuhada'. Muslim control of Toulouse, Narbonne, Lyon and nearby territories varied from time to time. This went on until 975." This is full of historical inaccuracies which consistently serve to overstate Muslim influence and therefore overglorify it. Obviously, only Muslims call the site of the Moors' decisive defeat in France "Pavement of the Martyrs", and that phrase is just the translation of "Balaat ash-Shuhada". Muslims never controlled Lyon -- although they did sack nearby Grenoble and they occupied large parts of Provence 889-955. Muslim control of Toulouse and Narbonne did not "vary from time to time". Toulouse is well inland, near. Moors may have raided the Mediterranean port of Narbonne, but they never ruled it after the defeat of 732. Hurmata ( talk) 03:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
"In addition, as many as 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year in Al-Andalus.[37] In comparison, modern Spain published 46,330 books per year as of 1996.[38]" A single hand-written treatise, poem or polemic can't be validly compared to a modern printed book. Most of these formats today are published in newspapers or periodicals, not books. It's misleading, POV. Besides, the citation source [37]is a letter to the editors of the Malaysian "New Sunday Times" by Prof. Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abd Razak. He's the Naib Canselor of a Malaysian University, but neither a historian nor has he published scientifically on the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.39.156.128 ( talk) 05:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Image of Christian and Muslim playing ouds, miniature from Catinas de Santa Maria by king Alfonso X. Feel free to insert this image into the article. Phg ( talk) 20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The description has that the painting represents Jews fighting alongside Muslims. While this almost certainly happened, I don't see any evidence of this in the painting. The only thing notably Jewish are the Stars of David, which were also heavily used by Muslims until creation of Israel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.117.246.172 ( talk) 02:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
why not move one map to the top of the page? 93.86.201.173 ( talk) 09:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there any source or reference for the green-white flag? -- maxrspct ping me 13:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
"However Poitiers [Tours] did not stop the progress of the Berber Arabs and in 734 Avignon was conquered, Arles was attacked and the whole of Provence was overrun. " The Battle of Tours was one of the most decisive battles in history, and it did stop Moslem conquest into Europe. The fact a few pillaging raids were made doesn't take away from that. I believe there is an attempt to detract from Charles Martel's strategic triumph that day. 69.119.207.171 ( talk) 01:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
= The Turkish pronunciation of the name Al-Andalus Böri ( talk) 13:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The entire legacies section needs some serious work. The fact that the legacies section exists at all seems to indicate that the Moorish influence on the Iberian peninsula after the Reconquista ceased to exist and evolve. Perhaps changing the name of this section and editing some of the content to make it geared more towards explaining the continuing influence the Moors had within Spain after the Reconquista, that would be more indicative of the meshing of Christian and Islamic culture. Also the articles on pottery and aviation seem a bit ambiguous and perhaps belong in different articles, I do not think these very specific topics are deserving of their own subheadings. Another suggesting I would make would be to incorporate the "Legacy" section into the main body of the article. I think this would eliminate the idea that these contributions are the only lasting "legacies" of Moorish Spain and that the Moors within Spain itself after the Reconquista did not continue to impact Spanish society. I am open to suggestions anyone might have, as to how to go about achieving this task. 17:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Alexion (Alexander Ion) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexion ( talk • contribs)
I'm wondering if the Legacies section should be renamed something more along the lines of "Lasting Legacies." That may help to make the Moorish influence more permanent. I also agree that the Aviation and Pottery section may want to be transferred to a different area or maybe have a sentence or two that helps tie them back to the main article. Spartemis ( talk) 00:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)Spartemis
I think that this section is too short and in is structurally unsound. Depending on who was in charge, the treatment of non-Muslims was quite variable. Each ruler had their own objectives and motives and depending on what those where, their subjects were offered different amounts of right and respects. Muslim rulers are not all the same and by such a glossed over topic, it takes away the agency of the people and the rulers of the time. Spartemis ( talk) 20:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)Spartemis
Although this section says that it is discussing a controversial subject, it cites only the views of María Rosa Menocal. This sounds biased. Why is the opposing viewpoint not also cited here?
