#emirate of granada

[cincinnatusvirtue]

The Reconquista & Moorish Resistance in Spain: Rebellion of the Alpujarras (1499-1501)

1492 was one of the most consequential years for the nationhood of what is now Spain.  Not only was it the year Christopher Columbus & his crew reached the Americas in the name of the Spanish monarchs. An event that ignited the subsequent centuries long European exploration & conquest of the North American & South American continents.  1492 was also the year that most historians deemed the official end of the so-called Reconquista.

The Reconquista (reconquest) was also commonly viewed as a centuries long project of entailing conflict between the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain & Portugal) aimed at “retaking” the land from the Islamic invaders who hailed from North Africa & the Middle East and ruled over large swaths of land collectively known as Al-Andalus.  The grouping of Muslims in Iberia came to collectively be referred to as the Moors.  As we’ll elaborate in this post, the Reconquista fitting into a binary Christian European versus foreign Muslim narrative is probably too narrow to accurately the describe the period in question.  Nor as we’ll discuss later does the year 1492 automatically signal an end to the Moorish community such as it was within Iberia.  As with much of history there is much more nuance to these topics.  To get a more accurate picture of history requires accepting that nuance however inconvenient to our preconceived notions did in fact & does in fact exist in virtually every historical event recorded across the spans of time & space.  

Let’s then define the rough time period we mean, when we discuss the Reconquista.  Historians commonly refer to the Reconquista to be roughly from the year 718/722 AD/CE starting with the Battle of Covadonga lasting until the Fall of Granada in 1492 AD/CE.  These are generally the bookends of Reconquista which are more or less accepted by historians today.  For further context, let’s remind ourselves of what brought about the Reconquista & then discuss whether that it was a simple case of Christian vs. Muslim.  

The Islamic Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula is generally believed to have begun in the year 711 AD/CE when a force of Muslims made up of mostly Berber or Amazigh (native peoples from North Africa) with some Arabs crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from modern Morocco & invaded modern-day Spain.  This force was led by one Tariq ibn Ziyad (670 CE-720 CE).  Tariq was a Berber from North Africa whose people had only within the last few decades come to embrace Islam & not completely.  The early Islamic conquests spread rapidly following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE.  Muhammad had largely succeeded in uniting the Arabian Peninsula under Islamic rule by his death.  From there under the first Islamic empire of sorts, the Rashidun Caliphate (632 CE-631 CE) saw conquests of both some of the Middle East and some of North Africa, namely Egypt from the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) & Iranian Plateau from the Persian Sassanian Empire.  Following the First Fitna (civil war), the Rashidun Caliphate was succeeded following the death of Muhammad’s cousin & son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib, the 4th and final caliph of the Rashidun (rightly guided).  They were succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate (661 CE-750 CE), the 2nd major Islamic caliphate.   The Umayyads were an Arab dynasty & distant relatives of Muhammad taking power after the First Fitna from their power base in Syria.  They changed the trajectory of Islamic history in a number of ways.  In a leadership level, they became the first hereditary Islamic dynasty, making the caliph less of a religious & political leader & primarily a political leader akin to a king or emperor in practice though nominally had the religious leadership attached to the title but this would decrease in practice overtime.  The succession of caliphs were now passed essentially from father to son whereas the Rashidun caliphs were elected by a council called a shura who tried to assess the merits of the candidates proposed.  Leadership was intended to be based on those whose character & ability would exemplify Islamic teaching & virtue as they believed the Prophet Muhammad had exhibited in his leadership.

The Umayyads greatly expanded the Islamic conquest to the whole of North Africa by the late 7th century & all the way into parts of Central Asia & the Indus Valley in modern Pakistan & India.  They also extended northward into Byzantine held Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the southern Caucasus (Armenia).  They further extended their reach into Europe with raids in the Mediterranean including the Iberian Peninsula by the late 7th & early 8th centuries CE. While Islamic teachings held that all Muslims were equal in terms of value regardless of ethnic or geographic background & the Umayyads did indeed rule over a vast multiethnic & multireligious empire, in practice they maintained a preference for Arab Muslims among the bureaucracy & aristocracy to rule over the empire.  A hierarchy formed with the Arabs at top, non-Arab Muslims such as Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians & Berbers who recently converted as generally beneath the Arabs & below them Christians & Jews who did not convert to Islam along with other non-Abrahamic religions at the bottom of the hierarchy.  Christians & Jews however were allowed to practice their religion without interference so long as the jiyza poll tax was paid to fund the caliphate’s operations in part.

It was under the Umayyad Governor of Ifriqiya “Africa” (modern Tunisia, Algeria & Libya) Musa ibn Nusayr, an Arab from Syria that Tariq ibn Ziyad was ordered to cross the Straits of Gibraltar & invade Iberia.  At the time Iberia was under the control of the Kingdom of the Visigoths.  The Visigoths were a Germanic people from Northern & Eastern Europe that moved nomadically into the Roman Empire during the late classical period into the early medieval period.  They were among the so-called barbarian hordes that overran the western Roman Empire & had famously sacked Rome itself in 410 AD/CE.  This contributed to the eventual downfall of the Western half of the Roman Empire.  The Visigoths in time however along with other Germanic peoples like the Ostrogoths, Vandals & Franks began to adopt elements of Roman culture from the areas over which they now ruled.  Picking up Latin as an official language & even adopting Christianity.  The Visigoths had helped the Romans at one point fend off Attila the Hun and his nomadic empire in the plains of France.  The Visigoths had settled in southern France before crossing into Spain where they overtook the Hispano-Roman population.  The Hispano-Romans were a mixture of native Iberians, Celts, Carthaginian & Greco-Roman settlers among others in Iberia who more or less coalesced into a common people that spoke Latin & practiced a precursor to Catholic Christianity.  Iberia likewise contained the native Basque peoples who maintained their own unique language & culture to this day, largely protected by their residence in the mountainous northern reaches of Iberia & southern France.  The Visigoths ruled over them as powerful warrior minority who overtime increasingly assimilated into Hispano-Roman majority but still maintained serious differences.  The brand of Christianity practiced by the Visigoths was known as Arianism & differed from the Christianity of Hispano-Romans.  They also dealt with somewhat unsettled monarchical rules.  Civil war occurred among the Visigoths for kingship which was not necessarily hereditary.  

