Moors: Encyclopedia II - Moors - Moorish Empire

Moors - Moorish Empire

In AD 711, some Moors invaded Visigoth Christian Spain. Under their Berber leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar on April 30 and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic Sharia rule in an eight-year campaign. They attempted to move northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains toward France, but were defeated by the Frankish Christian Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. The Moors ruled in North Africa, Spain and Portugal (except for small areas in the northwest and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees) for several decades.

The Moorish state suffered civil conflict in the 750s. The country broke up into a number of mostly Islamic fiefdoms which were consolidated under the Caliphate of Cordoba. Christian states based in the north and west slowly extended their power over Spain. Galicia, León, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, Portugal and Castile became Christian again in the next several centuries. In 1212 a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Spain. The Moorish Kingdom of Granada thrived for three more centuries. This kingdom is known in modern times for such architectural gems as the Alhambra. On January 2, 1492, Boabdil, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada, surrendered to armies of a recently-united Christian Spain. The remaining Muslims were forced to leave Spain or convert to Christianity. These descendants of the Muslims were named moriscos. They were an important part of the peasantry in some territories, like Aragon, Valencia, and Andalusia, until their systematic expulsion in the years from 1609 to 1614. Henri Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of a total of 8 million inhabitants at the time. Most of the expelled moriscos went to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, influencing cultural development there; others became corsairs; a significant number from Andalusia passed themselves off as Gypsies who were entering the country at that time. This mix of cultures gave birth to Flamenco music (Arabic: Fellah Mengu, peasant without land)[1].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Moorish Empire", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki