#islamic Umayyad conquest

[trendelyoum]

Muawiyah & Al-Hassanin -EP 29 || مسلسل معاوية والحسنين الحلقة ٢٩

Muawiyah & Al-Hassanin -EP 29 || مسلسل معاوية والحسنين الحلقة ٢٩ مسلسل معاوية والحسنين مسلسل يروي أحداث الفتنة الكبرى التي هزت الأمة سنوات بعد وفاة الرسول عليه الصلاة والسلام ودور اليهود في تأجيجها . يبدأ المسلسل بتسليط الضوء على حياة الإمامين الحسن والحسين ودورهما في الدفاع عن أمير المؤمنين عثمان بن عفان ومساندة أمير المؤمنين علي بن أبي طالب. يعرض أيضاً لتنازل الحسن عن الخلافة لإحلال السلام بين…

[fairuzfan]

you didn't actually answer my question , Temple Mount is the most ancient and holiest site for Jewish people -- the Dome of the Rock & Al-Aqsa Mosque were built hundreds of years later on behalf of the Umayyad dynasty's conquest. you mentioned in your response a massacre that happened centuries later, which does not relate to the fact that Jews cannot pray at this site (their utmost holiest site before even the existence of Christians or Muslims). how is "temple denial" something that I made up when you can research it right now and see what it is and that it exists? I ask because this seems to be actually a blind spot for many non-Jewish people simply because it doesn't affect them. I'm not intending to be argumentative and I am sorry if my English is bad in getting across

I'm sorry for being argumentative but a lot of the time, whenever Palestinians are asked about temple mount, there's an implication that Palestinians are colonizers and don't deserve to be on the land. Israelis, if they could, would completely ban Muslims from AlAqsa despite it being the third holiest site in Islam.

AlAqsa is probably the most important national symbol of Palestinians, often thought to be the last straw for Palestinian heritage. So much of our culture has been robbed from us, and (primarily muslims) believe that the demolition of AlAqsa, which is, as Mohammed ElKurd puts it, is one of the last places in all of Palestine where being Palestinian is not criminalized would be a fundamental loss we would never recover from, equivalent to losing our Balad.

I bring up the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre because there are no restrictions for extremist settlers legally — they operate as an arm of the state and in some cases are encouraged to committ these acts. The "Apartheid Law" basically enshrined that settlements are a national value for Israel. This means that there is no safe haven for Palestinians legally. They're in constant danger of getting kicked out of their home or getting arrested for existing. I cannot emphasize enough how Palestinian freedom is so restricted with the explicit intent of pushing them out of the land.

Temple denial as a concept (after looking it up) seeks to paint Palestinians in a fundamentally bigoted and violent light. Palestinians are not allowing Jews in AlAqsa not because they hate Jews, but because that opens the way for settlers to become violent around AlAqsa, which a lot of the time is already happening. I suggest reading "Why Do Palestinians Burn Jewish Holy Sites? The Fraught History of Joseph's Tomb" (sorry the link is not linking, but you can look it up on the palestine institute webpage). It discusses the use of history as a colonial tool. Here's an excerpt:

It is one of many shrines across historic Palestine – now split into Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza – that has been re-invented as exclusively Jewish, despite a long history of shared worship among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Samaritans that goes back centuries. And the reason it has been attacked has almost nothing to do with religion, and much to do with how the Israeli military and settlement movements have used religion as a way to expand their control over Palestinian land and holy places.

And a second excerpt describing the political use of religion:

But the claims of biblical archaeologists had a strong role in how the Zionist movement would come to understand and conceive of the landscape.6 As European Jews migrated to Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century, they drew upon biblical archeology's claims. They adopted archeologists' claims that Palestinian holy sites were directly linked to ancient biblical figures. In many cases, they focused on occupying those sites in order to legitimize the colonial endeavor by giving it a sense of deeper history. In many cases, this would mean evicting the Palestinians who actually frequented these holy sites.

And what Palestinians are afraid of:

In 1975, the Israeli military banned Palestinians – that is, the Samaritans, Muslims, and Christians living around the site – from visiting, a ban that has remained in place until this day. [...] Unsurprisingly, the ban has ignited intense anger over the years. This is true particularly given that frequent visits by Jewish settlers to the shrine are accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, who enter the area and run atop the rooftops of local Palestinians to “secure” the tomb. As a result, Joseph's Tomb has increasingly become associated with the Israeli military and settlement movement in the eyes of Palestinians. Its presence has become an excuse for frequent military incursions that provoke clashes and lead to arrests and many injuries in the neighborhood. Some fear that Israelis will attempt to take over the shrine to build an Israeli settlement around it. This fear is not unfounded, given the fact that Israeli settlers have done exactly that all across the West Bank in places they believe are connected in some way to Jewish biblical history. The notoriously violent Jewish settlements in Hebron, for example, were built there due to the location of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in that southern West Bank town. Following the initial years of settlement, settlers even managed to convince Israeli authorities to physically divide the shrine – which is holy to local Palestinians – and turn the whole area into a heavily-militarized complex. Other shrines have become excuses for the Israeli military to build army bases inside Palestinian towns, like Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem – which is surrounded by twenty-foot high concrete walls on three sides to block Palestinian access. The village of Nabi Samwel near Jerusalem, meanwhile, was demolished in its entirety to provide Jewish settlers access to the tomb at its heart.

I'm not denying the temple mount is there. I'm just saying that history has been manipulated to erase centuries worth of cultural heritage through scholarship and Palestinians are protective of their most important symbol of resistance and life. Even you saying "Islam and Christianity came after Judiasm" is a dogwhistle for me, because a lot of the time extremists say that to completely erase AlAqsa as an important site to Muslims and intending to deny the site as a shared worshipping site that is quite important to Muslims. Just because Islam came after Judiasm, does that mean it's not legitimate as a religion itself? Islamically, Islam is a continuation of Judiasm, so we don't deny judiasm is important to AlQuds. We just are so concerned with losing our national symbol that we're so protective over it.

Now I bring up the massacre at ibrahimi mosque because, like mentioned in the excerpt above, Palestinians are afraid something like that will happen again. There's no protections for Palestinians, and most of the time they're denied from praying in AlAqsa themselves by Israeli authorities. Israeli settlers themselves come in and disrespect AlAqsa, and as I mentioned, extremists plan on demolishing AlAqsa to build a Third Temple. The Massacre at the Mosque paved way to the "Jews Only" streets I mentioned, including the militarization and basically a complete upheaval of normal life for Palestinians. I suggest looking into how terrible the situation in AlKhalil is, and that arised directly from the massacre.

You cannot separate this issue from the colonial implications of the last safe haven in all of Palestine being open to Israelis. Now when Palestine is free, I doubt there would be restrictions. But right now, there are and to pretend Israelis don't pose a threat to Palestinians fundamentally, would be erasure of the colonization of Palestine.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but even if AlAqsa was built hundreds of years after, it doesn't change the fact that RIGHT NOW Israelis have privilege that Palestinians do not. As soon as that privilege is no longer there, then we can talk about allowing Jews there. But until then, Palestinians are constantly in danger of settler violence and to take away a space (which, Ibrahimi Mosque was one of those sites before Palestinians were massacred) is frankly, an insult and a denial that Palestinians themselves are colonized.

I suggest looking at the links I provided earlier for more in depth analysis. I'm going to reiterate: the only reason it's illegal is because Palestine is colonized and this is our last safe haven that we even aren't completely allowed from entering ourselves.

Most Palestinians are quite heated about this topic. It genuinely is considered one of our last national symbols (so not just religious but also political and cultural), which means that having that taken away (which extremist settlers plan on demolishing it completely, and if they're allowed in, then there are no restrictions on their behavior) would be tantamount to losing our balad, or nation. I've heard Israelis call AlAqsa terrible names over the years and some fully intend on demolishing the site. Even within Israeli politics, it is a genuine goal for some people, including Ben Gvir, so most believe that opening the door for settlers (who are the ones who want the destruction of AlAqsa) would be equivalent to giving it up. You can't ignore that when talking about AlAqsa and the laws surrounding it. The primary reason for this protectiveness is political and cultural.

[whencyclopedia]

Early Muslim Conquests (622-656 CE)

Islam arose as a religious and socio-political force in Arabia in the 7th century CE (610 CE onwards). The Islamic Prophet Muhammad (l. 570-632 CE), despite facing resistance and persecution, amassed a huge following and started building an empire. The tenets of this empire were to be humanitarian and its military might uncontestable. After he died in 632 CE, his friend Abu Bakr (l. 573-634 CE) laid the foundation of the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661 CE), which continued the imperial expansion. Though a feeble force at first, the Islamic Empire soon became the most important influencer in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Within a few decades, the empire expanded from the city of Medina in Hejaz to engulf all of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Levant, Iran, Egypt, parts of North Africa, and several islands in the Mediterranean. Internal conflict during the First Fitna (656-661 CE), or the first Islamic civil war, stagnated the empire's borders temporarily but the conquests were resumed afterward by the Umayyad Dynasty (661-750 CE).

The Prophet's Empire

The Islamic Prophet Muhammad started preaching a monotheistic faith called Islam in his hometown of Mecca from 610 CE onwards. Prophet Muhammad was a charismatic and talented person, these qualities augmented by his reputation for honesty allowed him to gather quite a following. Equality, egalitarianism, equal rights for women (who had been hitherto considered “property” by the Meccans), and the prospect of heaven attracted many towards Islam. This change, however, was unacceptable to the Meccans who considered it a serious threat to their economic framework and unfair social stratification.

Despite putting forth strict persecution of the new religion and its preacher, Meccans failed to contain the Muslim community. As the Meccan atrocities became unbearable, Muslims migrated to the city of Medina, in 621 CE, where they had been invited. The Prophet himself arrived in 622 CE alongside his close friend Abu Bakr. Medina offered Prophet Muhammad sovereignty over the city, making him the first ruler and king (r. 622-632 CE) of what was later to become the Islamic or Muslim Empire. The city-state of Medina soon came into conflict with Mecca, and the latter was conquered, after years of warfare, in 629/630 CE.

The fall of Mecca started a snowball event and one after the other, major Arabian cities began submitting to the Prophet's authority as exemplified by Taif, the city that had once mistreated the Prophet for preaching his faith, surrendering in 631 CE. Seeking to retain their autonomy, opposing forces and confederacies made vehement attempts to crush the Muslim forces but were all defeated; a Jewish confederacy was crushed in 628 CE at the Battle of Khaybar, while a Bedouin confederacy was vanquished in 630 CE at the Battle of Hunayn. By the time of his death in 632 CE, the Prophet ruled over an empire in its cradle which was to be further expanded and aggrandized by subsequent rulers.

Continue reading...

[howtomuslim]

Early Islamic Expansion- Colonialism or Conquest?

There’s a common narrative among many westerners of how Islam itself in its early days was a coloniser of many peoples and territories. How during its conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, Islam suppressed the populations and forced upon them a new faith and language, echoing the narrative that its expansionism was strictly conducted by the sword. What was this earth-moving proof that had convinced those who hold this flawed and over-simplified view so deeply?

Firstly, let’s quickly summarise the zeitgeist of the times from a political perspective and then assess what this geographic expansion was and when it all happened. During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, Western Asia was dominated by two empires that were in a bloody and violent war that had lasted for over eight decades. These two empires were the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. In the Arabian Peninsula, a region that wasn’t included in either’s domain, both intertribal aggression and constant raids were also concurrently rampant. When the fledgling faith became threatened in Medina by its various enemies in the early 7th century, the necessity for defence and thereafter the protection of its believers had to take priority for the Muslim regional minority.

With the Battle of the Trench, the failed attack on Medina by the Quraysh clan and their allies against the Muslims, thus began the eventual conquest of Islam overtaking the entire Arabian Peninsula during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him, followed by the Rashidun Caliphate. This saw the expansion span from the eastern borders of Persia, Turkey to the north, and Libya to the west. Finally, during the Umayyad Caliphate came the crossing of Islam into Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, into the northwestern African lands of the Maghreb, and into the Iberian Peninsula. From 622 to 750 CE, over 120 years, Islam expanded rapidly across three continents.

Now, with this background, we can indulge in the confirmation or repudiation of the element of colonialism in Islam’s conquests. But one more quick digression: let’s define colonialism in simple terms. Colonialism is when one more powerful people invades and occupies another people, usurps their rights and natural resources for the sole purpose of self-interest, like what the British, French, and Spanish empires did to the world from the 15th to the 20th century, as well as what Israel is currently doing in Palestine during the supposedly civilised 20th century.

Beyond the facts, this foundation is how we must establish our conclusions and how we must compare the behaviour of Islam towards those conquered peoples relative to other nations of the time. We can’t expect Islam to behave as per 21st-century standards or even the 20th century. But even we should question that: was Islam actually more humane than even the colonialists of the 20th century?

One would note, when looking at the Islamic expansion and the short duration it took, the accomplishments suggest a speed of success unheard of. It was true that both the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires had fought their way to their eventual collapse over the decades, but still, the number of the Muslims paled in comparison. There are significant factors that played into this dynamic. These empires had shown extreme oppression towards the inhabitants of those occupied regions, while Islam exhibited a tolerance and relatively fair approach to those of other faiths. In general, in most of the conquered nations, the local inhabitants offered no resistance to the invading Muslims as they had little or nothing to lose by the changing of the guard. In some cases, such as in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, Islam was a liberator and hence openly welcomed such was the case in the opening of Jerusalem and Jews being allowed to return.

One aspect that differentiated Islamic forces from other preceding victorious armies was that Islam had embedded within its belief system the rules of engagement during warfare, with humanitarian tenets that understood there was to be the protection of women and children and to respect the property and symbols of other faiths. Yes, there were occasions when individuals broke such tenets, but these should be regarded as exceptions.

Was spread by the sword?

This is a narrative originating at the time of the Crusades when the sole ambition was to discredit Islam and give it a barbaric and savage reputation. A common misrepresentation of this narrative was the supposed forced conversions of conquered peoples, whereas the facts suggest that even prior to any imminent military engagement, the Muslim generals would offer the options of conversion to Islam, acceptance of dhimmi status (meaning the payment of an annual jizya tax), or trying their chances at armed conflict. Even upon Muslim victory, the first two options remained available.

The widespread and well-documented dhimmi system that dealt with non-Muslim citizens is proof that no forced conversions took place. There was a structure in place that allowed for religious continuity while also protecting rights with a structure that maintained the retention of physical land and property. Property records show that in the varying lands conquered in the previous Byzantine and Sassanian Empires, Muslims were a small minority during the early Islamic reign, ranging between 10 to 20% of the population up until a century or two after the initial conquest. In certain cases, such as in Iran and Egypt, Muslims as a majority of the population only came into being well into the 9th century. How can that possibly be forced conversion?

Another powerful counterargument for the case against Islamic colonialism is the fact that there was never really any extraction of resources out of the conquered lands and shipped off to Mecca back in Arabia. In actuality, trade and commerce throughout the new Islamic territories blossomed further during Islam’s reign and created a series of powerful cosmopolitan cities across the empire that would eventually become some of the greatest and brightest cities on the planet within the next two centuries: Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordoba. Meanwhile, Mecca and Medina, the supposed colonial centres, were humble in their expansion and prosperity for the next millennium and beyond.

A question that can always be asked to further prove this point: would the British ever have moved their capital from London to Delhi?

To exhibit the difference, the capital of the Muslim empire left the Arabian Peninsula with the coming of the Umayyad Caliphate, never to return. Such a decision only reflects that the Islamic empire wasn’t about the benefit of one people, nation, or territory over another, but that a new set of groups of united people, inclusive of those conquered, were now a new nation that had much larger collective aspirations.

One would think that the Islamisation of faith would result in the Arabisation of language, but the reality was the opposite. As the Islamisation of the populations took significant time to materialise, learning the language of the faith, Arabic, was never forced onto others. The fast-paced assimilation of Arabic was principally due to the fact that it was the primary language of trade, governance, and law within the Islamic empires, as well as being a language familiar to the populations of the Levant and Mesopotamia, who were mainly Aramaic speakers.

Arabisation wasn’t about the Muslim faith but was about integrating within a civilisation that was booming not just back in Arabia but everywhere. It became the common language for non-Arabs and non-Muslims to prosper. During the subsequent golden age, thinkers and scholars from across the empire wrote and relayed in Arabic, much in the same way that the English language spread all over the world during the 20th century due to globalisation and technology. Arabic achieved widespread acceptance for the sake of the transfer of knowledge and in aspiring to prosperity.

To learn more about Islam visit: Howtomuslim.org

[docpiplup]

If anyone wants to read new historical fiction related to the Abd al-Aziz chapter of the Al Andalus. Historical Figures book, recently a novel has been published. This novel is Egilona, Reina de Hispania (Egilona, Queen of Hispania), writen by José Soto Chica. The bulk of the story is based on the texts of the Mozarabic Chronicle and Arabic sources such as the Fath al-Andalus codex, the anonymous Ajbar Maimu'a or the works of the historian Al-Maqqari and the caliph Al-Hakam. In fact, all chapters begin with a fragment of these writings.

Synopsis

Egilona, the last queen of Hispania, a powerful woman between two cultures, between two eras, the Gothic and the Arab, fascinates us in this memorable historical novel.

Don Rodrigo, Duke of Bética, returns to his lands after being forced to pay homage to the new king of Hispania, Witiza, the murderer of his brother Favila. Now the smart thing is to lower his head; There will be time for revenge. Near Córdoba, he stops to rest in a noble house and there he sees for the first time Egilona, a fifteen-year-old girl with reddish hair, white skin and amber eyes, who that same night will become his wife.