It is said that the rule of a Visigoth King by the name of Roderic who reigned from 710-711 was the impetus for the Muslim invasion.  There is much debate about whether Roderic’s reign itself was the cause for the invasion as there is a fabled tale that he seduced or raped the daughter of one of his nobles who turned to the Muslims of the Umayyad Caliphate to act as a mercenary force to avenge & depose Roderic in exchange for conquest of the peninsula.  This tale was sometimes accepted as fact but may actually be a tale or contain some elements of truth, the historical record to this day is limited on this.  However, what seems to be known is that Roderic’s reign was not fully accepted by other Visigoth nobles within the kingdom & was disputed at best & perhaps ignited civil war or at least created a division that may have led to conspiracy between Visigoth nobles & Umayyads.  Whatever the reality, the opposition to Roderic did create an opportune moment for an army of Berber and Arab Muslims (Moors) to land at the Rock of Gibraltar & begin their in-land push to begin conquering the Iberian Peninsula also known as Hispania.  Gibraltar in fact takes its name from Tariq ibn Ziyad’s first name.  In Arabic the rock which is the symbol of the modern British possession Gibraltar was known as Jabel-al-Tariq (Rock of Tariq), in antiquity it was known as one of the Pillars of Hercules. Roderic raised an army to oppose the Muslims and was defeated it is said due to betrayal of his own forces at Battle of Guadalete.  This is turn opened a rapid conquest of virtually all of the peninsula within a decade.  The Muslims received more Berber & Arab reinforcements and were more or less accepted by some of the Visigoths & Hispano-Roman population.  The Umayyads had added the regions known in Arabic as Al-Andalus or land of the Vandals (Germanic peoples who reigned in Iberia earlier) as their western most province.  

For virtually a decade their conquest went unimpeded due to the divisions among the Visigoths & the Hispano-Romans.  However, the northern mountains of Hispania did protect some retreating Visigoth & Hispano-Roman Christians as it did their Basque neighbors.  Creating a relative safe haven for them in the form of a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Asturias.  Additionally, the Muslims had to now consolidate their hold over southern & central Iberia as well as the coasts.  Further strains to the Islamic cause came in the form of division between Arab & Berber.  The Arabs typically were new to North Africa much less Europe & due to Umayyad preferences were often given leadership positions & the greater spoils of war over the more numerous Berbers who acted as the rank & file soldier typically, leading to lingering resentment.  These divisions would persist off and on throughout the history of Al-Andalus, notably in the Great Berber Revolt of 740-43.  The Battle of Covadonga fought in either 718 or 722 CE saw the Asturians defeat the Umayyads for the first discernable time & allowed a check on their ambition to completely rule the peninsula.  Other setbacks to Muslim conquests came in their invasions of France where in 721 they were defeated in the Siege of Toulouse & in 732 the Franks decisively defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours.

In 750 CE, the Umayyads were overthrown by a new Arab dynasty with closer blood ties to the Prophet Muhammad, the Abbasid dynasty.  The Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258 & 1261-1517) were descended from the Prophet’s uncle & while they maintained the Umayyad preference for hereditary succession to the caliphate, they reversed the Umayyad preference for an Arab only bureaucracy, largely using Persians to fill government roles & allowing other non-Arabs likewise to fulfill leadership roles.  The Abbasids would likewise preside over an age of cultural flowering within the Islamic world, the so-called Islamic Golden Age with the establishment of Baghdad in Iraq as their capital.  They’d rule over the largest Islamic empire in history but one not entirely united as they would soon lose Al-Andalus.  

The Abbasids would try to kill every remaining Umayyad but one named Abd Al-Rahman Al-Dahkil (the Entrant) managed to escape Syria while witnessing his brother’s execution.  Abd Al-Rahman’s father was Arab but his mother was Berber & he sought refuge among his mother’s relatives in North Africa which had become relatively autonomous under the Umayyads due to the rule of another Arab noble dynasty known as the Fihrids.  They accepted Abd Al-Rahman’s exile within their borders as they themselves were not eager to accept Abbasid rule & did so nominally.  The Fihrids had spearheaded the Arab conquest of North Africa & now ruled as governors of Al-Andalus well into the 8th century but divisions amongst the Yemeni & Syrian Arab factions and Berber factions created an opportune moment for Abd Al-Rahman to make his way into Iberia.  There with an army of Syrian Arabs & Berbers he defeated the Fihrid governor of Al-Andalus.  In turn he now created an independent Emirate (Principality), the Emirate of Cordoba (756 CE-929CE) which later evolved into the independent and rival Caliphate of Cordoba (929 CE-1031 CE).  The Umayyad direct rule over Cordoba likewise saw a cultural flowering which rivalled that of the Abbasids in Baghdad.  With geography & other more pressing issues closer at home, the Abbasids de-facto accepted the Umayyad reign over Al-Andalus.  This peaked under the reign of Abd Al-Rahman III who reigned as Emir from 912-929 before declaring himself as Caliph of Cordoba and ruling as caliph from 929 to 961.  Cordoba became a major center of learning in Western Europe & both as an emirate & caliphate saw much knowledge transfer between Muslim, Christian & Jews. These people could live side by side but by the 10th & 11th centuries CE, the majority population of the Iberian Peninsula was in fact majority Muslim.  This populace became collectively known as the Moors to the Chrisitan European world.  