I feel as though this article jumps around far to much and needs more dates to give it a better sense of a timeline. The way it is written seems very sporadic. Its good that if you are looking for a specific aspect of Moorish Spain that it is easy to find, but having everything segmented the way it is makes it more difficult to get an overall view of what Moorish Spain was like. Reorganizing it chronologically seems as though it would make more sense. Voitik2 ( talk) 00:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
To me there seems to be an issue with the title of the the article. "Al-Andalus" refers specifically to the rule of the Caliphate of Damascus over the area, as well to a very specific region in Spain, Andalucia in the far south of the Iberian Peninsula. However, the actual Muslims that invaded and came to inhabit the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula were the Berbers of North Africa, also known as Moors. Therefore I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Moorish Spain" and that a side note be included that this region was also known as Al-Andalus. The term Al-Andalus identifies more with a geographical area rather than a study of the people and culture within this area and really the blending of cultures. Moorish Spain, is also a term that is more familiar to most readers and influential historians on the subject like Richard Fletcher have titled books on this subject as "Moorish Spain" not Al-Andalus. 18:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Alexion (alexanderion)
Fair enough, I understand your point about the Moorish lands also incorporating parts of Portugal, perhaps a more appropriate title would be "Moorish Iberia." Al-Andalus still seems a bit too specific for the type of information(especially cultural) being presented in this article. Alexion ( talk) 20:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I do not think the term is inaccurate, while it is true that the term refers to several modern ethnic groups, it was these ethnic groups that came to occupy the Iberian Peninsula. I do not think the comparing the terms Moor and Saracen is justified, the term "Saracen" came to encompass all those that practiced the Islamic faith, while the term "Moor" simple refers to the peoples of northern Africa that were predominantly Muslim during this time period. I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article about Moors " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors." This article has an entire section dedicated to the Moors of Iberia. I think it would make sense to standardize the terminology, referring to the place and people inhabiting the southern Iberian Peninsula, during this time. Alexion ( talk) 22:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Architecture during the time of Moorish Spain was definitely changing greatly to say the least. Although it mentions in the article how certain aspects of the Muslim architecture were shared with the Christians and the Jews I think that it doesn't go into enough detail about it. The architecture was greatly influenced by the Muslims and this architecture was used even after the Reconquista. However, there were many more aspects of Christian architecture that go unmentioned in the article. The mosque at Cordoba being a prime example. Many Christians sought to eradicate the Muslim's imprint on Iberia and the mosque was converted into a church. This change to the architecture was seen as a blemish on the mosque, but either way it did show that the architecture of the time was not totally influenced by the Muslims and there were many who resisted even this. More should be mentioned in the article on the effects of architecture. Voitik2 ( talk) 02:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi The section on the Caliphate at Cordoba has two maps thth use white as one of the colours. It is a very long established convention that white (or grey) is reserved for neutral areas, not affected by what is being illustrated on the map. It is very confusing to violate this convention and use white as if it were any other colour. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia ( talk) 15:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I propose that this article be renamed "Islamic Rule of the Iberian Peninsula." This is about more than "Andalus," which seems to refer only to a limited period, not the span of time encompassed by this article. Tapered ( talk) 07:29, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
NO NEED TO RENAME. Tapered ( talk) 18:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Fr/ now on, will eliminate namestyle 'Prophet' Muhammad. Jesus isn't styled 'Savior' Jesus. Abraham isn't 'Patriarch' Abraham. Moses isn't 'Prophet' Moses, etc,etc,etc. Tapered ( talk) 02:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
In this edition, a number of sourced paragraphs have been deleted with only this comment: removing non-pertinent content. I think that a thorough explanation is needed. Jotamar ( talk) 14:55, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
-- mustihussain 20:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I re-wrote the quote to convey the whole mean of the section from Lewis' book. As it was written it was plagiarism.
Starting from page 44 Lewis writes “The need to uphold the Holy Law by which the status of the dhimmi is established and protected was a common concern of Muslim jurists and even of rulers. ... “ He then turns his attention to the Ottoman period of which there is most information. The next paragraph says “Sometimes, when persecution occurred, we find that the instigators were concerned to justify it in terms of the Holy Law. The usual argument was that the Jews or the Christians had violated the pact by overstepping their proper place. ...” It is at this point that Lewis discusses a poem written by Abu Ishaq in 1066 to justify an anti-Jewish outbreak of that year (see page 45 for the poem). Lewis argues that poem assures Muslims that they are acting lawfully “in robbing and killing Jews”. He says in the bottom paragraph “Diatribes such as Abu Ishaq’s and massacres such as that in Granada in 1066 are of rare occurrence in Islamic history.”
