Islam in Spain

Islam was present in what is now Spain from 711 until 1614, beginning with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania and ending with the expulsion of the Moriscos. For key historical dates, see Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula. Of the almost 1.6 million Muslims in Spain as of 2013, 71 percent are foreigners. Most of the Muslims presently residing in Spain are recent immigrants from North Africa, Western Asia, and South Asia. A smaller number are Spanish converts, estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000. The number of Muslims in Spain reached 1.85 million in 2014, as stated in the report from April, 2015.

History

The Great Mosque of Córdoba turned church after the Reconquista.

Conquest

Main article: Umayyad conquest of Hispania

Hispania was the Latin name given to the whole Iberian Peninsula (covering the territories of present day Spain and Portugal), and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) the Teutonic tribe of Visigoths ended up ruling the whole peninsula until the Islamic conquest (during that time they pushed another Teutonic tribe out—the Vandals – and conquered another one—the Suevi). It is frequently stated in historical sources that Spain was one of the former Roman provinces where the Latin language and culture grew deep roots. After the fall of the Empire, the Visigoths continued the tradition by becoming probably the most Romanized of all Teutonic tribes.

On April 30, 711, Islamic leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad landed at Gibraltar and by the end of the campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula (except for small areas in the north-west such as Asturias and the Basque territory) were brought under Islamic rule. This campaign's turning point was the battle of Guadalete, where the last Visigothic king, Roderick, was defeated and killed on the battlefield. After this eight-year campaign, Muslim forces attempted to move north-east across the Pyrenees Mountains toward France, but were defeated by the Frankish Christian Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.

It is commonly held that the relative ease that the Arab armies conquered the Iberian Peninsula with was due to the centralized nature of government under the rule of the Visigoths. After the defeat of Roderick, the Visigoth dominion over the Iberian peninsula folded and fell apart from the Northern coast of Spain, and the province of Septimania (an area of France going from the Pyrenees to Provence), all areas previously under the rule of the Visigoths were under Islamic rule.

Several historical sources state that the Islamic caliphate had not actually targeted Spain for conquest, but that political divisions within the Visigothic kingdom created an opportunity that Tariq and his army exploited successfully. For example, King Roderick was not considered a legitimate ruler by all the inhabitants of the Kingdom, and some Visigothic nobles actually aided the Islamic conquest. One name frequently mentioned is Count Julian of Ceuta in North Africa (this version calls him a Gothic noble), who according to some stories invited Tariq to invade because his daughter had been raped by King Roderick. Other sources instead consider Count Julian to be the last representative of the Eastern Roman Empire in North Africa.

Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula lasted for varying periods ranging from only 28 years in the extreme northwest (Galicia) to 781 years in the area surrounding the city of Granada in the southeast. While the three major monotheistic religious traditions certainly did borrow from one another in Muslim-ruled Spain, benefiting especially by the blooming of philosophy and the medieval sciences in the Muslim Middle East, recent scholarship has brought into question the notion that the peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians — known as the convivencia — could be defined as "pluralistic." Moreover, the appearance of Sufism on the Iberian peninsula is especially important because Sufism's "greatest shaykh," Ibn 'Arabi, was himself from Murcia.

Rule

Main article: Al-Andalus

The majority of the Army as well as commander Tariq himself were not Arab but Islamic and in time Islamic migrants from places as diverse as North Africa to Yemen and Syria and Iran came to live in the Iberian peninsula. The Islamic rulers called the Iberian peninsula "Al-Andalus". That was the root for the name of the present-day region of Andalusia, the southernmost region of Spain.

For a time, the area that is today Spain and Portugal was one of the great Muslim civilizations, reaching its summit with the Umayyad Caliphate in the 10th century. Muslim Spain had the following chronological phases:

• The Emirate directly dependent on the Caliph in Damascus (711–756)
• The Independent Emirate (756–929)
• The Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031)
• The first Taifas (1031–c. 1091)
• The Almoravid rule (c. 1091–c. 1145)
• The second Taifas (c. 1145–c. 1151)
• The Almohad rule (c. 1151–1212)
• The Kingdom of Granada (1212–1492)
• The late Alpujarras revolt (1568–1571), with two monarchs appointed successively by the Morisco rebels (Note: the dates when the different taifa kingdoms were annexed by Almoravids and Almohads vary)

The Madrasah of Granada was the first university in Granada, Andalusia. It was founded by the Nasrid dynasty monarch Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada in 1349.

Reconquista

Main article: Reconquista

After the disintegration of the Caliphate, Islamic control of Spain was gradually eroded by the Christian Reconquista. The Reconquista (Reconquest) was the process by which the Catholic Kingdoms of northern Spain eventually managed to succeed in defeating and conquering the Muslim states of the Iberian Peninsula. The first major city to fall to Catholic powers was Toledo in 1085, what prompted the intervention of Almoravids. After the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, most of Al-Andalus fell under control of the Catholic kingdoms, the only exception being the Nasrid dynasty Emirate of Granada.

The Granada War (Guerra de Granada or First Rebellion of Alpujarras) of the Reconquista began in 1482 against the Emirate of Granada. It was not until 1492 that the Emirate of Granada with city of Granada and the Alhambra and Generalife Palaces, the last remaining Muslim territory in al-Andalus, fell in the Battle of Granada to forces of the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Catolicos), Queen Isabella I of Castile and her husband King Ferdinand II of Aragon. The conquest was accompanied by the Treaty of Granada signed by Emir Muhammad XII of Granada, allowing the Spanish crown's new Muslim subjects a large measure of religious toleration. They were also allowed the continuing use of their own language, schools, laws and customs. But the interpretation of the royal edict was largely left to the local Catholic authorities. Hernando de Talavera, the first Archbishop of Granada after its Catholic conquest, took a fairly tolerant view.

However 1492 started the monarchy's reversal of freedoms beginning with the Alhambra Decree. This continued when Archbishop Talavera was replaced by the intolerant Cardinal Cisneros, who immediately organised a drive for mass forced conversions and burned thousands of Arabic books (manuscripts). Outraged by this breach of faith, in 1499 the Mudéjars rose in the Second Rebellion of Alpujarras, which was unsuccessful and only had the effect of giving Ferdinand and Isabella a pretext to revoke the promise of toleration. That same year the Muslim leaders of Granada were ordered to hand over almost all of the remaining books in Arabic, most of which were burned. Beginning in Valencia in 1502, Muslims were offered the choice of baptism or exile. The majority decided to accept the former, becoming 'New Catholics', of very great interest to the newly established Spanish Inquisition, authorised by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478.

The Basharat Mosque in Pedro Abad, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, was the first mosque to be built in modern Spain.

Despite all of these pressures, many continued to observe Moorish forms, and practice as Muslims, well into the 16th century. In 1567, King Philip II finally made the use of the Arabic language illegal, and forbade the Islamic religion, dress, and customs, a step which led to the Second Rebellion of Alpujarras and the Morisco Revolt leading to the War of the Alpujarras, involving considerable brutality on both sides. In one incident, troops commanded by Don John of Austria destroyed the town of Galera east of Granada, after slaughtering the entire population. The Moriscos of Granada were rounded up and dispersed across Spain. 'Edicts of Expulsion' for the expulsion of the Moriscos were finally issued by Philip III in 1609 against the remaining Muslims in Spain. The expulsion was particularly efficient in the eastern region of Valencia where they made up 33% of the population and ethnic tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim populations were high. The corresponding expulsion of Muslims from the Kingdom of Castille and Andalusia was officially completed in 1614 although its success has been questioned by modern scholars. Unlike the Kingdom of Aragon and Valencia, Moriscos were highly integrated in the rest of Spain significant number of them avoided expulsion or returned en masse, with the protection of non-morisco neighbours and local authorities.

The decline in revenue, and loss of technical skills, from the expulsion of Muslims from Aragon precipitated the downfall of Aragon, and the prominence of Castille – a reality which remains until today. Further, the loss of revenue and skills from Valencia led to a shift of Catalan power from Valencia to regions around Barcelona which had far fewer Muslims and were thus less-affected. The last mass prosecution against Moriscos for crypto-Islamic practices occurred in Granada in 1727, with most of those convicted receiving relatively light sentences. From then on, indigenous Islam is considered to have been effectively extinguished in Spain.

Recent immigration and conversion

Mosque of Madrid, inaugurated in 1992.

In recent decades, immigration has resulted in a resurgence in the presence of Islam, with over one million Muslims currently residing in Spain, of which the majority are Moroccans and Spaniards represented by the Islamic Commission of Spain. Many Muslims include those from other neighboring African countries (mostly Morocco), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Iranians, and a few Bangladeshis, Indians, and Pakistanis.

There are a number of converts to Islam, estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000, from a total number of 1,000,000 Muslims. A significant number are Spanish Christian men who have married North African girls. Many converts to Islam reside in the southern Andalusia region and have opened Muslim learning centers drawing visitors from across Europe, Canada and the United States. The majority of Muslims in Spain are Sunnites, with a minority of Shiites.

The first Mosque after the Fall of Granada in 1492, in modern Spain, was built after approximately 500 years in 1982 by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

See also

• Ahmadiyya in Spain

Further reading

• W. Montgomery Watt and Pierre Cachia, A History of Islamic Spain. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007.