What constituted the term Moor?  It is derived from the term Mauri originally derived from the Greek term for the Berber tribes of northern Morocco & Algeria, that term was Maurusii or Mauri as it was adopted in Latin later by the Romans after their conquest of North Africa.  It also applied to the Latin name for the province of Mauretania.  Originally it applied to the Berber peoples of this region, but this preceded the Islamic era by centuries & had no religious connotations. By the time of Al-Andalus, Mauri remained the Latin term for the Berbers but the Muslims were never strictly only Berbers but a combination of Berber & Arabs.  The term Moor in English is in turn derived from the Latin daughter Romance languages of Spanish, Italian & French which used the term moro & maure.  By the time of Al-Andalus as the Caliphate of Cordoba, Moor was applied to all Muslims within the Iberian Peninsula.  This applied equally to Berbers, Arabs & European converts to Islam, the Hispano-Romans & Visigoths also to some degree converted to Islam, as did slaves imported from Eastern Europe via the Arab slave trade.  These latter two groups (Hispano-Romans & the Slavic slaves) helped constitute the majority of Iberia’s previously Christian population & it was through this conversion that Islam became the predominant religion of Iberia during much of the Middle Ages.  They were known as muwallad.   

Moors never truly constituted a specific ethnicity in Spain & Portugal.  It was perhaps better described as a cultural or religious designation rather than an ethnic or racial one.  Moors came from various ethnic backgrounds spanning 3 continents (Europe, West Asia & North Africa) and could range in skin color from dark to light & fair skinned as it was not a racial designation.  Furthermore, the racial divides between Berber & Arabs during the earlier Al-Andalus period began to dissipate gradually over the centuries due to intermarriage between the two communities & this also included muwallad (Hispano-Roman) marriage with Berber & Arab communities as well.  In time leading to a community that became better known as Andalusian (taken from Al-Andalus) or to the Christians as Moors.  

As the Islamic power changed overtime from emirate to caliphate likewise new Christian kingdoms arose from the north of Iberia.  Asturias gave way to the Kingdom of Leon & the Basques formed the Kingdom of Pamplona.  In time the kingdoms of Castile & Aragon formed & Pamplona turned into the kingdom of Navarre.   As the Reconquista progressed the political interplay between Christian & Muslim powers became complex & despite the common narrative of a strict Christian vs. Muslim conflict much like the Crusades of the Middle East from the late 11th century onward, a more nuanced reality existed.  The caliphs of Cordoba were in fact mostly European being only patrilineal descendants of the Arab Umayyads.  Their mothers were made up of generations of either European slaves taken in raids or in some cases the Basque & Hispano-Roman royalty of the northern kingdoms who made treaties with the Umayyads & sometimes sent their daughters or sisters to become wives of the emirs & caliphs so as to ensure peace between their respective kingdom.  Abd Al-Rahman III, Caliph of Cordoba was the grandson of a princess from Pamplona & great-grandson of the Basque king of Pamplona.  He was said to have had fair skin & light eyes & hair/beard which he dyed black to make it appear more “Arab” despite that three-quarters of his grandparents were completely European, the remaining quarter was partially Arab intermixed with European captives in the emir’s harem.  Subsequently his cousins constituted the fellow monarchs of northern Iberia he had to contend with both through war & diplomacy.  

Throughout the Reconquista era, interaction between Christian & Muslim occurred at all levels in Iberia.  Trade, commerce, art, education & cultural exchange was not uncommon in addition to the familial ties of politicians & the ever-shifting alliances.  Christian powers were in competition with each other & Al-Andalus, matters complicated further following the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba which saw the break apart into numerous Muslim petty kingdoms called taifas.  Some ruled by Arab, Berber or muwallad dynasties.  Some paired with Christian powers against rival Muslim powers & likewise Christian powers teamed with Muslim powers against fellow Christian powers but the fractured nature of the taifas gave opportunity for Christian kingdoms like Castile & Aragon to gradually take more territory.  This was encouraged by the papacy in Rome and other players in Western Europe which sometimes saw French, English and other European mercenaries serve in the Iberian Christian armies against the Muslims.  So, it’s not inaccurate to say the Reconquista contained elements of a Christian vs. Muslim narrative & indeed it was a goal of many if not all Christian rulers in Iberia to drive the Muslims ultimately out of Iberia & unite the lands under their own rule, but their ambitions also extended to leadership over their fellow Christians too.  The question was would achieve this.  

Before this could happen, intervention from Morocco took place with a Berber led religious movement/dynasty known as the Almoravids intervened in Iberia & defeated a Castilian & Aragonese combined force at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086.  They had been invited by the taifa rulers of Al-Andalus who realizing their own power slipping due to their infighting & subsequent losses to the Christian north needed a united front against complete collapse.  The Almoravids indeed halted the Reconquista but in the 12th century as home in Morocco they were supplanted by yet another Berber religious movement & dynasty, the Almohads. The Almohads not only took over Morocco but much of North Africa & eventually Al-Andalus.  Likewise, they had to compete with Christian powers and the remaining taifas of Iberia more or less determined to maintain some autonomy.  

However, the tide seemed to forever turn in the Christian favor following the 1212 CE Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in which a Christian coalition of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and a host of Crusader military orders & mercenaries from throughout Western Europe defeated the Almohads decisively.  This subsequently saw the Almohads eventually collapse in Iberia while they likewise power to various dynasties in North Africa spanning from Morocco to Libya.  The third taifa period in Iberia came after the Almohad collapse.  This likewise saw the taifas being subsumed by the Christian kingdoms.  The one relatively strong Muslim power to remain in Iberia was a relatively new one which became the Emirate of Granada (1230 CE-1492 CE).

Granada had the Sierra Nevada mountains to offer it a modicum of defense from the Christian north & its ruling dynasty, the Nasrids were of Arab stock.  The Nasrids two lasting contributions would be in architecture & historical placement.  Their architecture was best exemplified in the form of the world famous Alhambra palace complex.  Which served as a fort & series of palaces built on a hill overlooking Granada that saw expansion over the coming centuries.  The Nasrids unfortunately for the Muslims of Iberia were known in history as the rulers of the last independent Muslim realm in Western Europe.  As time went on they became vassals of the Kingdom of Castile, the most powerful & leading Christian realm in Iberia.  They alternated between war & peace with Castile, inflicting defeat & suffering defeat to the Castilians a gradual loss of territory to the Christians became irreversible & more and more the Muslims of Iberia of Berber, Arab & muwallad background rallied around their religious & cultural identity, becoming more culturally & geographically Andalusian as ethnic identifiers continued to wane in importance.  Granada’s ever shrinking borders became the last safe haven for the free practice of Islam in Iberia, something that had lasted for nearly 800 years.  

1491-1492 would see the Emirate of Granada come to end, along with it a successful completion of Reconquista and the end of Muslim rule in Iberia for all time up to the present.  The Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile & her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon created a personal union between the two most powerful kingdoms in all Iberia.  Their marriage also saw a renewed joint focus on ending Granada with the idea of removing the last Muslim power in the peninsula.  Starting in 1482 Castile & Aragon fought a decade long war with Granada but it was the siege of Granada itself in 1491 that caused Muhammad XII, the Nasrid emir of Granada to surrender the city, the whole of the emirate & the Alhambra palace built by his ancestors to Isabella & Ferdinand.  Christian success came when the besieging forces bombarded the city with early gunpowder artillery & cutoff the water supply & demoralized the Muslim defenders.  Additionally, there was rampant bribery going on between both sides which added an air of confusion & distrust between peoples within & outside of Granada.  Finally, the terms offered by the Catholic Monarchs to Muhammad XII caused him to capitulate as they were deemed generous to the Muslims of Granada & this was preferable to complete death & destruction.         

The Treaty of Granada signed in November 1491 gave a truce that stated on January 2nd,1492 the city would be handed over to the Christians effectively ending the Reconquista.  The treaty had many articles but largely can be summed as saying the Muslims of Granada in exchange for their submission to Isabella & Ferdinand would be able to essentially keep their property & maintain their free practice of religion & custom with little or no interference.

While this officially ended the Reconquista, it also helped give birth to the modern nation of Spain as Spanish nationhood became a more discussed notion following the fall of Granada.  The Alhambra was eventually converted into a Christian palace, particularly under Isabella & Ferdinand’s grandson’s (Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor) reign.

Initially, these generous terms afforded to the Muslims of Granada from their new sovereigns was adhered to but for both Jews & Muslims in Spain, the subsequent Spanish Inquisition by the Catholic Church would lead to massive disruptions.  However, their remained a difference of opinion between the church and the monarchs.  Church officials wanted the state to apply pressure to the Muslims & Jews of the kingdom with an eye towards conversion en masse.  Meanwhile, the king & queen sought to uphold the terms & let the Muslims passively convert to Christianity if possible.  In 1499, during their visit to Granada the population (many Muslim) actually cheered the crown for nearly a decade of respectfully adhering to the provisions of the treaty in 1491.

This rapidly changed that same year when the Archbishop of Toledo moved to Granada & begin asking for the imprisonment of Muslims including the nobles.  Once in prison they faced torture until conversion.  Spurred on by this the Archbishop begin to increase the pressure by having a loophole in the trearty allow for the questioning of Christians who had become Muslim converts & done so in front of Muslim clerics. These converts were summoned to prison for questioning & often women were targeted which angered their Muslim male relatives.  This reached a breaking point when one convert woman openly decried she was being forced to convert to Christianity, the officials escorting her to prison were surrounded by a Muslim crowd, one was killed while the other escaped & this in turn triggered an open revolt.

The archbishop demanded the Muslims hand over the killers of his agent which failed.  Instead, he called up soldiers to help provide a show of force if necessary to put down the revolt.  After negotiation the killers were turned over the rebellion died down due Muslims handing over their weapons.  Nonetheless the archbishop was recalled to Seville by Ferdinand who was angered.  The archbishop nevertheless convinced him that Muslims broke the treaty through their open revolt.  Furthermore, he managed to get the Catholic Monarchs to pardon all rebels in exchange for their conversion to Christianity.  This conversion was nominal for the whole Muslim populace of Granada.    

While Granada’s Muslims calmed their own rebellion down through negotiation, the rebel attitude spilled over to the countryside.  Particularly into the Alpujarras mountain range south of Granada.  There the Andalusian Muslims were living fairly free lives devoid of much interference & enforcement of the treaty.  Fearing the forced conversions that befell Granada, they declared the revolt in the name of preserving their religion & culture.  Due to the mountainous terrain & well led tacticians, they were able muster up a guerrilla warfare campaign against Christian rule.  However, the Christians were able to send roughly 80,000 soldiers into the region to put down the rebellion eventually with Ferdinand overseeing the war efforts.  The Muslim guerillas lacked an organized structure of command & overall strategy & this in turn allowed the Christian forces to defeat the rebels piecemeal.  Rebel lives could be spared on the condition of conversion to Christianity.  Furthermore, the Christian forces now took to preserving little to no quarter to the enemy.  In the town of Laujar de Andarax 3,000 Muslims were killed included hundreds of women & children blown up in a mosque in which they sought refuge due to ignited gunpowder supplied to besiege the town.  By early 1501, Ferdinand declared the rebellion over.  The Muslims continued to rebel & they were met with both defeat & victory but realizing they could not have a great chance at winning the war without a defined command & strategy, they sued for peace.  Ferdinand likewise felt the peace was needed since his army couldn’t sustain the logistical challenges of a long-drawn-out guerilla war in the mountains.

The terms of Ferdinand’s accepting the Muslim’s surrender was no longer the generous terms of 1491 a decade before.   The rebels must convert through baptism, reject baptism & face death or enslavement or finally choose exile outside of Iberia.  The cost of exile was to be self-funded too & for many, it was far too expensive & extortionate for the average Andalusian Muslim.    This left few any decision but to remain & nominally convert.  All Muslims in Granada were in name Christian if in practice they continued to defy the laws they now were forced to follow.  Many continued to practice Islamic customs in secret, but they were able to maintain their Islamic dress & some would still speak Arabic & maintain other customs.  The enforcement by the Christian authorities was stricter than before the rebellion but it was not always feasible, especially in the mountainous Alpujarras.  They publicly professed to be Christians but were determined in many cases to remain Muslim despite the threat of death which hung over them.  These lingering tensions & suspicions by the subsequent Spanish monarchs & the church led to increased scrutiny & enforcement in the form of dress codes, inquisitions into the sincerity of their conversion & harsh punishment for those found to violate the new royal proclamations.  By now, the Muslims in Iberia were referred to as Moriscos in Spanish, which translates as “little Moors” & applied to these Spanish Muslims who now professed to be Christian through conversion but still secretly practiced Islam & maintained Islamic traditions in private.  For the Moriscos, the tension between state & mosque was eventually going to be too much to withstand. Events would boil over into a second and even larger rebellion later in the 16th century one which would determine the fate of Iberian Moors for centuries to come...

[memories-of-ancients]

Gold pedant necklace, Emirate of Granada, Islamic Spain, 14th-15th century

from The National Archaeological Museum, Madrid

[whencyclopedia]

Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan al-Fasi al-Granati, 1485-1554) was a diplomat, merchant traveller and scholar who famously voyaged from Timbuktu to the Niger River and wrote 'The History and Description of Africa' (La Descrittione dell'Africa, 1526). Captured by Mediterranean pirates, he so impressed them with his learning and linguistic ability, that they gifted him as a slave to Pope Leo X (1498 -1526).

Leo Africanus was born into a family of clerics and accountants to the court of the Nasrid Dynasty (1238-1492) of Granada during the last days of their rule over the Emirate of Granada. Hasan was baptised Johannes Leo Africanus, and known in Italian as Giovanni Leone. He trained as an Islamic scholar and became a diplomat, travelling across West Africa, from Cairo and Aswan across to the Hejaz and Syria. It was during his return journey from Egypt that he was kidnapped by Mediterranean Christian pirates and ended up becoming a slave to the Vatican Pope Leo X (born Giovanni de’ Medici). Pope Leo X offered Hasan his freedom on condition that he converted to Christianity.

Leo Africanus' scholarship and translations from Arabic inspired early modern ideas of Africa and the Islamic world. His work Descrittione dell'Africa became a blueprint for European explorers seeking to monopolise trade and resources from the African subcontinent. Some historians believe that William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) Othello is based on Leo Africanus. Descrittione dell'Africa was widely read in Europe. It became an important resource and guidebook on Africa, until the European colonisation during the 19th century.

Hasan al-Wazzan

Hasan al-Wazzan’s father, Ahmad al-Wazzan was a cleric in the court of Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII (c. 1460–1533), known in Europe as Boabdil. Hasan’s forbearers worked as aids to the court muhtasib of Granada – a magistrate who oversaw merchant trade and accounts, while also upholding morality and decorum in the public sphere. Hasan grew up alongside his father and grandfather under the influence of the Nasrid court. As a child, he spoke Arabic at home and Spanish in the streets.

Leo Africanus as Shakespeare's Othello

Théodore Chassériau (Public Domain)

In 1492, after a decade long war, Boabdil surrendered Granada to the Spanish Catholic monarchs Isabella I of Castile (1451-1504) and Ferdinand II, King of Aragon (1452 –1516), marking the end of 700 years of Muslim rule. Hasan’s family may have left Granada before 1492, or they could have stayed until the Reconquista. Hasan was a young child when his family, like many Andalusian migrants, fled persecution under the new Christian monarchs, crossing the Mediterranean to settle in Fez. Luckily Hasan’s family was well connected thanks to his uncle, already settled in Fez, who was a diplomat to the Wattasid rulers, serving Sultan Muhammad al-Shaykh (1490-1557). Consequently, they secured a home in a prominent quarter of Fez. His father purchased land north of the Rif Mountains and rented a castle above Fez. Other emigrant families from Granada however struggled greatly in Fez and complained publicly.

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[pinturasdeguerra]

1482-1492 Guerra de Granada, bombarda - Angus McBride

The Reconquista was only completed after the improvement of artillery in late 15th century which enabled the conquest of the Emirate of Granada. The Granadine fortresses situated on difficult terrain would make this conquest too costly without such powerful siege weapons.

[noosphe-re]

Motto of the Emirate of Granada (Nasrid Kingdom of Granada): Wala ghaliba illa Allah (Arabic: ولا غالب إلا الله, lit. 'There is no victor but God')

[volterran-wine]

𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭: 𝘈𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘢𝘴 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐫 Eleazar was born in 1451 AD in the Emirate of Granada. He lived with his family making his dues, providing for himself, his mother and three younger siblings. This was all until the Granada War broke out, whose aftermath would mean the expulsion of Eleazar and his people from now was considered the Kingdom of Spain. En route through Europe he was separated from his family, and in September of 1492 Eleazar would be turned by a wayward vampire who left him in the gutter. Due to his gentle nature he did not take to the transformation well, and he felt no purpose could be sought out in this new and strange life he lived. That, was until he encountered Demetri and Afton on a job in 1502 AD.

[beevean]

I keep forgetting that Netflix!Isaac is supposed to be the same character as the one from the source material, based on character design alone. Dude looks like a goody-good Christian boi who would dare never show even an inch of skin. Making him black is completely irrelevant to the change in his character design, too, because the show's own concept art for his potential designs proves that they could have kept his manwhore-ness completely intact at least aesthetically- so I don't want to hear the whole, "You don't like the redesign because they changed their race!" response from people in this case. Dude just doesn't have the slutty "vibe" as he was clearly meant to.

Isaac's race swap bothers me only for one reason: what they did with it is lazy. They gave him an unnecessary "former slave" background that honestly reeks of Americacentrism - oh, of course African people can only exist in Europe as slaves! What do you mean that the Transatlantic Slave Trade wasn't a thing yet?

I keep saying this, but if you wanted Isaac to suffer persecution for real life reasons, and if you really really really wanted the Devil simp to be of color (whatever makes you happy...), he could have fled from the Emirate of Granada.

This was the last independent Muslim state in Europe until 1492. As the show takes place in 1476, we're at the tail-end of the Reconquista. You know. The Christian kingdoms fighting to reconquer the Iberian peninsula from the Ottoman Empire?

Isaac could have fled from the war, as a young Muslim boy with red hair which marked him as a spawn of the Devil and with a "satanic" interest in black magic (in the flashback of his childhood, he says that he wanted to learn magic to help his master - in this version he could have simply be instinctively attracted to forbidden spells and unnerved everyone around him, even if we keep the show idea that he did not perform magic as a child like Hector did).

It was all here! And it would have been actually pretty interesting! And it would have tied with all the themes, both "Forgemasters shunned from the human world for their affiliation with darkness" from the games and CHURCH BAD from the show.

Of course, this is also not a necessary change. Hector and Isaac suffering the same type of persecution and reacting to it in different ways (Isaac being perfectly happy to follow Dracula in his mass slaughter and Hector not believing every single human deserves to die) is kind of an important part of their character.

(also, making the Devil simp a Muslim is very... questionable, even more so than making him black. By all means, Hector and Isaac should be complete athetists. No God would love them, except for Dracula.)

But this would imply that Ellis and the gang cared about Hector and Isaac, both as their own characters and as foils. They did not.

The other thing that bothers me is that the show artists can't even take credit for N!Isaac's prim and proper outfit:

Kojima, who is not a hack, can use clothes to convey characterization and state of mind. I talked about this here and here, about halfway through. But yeah, Isaac's slutty outfit isn't only just fanservice for the sake of fanservice: Isaac let his proper clothes rot off his body after Hector broke them, as the Curse eroded his sanity. The contrast with this very conservative uniform is so that we can see how low he has fallen after Hector's betrayal and Dracula's death.

(also, in PtR, Hector and Isaac wear the same uniform, with the same crest. because it's a uniform. what is the fucking reason n!hector goes around with knight clothes while n!isaac goes with a cassock, and why in the hell do they have different crests. i fucking hate this so much it's stupid it's so stupid!!)

Anyway. Isaac is a deeper character than anyone gives him credit to. And it deeply annoys me how N!Isaac is touted as an improvement, when he keeps nearly nothing about Isaac and he seems to have been redesigned and reimagined out of spite for the source material.

also i headcanon isaac and julia as italian due to their surname. now this would be peak representation

[mapsontheweb]

Spain if the Reconquista continued into North Africa.

by u/Aofen

The Reconquista, the centuries long conquest of the Moorish kingdoms of Iberia ended in 1492 with the fall of the Emirate of Granada to Spain. The Spanish and Portuguese did try to extend there rule into North Africa, seizing several cities in North Africa. The Spanish briefly controlled cities like Algiers and Tunis, and held control of Oran for almost 200 years, but ultimately lost all but the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and a few small islands. The discovery of the Americas ultimately diverted Spanish interest to building an overseas empire instead of expanding into Africa.

In this imaginary timeline, Spanish imperialism in the Americas is hampered when the conquistadors of the Aztec and Inca Empires set themselves up as independent kings with the help of Spain's colonial rivals (This was apparently, very briefly, an actual fear of the Spanish). Spanish interest in conquest is instead diverted to North Africa, which by the 21st century is an integral part of Spain, containing about 40% of its population and the majority of its land area.

[julyzaa]

Still talking about the Zoraya of Granada thing and the Isabella crap.

So the civil war where Aixe overthrew her husband for marrying Isabel de Solis/Zoraya happened in 1484!!!!

Hafsa and Selim I were alive then and Suleyman himself was alive in 1492 when the Emirate of Granada fell and Zoraya died in 1510 after being pressured to convert to catholicism by her sons and Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castilla.

Also her story is extremely close to Hurrems that, if anyone had mentioned her it would make sense why the dynasty members would be so threatened by her.

Zoraya literally supplanted Aixa al-Hurra one of the descendants of mother fucking Muhammed who had so much power that she successfully overthrew her husband and kept the throne for a year and siad this to her son when Granada fell:

"Weep like a woman for a kingdom you could not defend like a man."

Like now i need a series about Aixa because holy shit this queen would eat the Sultanas for breakfast

[crisvesan]

FRUTOS SILVESTRES de Otoño

La Granada...

"Dentro de su enorme terreno ajardinado, al Rusafa contaba con un soberbio granado enviado desde Siria por la hermana de Abd al-Rahman. El cortesano Safar plantó sus semillas en un jardín experimental cerca de Málaga, cuando creció se las envió a Abd-al- Rahman. El emir admiró su descubrimiento... Aquella especie de granado se extendió y la gente plantaba huertos enteros..."

Se le considera símbolo de amor y fecundidad. Por su longevidad es usado frecuentemente como elemento ornamental, e incluso puede ser cultivado en macetas. Tiene propiedades medicinales. La corteza de la raiz es venenosa. Con los frutos puede fabricarse un colorante amarillo para tejidos.

Fuente: Guía de plantas

[docpiplup]

Banu Qasi triology: Locations (+ Maps extracted from the book and modern reconstruction of plans of some cities of that period of time I found on Internet)

(* Some towns and cities that already existed are not in this maps, but probably were not included in the maps because maybe they're not relevant for the story, X, X, X )

Zaragoza (×) (although this one represents the Zaragoza from 11th century, due to the presence of the Palace of Aljaferia (×), although a watchtower existed since 9-10th centuries in that place, the Troubadour's Tower, that currently forms part of the palace)

Tudela, but here's a video of Pamplona/Iruña

Córdoba (Here's a video with the current-day Alcázar and the Caliphal baths)

Toledo

Alaba: Álava

Al Bayda, Albayda: Albelda

Al Burj: Borja

Al Busherat: Las Alpujarras

Al Faru: Alfaro

Al Garb: 'the west', Algarve

Al Hamma: Alhama

Al Hamma: site that corresponds to the current Baños de Fitero

Al Hamra: 'the red', the Alhambra of Granada

Al Lura: Álora

Al Maghrib: current Maghreb area, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania

Al Mahdiyya: capital of the Fatimid Caliphate founded by Al Mahdi

Al Mariya: Almería

Al Mahsan: Almazán

Al Mudawar: Almudévar

Al Munastir: Almonacid

Al Qala't: Alcalá de Henares

Al Qāhira: Cairo

Al Qastil: Carcastillo or Murillo el Fruto

Al Qila: Castile

Al Qulaiya: Alcolea

Al Qubba: Talavera

Al Rawda: one of the interior gardens of the alcazar of Córdoba, where most of the emirs were buried