Thus, Lewis says that the "persecution" and "massacre" was rationalized by a "diatribe". This breach of the dhimmi protection sections of Islamic law was rare as the law generally upheld and sustained the protection of the Jews. That is what I expressed. The plagiarized quote was "such massacres are of rare occurrence in Islamic history". Not only was it plagiarized but it didn't explain what "such" refers to. It is to Muslim violations of dhimmi protection. Generally this didn't happen until the 19th and 20th century (he points out on the next page) when modern standards changed attitudes to the institution of dhimmi and Jews wanted more freedom. Jason from nyc ( talk) 12:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
In response to the RFC [1] changes need to be made here. I am in favor of blanking the section Enduring influence on Iberian Peninsula and rebuilding it based on discussions that should take place here on the talk page. J8079s ( talk) 17:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
From [2];
There are pages on the Emirate of Cordoba (756-929) and the Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031). You could place it there, partitioning according to period. Walrasiad ( talk) 11:52, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
"Those who were neither Christians nor Jews, such as Pagans, were given the status of Majus."
The claim that there were "pagans" surviving in eighth-century Spain (or any religious group besides Christians, Jews, or Muslims) is a bold one. I found the reference to this in the Google Books edition of the footnote given, but the book by Salma Jayyusi is probably not a reliable source, as it's a "history" written by someone whose training is in poetry. Whatever the claim itself in the book is footnoted to isn't available in the preview. Suggest finding a better source for this odd claim or deleting it. Predestiprestidigitation ( talk) 23:15, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I find it offensive to refer to the (whatever) in Córdoba as a Cathedral. (See my edit which was undone today). It was built as a mosque, and the cathedral part, controversial from when it was built onwards, is about 10% of the whole. No one in Córdoba, except priests, ever calls it the Cathedral. No tourist itinerary in Spain says "we're going to take you to the Cathedral (or even Cathedral-Mosque) of Córdoba." The Mosque is beautiful, and I've yet to hear anyone call the Cathedral that. When I studied Spanish art (in Spain) it was never called the Cathedral. Legally it is true, the Catholic church controls it and calls it a Cathedral. But I think it's doing the reader a disservice, as well as being on the wrong side of history and popular opinion, to refer to it as a Cathedral. deisenbe ( talk) 16:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
No mention of Casiri's etymology, which Edward Gibbon endorsed. French Wikipedia has an article devoted to the etymology of Al-Andalus: Étymologie d'Al-Andalus et de l'Andalousie - Eroica ( talk) 14:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
@ Khestwol:, as Pinkbeast pointed out in their edit summary restoring it, I didn't add the section you removed here. It was in the history section, which was the wrong place. As can be seen from my edit summary, I think it was WP:UNDUE because it was the only aspect of the legacy of al-Andalus covered by the body of the article (although the lead has a sentence on cultural legacy). So what I did was create a Legacy section, put in a place-marker sub-section on the cultural, linguistic etc legacy with a maintenance template saying it needed expansion and added the section you removed to it as a separate sub-section. It therefore now sits in a broader context of the overall legacy - although that broader context needs significant expansion. It's a surprising omission that al-Andalus' legacy was not covered - a lot needs to be added. I intend to do so when I get some time - hopefully others will add too. DeCausa ( talk) 18:59, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
Well, so far we have a comment from Kmhkmh which is not accurate about the citations. Anyone else want a go? Pinkbeast ( talk) 14:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Actually the comment was accurate. Let me clarify and reiterate a few points here. First of all if there are indeed plenty of scholarly sources that discussing the reqconquering of al Andalus and state that it is a common theme in islamism or even just among islamic terrorism, then I have no objection against properly worded addition. However the text in question uses no scholarly sources, is questionable worded and at least at first glance doesn't strike neither as notable (for this article) nor as particularly correct either.
I'm not really an expert on the subject, but no scholarly or otherwise reputable source on Al Andalus that I've read even mentions the reconquering of it or Spain by islamism or terror groups. Similarly, while it is true that while you can find the sentiment of reconquering Al Andalus on the internet and probably find one or to quotes from an individual cleric or terrorist to that regard, none of he sources on islamism/islamic terrorism that I've seen described it as common or widespread attitude or goal.
Now let let's get the text in dispute displayed here, so that everybody following the conversation can easily see what we're talking about:
References
Now there's variety of problems which such an addition involving the notability of content, the proper reading/understanding of sources with regard to their content, the reputability and reliability of sources. The leading sentence makes a rather broad claim about leaders of islamic states and Spanish politician, which is rather unlikely to be true nor does it seem to covered in this form by the those. Which islamic leaders? Which Spanish politicians? I'm not aware of significant Spanish politician or an islamic head of state/significant politician making that a serious political issue or pursuing a discussion about it? The next line claims that bin Laden spoke several times of Al Andalus. Aside from the fact that might wonders what "spoke of" is exactly supposed to convey here, there sources merely state that the islamic terror group Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri (named after bin Laden's son in law, who died in 2001 already) claimed responsibility for Madrid terror attack of 2004. However the authenticity of the letter is unclear (according to sources and actually directly disputed in some). So how a claim of unclear authenticity by a terror group presumably associated or inspired by bin Laden turns into a statement of bin Laden about (the conquest?) of al Andalus is everybody guess. Now a word on the sources used for the content so far. The is a short superficial article by Wilkinson (published in the daily telegraph and the age, shortly after 2004 attack), the media archive with 4 press articles on the private website of a pundit and a somewhat obscure looking short article published on Spanish news agency website, that seems to refer to google and Wikipedia as sources and even gets the time frame for al andalus wrong (probably just a sloppy typo). So no scholarly sources, no well researched journalistic background articles and Wikipedia content and sources don't even really match. And all of what with well researched and well published topic like Al Andalus. To be blunt such crap has no place in Wikipedia.
Now the rest of text stating that the Muslim Brotherhood and Isis expressed the goal or interest to reconquer Al Andalus is not quite as bad and least somewhat in line with the cited sources. First of all according to the cited source the (actual) Muslim Brotherhood (and its leadership) made no such claim but rather the Islamic Society of North America. Now for the source itself, it is a blog entry published with the Daily Telegraph. Now it is true that the author of this blog is a well qualified historian, whose scholarly publications certainly might be use for WP (in other areas). But is blog piece is neither scholarly nor well researched (journalistic) background article, but a short opinion piece. Moreover neither medieval Spain or medieval Islam seem to be his field of expertise (judging from his website and the fact the he quotes the New York Times (rather scholarly literature or historical sources) for a description of medieval islamic Spain. So scholarly source here either not does it actually source the Wikipedia content. Note not everything scholar publishes anywhere is automatically a scholarly publication or notable for Wikipedia. Now final statement that Isis wants to retake Al Andalus Spain, that one is correct and although the sources are rather mediocre again the seem at least sufficient to verify the claim. They are however not really sufficient to establish the notability of that information and frankly neither does common sense. Isis states that their plans to conquer the whole islamic world and other parts of the globe do of course include Al Andalus as well. Why that is supposed to be a notable legacy of al Andalus is beyond me.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 18:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
So, the offending text is: The desire to reconquer, or more specifically re-Islamicize, Al-Andalus has been used as rhetoric by leaders of Islamic states and has been discussed by Spanish politicians. Osama bin Laden, for example, several times spoke of Al-Andalus, which was reported after the 2004 Madrid bombings.[45][46][47] The Muslim Brotherhood[48] and ISIS have also expressed an intention to "retake" al-Andalus.
DeCausa's second source supports "discussed by Spanish politicians". Several sources supports bin Laden discussing Al-Andalus. Fourth source quotes a member of the ruling Turkish political party.
So you may not like the text (in particular, I'll grant you "leaders of Islamic states" isn't in there, but there is no serious doubt that Al-Quaeda have a bee in their bonnet about Al-Andalus, no? Pinkbeast ( talk) 15:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
All you're saying now is that you don't like it. Too bad. It's cited to a wide variety of reliable sources and says what is in those sources. There is absolutely no reason to exclude this material; and it's certainly not that "this wording" has been discussed on the talk page, because I just wrote the wording now. Pinkbeast ( talk) 14:53, 29 May 2015 (UTC)