Al Sarqiyya: Axarquía, in Granada

Al Xaraf: Aljarafe

Al Jazira: Algeciras

Almunya de Aisha: Muniesa

Al Sajra: Azagra

Antaqira: Antequera

Arnit: Arnedo

Aryiduna: Archidona

Askaniya: Cascante

Asturqa: Astorga

Asnad:Cenes

Astīban: fortress located in the current-day Alhambra

Aura: Fortress next to Barcelona, ​​possibly in present-day Valldaura

Aybar: Aibar

Bab al Qantara: the Bridge Gate, in Córdoba, also known as Bab as-Sudda or the Azud Gate

Baghdad: capital of the Abbasid emirate

Bagúh: Priego

Bahr Algarbí: Atlantic Ocean

Bahr Arrum: Mediterranean sea

Balaga: Balager

Balma: place located on the left bank of the Ebro river next to Calahorra, it may correspond to the town of San Adrián

Balansiya: Valencia

Balterra: Valtierra

Bambaluna: Pampiluna, Pamplona

Banu Basir: Benameji

Baquira: Viguera

Barbitaniya: región of Sobrarbe, that included Jaca, Barbastro and Boltaña

Barsaluna: Barcelona

Baskunsa: place name that would correspond to the fortress of Rocaforte, which after the Reconquest, it would give to the current Sangüesa, located at the foot of this valley

Batalyus: Badajoz

Barbastur: Barbastro

Bayanna: Baena

Bayāna: Pechina, important trading city of the Mediterranean sea, replaced by the port of Almería

Basta: Baza

Bilad al Ándalus: Hispania

Bulāy: Poley, Aguilar de la Frontera

Burbaster: Bobastro, Umar ibn Hafsún's shelter

Cantabria: mountain range that borders river Ebro by the north, next to Logroño

Castro Muros: San Esteban de Gormaz

Dar al Islam: the lands of Islam

Dar al Rahn: the House of Hostages, in Córdoba

Daniya: Denia

Daruqa: Daroca

Deio: Monjardín

Dus Amantis: the Rock of the Lovers

Falah'san: Falces

Fās: Fez, capital of the Idrisi emirate

Finyāna: Fiñans

Galaskiya: Land of the galaskiyun, the gascons

Galipenzo: Gallipienzo

Garnata: Granada

Girunda: Girona

Hardaris: Ardales

Hisn Asar: Iznájar

Hisn Qámara: castle of uncertain location, near Colmenar and Casabermeja, in the province of Málaga

Hisn Qastuluna: the ancient Roman city Cástulo, in Jaén

Iacca: Jaca

Ifriqiya: Tunisia

Ilbira: Elvira, next to Granada, capital of the distrit with the same name.

Isbāniyā: Christian chroniclers called the peninsula as a whole Hispania. For the Arabs, Al Ándalus is only the land dominated by Islam. They call the Christian land by the name of their kingdoms, and the term Isbāniyā is reserved for the entire peninsula, although it is rarely used.

Ishbiliya: Sevilla

Istiba: Estepa

Istiya: Écija

Kabbaruso: Caparroso

Kara: Santacara

Larida: Lleida

Ledena: Liédena

Leqant: Fuente de Cantos

Liyun: León

Lizarrara: Estella-Lizarra

Madinat Selim: Medinaceli

Madinat al Faray: Guadalajara

Malaqa: Málaga

Mārida: Mérida

Martus: Martos

Milīla: Melilla

Millas: Mijas

Muish: Muez

Munt Sun: Monzón

Munt Liyūn: Monteleón

Mursiya: Murcia, also known as Tudmir (this name comes from the Visigothic count Teodomiro, who ruled it by the time the Muslims arrived to the Peninsula)

Nasira: Nájera

Niebla: District that corresponds to the current-day province of Huelva

Orreaga: mountains of Ibañeta or Roncesvalles

Ossa: Huesa del Común

Qabra: Cabra

Qabtil: Isla Menor (Sevilla)

Qadis: Cádiz

Qala't al Hajar/Qalahurra: Calahorra

Qala't al Hans: Alange

Qala't Gazuan: Alcalá de Guadaira

Qala't Ayub: Calatayud

Qala't Musa: Calamocha

Qala't Rabah: Calatrava

Qarmuna: Carmona

Qarqar: Cárcar

Qasida: Cáseda

Qarcastil: Carcastillo

Qasr Bunayra: Casarabonela

Qayrawán: Kairuán, capital of Ifriqiya, current-day Tunis

Quluniya: Clunia

Qumaris: Comares

Quriya: Coria del Río

Qurtuba: Córdoba

Qustantaniyeh: Constantinople

Qutanda: Cutanda

Raya: district that corresponds to the province of Málaga

Rasif: A promenade in Córdoba that ran along the right bank of the Guadalquivir river

Resa: fortress located on the banks of the Ebro, near the mouth of the river Arga

River Eiroca: River Iregua

River Iberus*: River Ebro

*the Iberian peninsula takes its name from the river Iberus/Ibero, the river Ebro

Rumiya: Rome

Sabta: Ceuta

Salubāniya: Salobreña

Santabariyya: Santaver, Muslim district that corresponds to the province of Cuenca

Saqunda: village in the suburb of Córdoba, on the left bank of the Guadalquivir river

Sajra Qays: Qays rock, fortress located near the current-day town of Huarte Araquil, in the Rock of Echauri, northwest of Pamplona

Saraqusta: Zaragoza

Seqontiya: Sigüenza

Siduna: Medina Sidonia

Sirtaniya: La Cerretania, in the Aragonese area of ​​the Pyrenees, around the valleys of the Gállego and Cinca rivers. This denomination disappears from the sources from the 10th century, when the County of Aragon appears

Siya: Ejea de los Caballeros

Suhayl: Fuengirola

Sumuntān: Somontín

Tahert: city in the north of Africa, in Algeria

Tahust: Tauste

Takurunna: one of the corias of Al Andalus, with capital in Ronda

Tarraquna: Tarragona

Talyayra: fortress located below Bobastro, over the Guadalhorce river.

Tarasuna: Tarazona

Tāy^ula: Tíjola

Tulaytula: Toledo

Turtusa: Tortosa

Tutila: Tudela

Uādi al Hamma: River Alhama

Uādi al Hiyara: Guadalajara. At first, the name of rhe city was Madinat al Faray, but later it adopted the old name of the river Henares

Uādi al Jurs: River Guadalhorce

Uādi al Kabir: River Guadalquivir, 'the big river'

Uādi al Walid: Valladolid

Uādi Anna: River Guadiana

Uādi Aragun: River Aragon

Uādi Aruad: River Arga

Uādi Cinqa: River Cinca

Uādi Duwiro: River Duero

Uādi Eyroqa: River Iregua

Uādi Ibru: river Ebro, and by extension, the Ebro valley. (Also known as Uādi Abro or Uādi Ibro)

Uādi 'Ís: Guádix

Uādi Nahar: River Henares

Uādi Qalash: River Queiles

Uādi Salit: River Guadacelete

Uādi Salún: River Jalón

Uādi Sanyil: River Genil

Uādi Tadjo: River Tajo

Uādi Uarba: River Huerva

Uādi Urbiqo: River Órbigo

Uādi Yallaq: River Gállego

Uādi Zidaq: River Cidacos

Uakhshama: Osma

Uasqa: Huesca

Ubbada: Úbeda

Uksunuba: Faro (Portugal)

Ulit: Olite

Uriyuwala: Orihuela

Ushbuna: Lisboa

Vareia: Varea

Welba: Huelva

Yabal al Bardi: Las Bardenas Reales, in Navarra

Yabal Sulayr: the mountains of the Sun, Sierra Nevada

Yabal Tariq: 'the mountain of Tariq', Gibraltar

Yayán: Jaén

Yilliqiya: Asturias (and by extension, Galicia). It's also writen as Illiqiya or Gilliqiya.

Yussana: Lucena

Etymology II Characters

[nanshe-of-nina]

There was no one "Moorish Empire" in Spain that lasted from 711 to 1492.

There was the Emirate and Caliphate of the Córdoba, the independent Taifa kingdoms, the Almoravids, the Almohad Caliphate, and finally the Nasrid Emirate of Granada.

All were ruled by different families of different origins: the Umayyads of Córdoba and Nasrids of Granada were Arab, the Taifa kings varied, but were mostly Arab, and the Almoravids and Almohads were both Berber.

Nor did they have the same geographic power base. The Umayyads were based in Córdoba, the Almoravids and Almohads in Marrakesh, and the Nasrids in Granada.

It wouldn’t be historically accurate for my story to include BIPOC!

This is an argument often made about European-style fantasy media like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and Disney’s Frozen. Audiences, often white, assume that due to the majority-white setting, adding any visible number of BIPOC to the story would be unrealistic.

What these critics fail to realize is that BIPOC do in fact live, and have lived, in these settings, and records of BIPOC presence in places assumed to be majority-white have been buried, written out, or not taught due to white supremacist and/or colonial bias in the field of history. There are historical European settings that were far more diverse than is often portrayed. Consider:

The Moorish Empire exerted an extensive influence over life and culture in Southern Europe from Spain from 711 to 1492

The Ottomans were heavily involved in European affairs up until the treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, but still considered a part of Europe even through the 19th century

The sheer size of the Roman Empire ensured the continued movement of people from various backgrounds within the Mediterranean well until the end of the Byzantine Empire.

“Historical accuracy” should not be used as an excuse for media to be exclusively white in its casting. While there are places which are or were predominantly white, there will always be factors like global trade and immigration that bring multiculturalism to their doors.

And even if the presence of a certain demographic is unrealistic for a certain setting? Consider that we’ve accepted far worse inaccuracies in historical fiction in the name of artistic license. Consider that our understanding of human history is, and will always be, incomplete.

Further Reading:

Historically Diverse London, “Historical Accuracy,” and Creator Accountability

Making a Black Pride and Prejudice Resonate

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This Q&A is an excerpt from our General FAQ for Newcomers, which can be found in our new Masterpost of rules and FAQs. If you're new to Writing With Color and/or want more writing resources, check it out!

-Writing With Color

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.3 (before 1950)

2457 BC – Gaecheonjeol, Hwanung (환웅) purportedly descended from heaven. South Korea's National Foundation Day. 52 BC – Gallic Wars: Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia. 42 BC – Liberators' civil war: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight to a draw Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius in the first part of the Battle of Philippi, where Cassius commits suicide believing the battle is lost. 382 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I concludes a peace treaty with the Goths and settles them in the Balkans. 1392 – Muhammed VII becomes the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada. 1574 – The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen. 1683 – Qing dynasty naval commander Shi Lang receives the surrender of the Tungning kingdom on Taiwan after the Battle of Penghu. 1712 – The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor. 1739 – The Treaty of Niš is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia ending the Russian–Turkish War. 1789 – George Washington proclaims Thursday November 26, 1789 a Thanksgiving Day. 1792 – A militia departs from the Spanish stronghold of Valdivia to quell a Huilliche uprising in southern Chile. 1863 – The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. 1873 – Chief Kintpuash and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War of northern California. 1912 – U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill. 1918 – Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria accedes to the throne. 1919 – Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latin American player to appear in a World Series. 1929 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Yugoslavia by King Alexander I. 1932 – The Kingdom of Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1935 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia. 1942 – A German V-2 rocket reaches a record 85 km (46 nm) in altitude. 1943 – World War II: German forces murder 92 civilians in Lingiades, Greece. 1946 – An American Overseas Airlines Douglas DC-4 crashes near Ernest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, killing 39. 1949 – WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.

[urlasage]

Map showing the Emirate of Granada by Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis

[nonotetextposts]

reading about freddie mercury, who was born in then-british-controlled tanzania to eastern-indian parents, he had a sister named kashmira, kashmir is in central asia and was part of the silk road (apparently so was xinjiang/uyghurstan), about the place called zanzibar (and it being very far), the place called uzhhorod and transcarpathia/zakarpattia, about the palace of generalife built in the 16th century (?) by the emirate of granada (in spain), and about slugs, their mantles and their feet. did you know octopuses, slugs and snails are all considered molluscs?