Nine years later, in 711, near Tarifa, the hosts of the now king Rodrigo prepared to prevent the entry into Hispania of the new conqueror of the world: the Umayyad empire. In command of his army is Tariq ibn Ziyad, a freedman whom his patron Musa ibn Nusayr, vali of Africa in the new order of the caliphate, has sent on a raid. With this old soldier, ugly, cross-eyed and red-haired, hardened in a thousand battles, travels his concubine, Umm Hakim, a fascinating young woman, with doe eyes and magical knowledge, and Abd al-Aziz, one of Musa's sons. In and out, that's the order. But, in the heat of battle, Abd al-Aziz kills Rodrigo and sets his sights on Egilona, the most beautiful and haughty woman he has ever seen.

Woe to his eyes! They have just begun a story in which the sorceress and the queen will cross paths to end an empire, and for which Egilona, queen of Hispania, will be remembered "as the hand, the mind, the powerful spirit that sowed the "seed of a new era."

Some comments from the author of the novel about the historical figure of Egilona, the historical setting, the conquest and her marriage to Abd al-Aziz, from this interview:

"Events that have usually been told very poorly"

"She was a transitional character who was everything with the Visigoths and is everything again in the new world of the Muslims, but a lot of nonsense has been written about her"

"I have opted for an intermediate solution in the novel"

"After Rodrigo's death it stands as a symbol of resistance, but after the second defeat of the Visigoths in Écija I made Al-Aziz capture it. Let's think about Aztec Mexico: the Spanish were a very small force and they relied on the nobility. The Arabs did the same. This marriage was not the exception, but the norm, and there are the examples of Teodomiro's daughter or Witiza's granddaughters. It was a time when collaboration was needed"

"If I put on my historian's suit and limit myself to what the sources say, I am tied hand and foot. Now, a novelist does have licenses and I imagine that story of hate and love with Al-Aziz" "But I think the result is very coherent: it is a novel by a historian who specializes in the period and which, literary speaking, proposes psychological solutions to the 8th century."

"For me, her forgetfulness is intentional from her own time: for those who resisted in Asturias she was a traitor; for the Arabs, she was responsible for the perfect Muslim warrior falling into the conspiracy. She was guilty for going over to the enemy or subverting the order, and this has greatly influenced nineteenth-century and current Spanish historiography"

"This novel, at the level of people who seek to learn history with fiction, is the story of the Islamic conquest of Hispania based on what we really know, which has changed a lot in the last twenty years"

"It's not about good ones and bad ones, but about people like us who have to survive by accepting that the world has changed or by rebelling against it."

[girlactionfigure]

I wrote this last year in August. I post it again because of the situation in Jerusalem over al-Aqsa. I'll always tell the truth and the truth about Masjid al-Aqsā is what I've written here.

From Mīhrāb Dāwūd to Masjid al-Aqsā: How did an Umayyad myth transform Jerusalem's Temple Mount, a Jewish holy site, into a Muslim holy site.

I. The conquest of Jerusalem

Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim forces in May 638, an accomplishment ascribed by Muslim sources to the Caliph Umar. In return for assistance in the taking of the city, the Jews received the right to reside in Jerusalem and to pray on the Temple Mount without interference. They also received permission to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount.

II. Temple Mount as the Mīhrāb Dāwud

When the Caliph 'Umar visited Jerusalem, the Patriarch of the city Sophronius accompanied him on the Temple Mount, while he searched for the Mīhrāb Dāwud (David's prayer-niche) to perform a prayer. Later Muslim commentators identified this site with the Tower of David.

What is evident here is the Jewish connection found in the early Muslim tradition which considers the Temple Mount as Mihrab Dawud (David's prayer-niche).

An early Islamic apocalyptic text, probably composed in the 8th century but attributed to the converted rabbi Ka'ab al-Ahbar (d.652), reads "Ayrusalaim which means Jerusalem and the Rock which means the Temple. I shall send you my servant Abd al-Malik who will build you and adorn you. I shall surely restore you to Bayt Al Maqdis, its first kingdom and I shall crown it with gold, silver and gems. And I shall surely send you my creatures. And I shall surely invest my throne of glory upon the rock, since I am the sovereign God, and David is the king of the Children of Israel."

The scholars of Islamic studies Crone and Cook believe that originally the Muslims truly intended to rebuild the Jewish Temple. They attempt to prove this thesis by referring to the Jewish apocalypses. For example in The Secrets of Rabbi Simon Ben Yohai, which is also the basis for al-Ahbār's text, we read "The second king [Umar] who restores the breaches of the Temple," it refers to the Muslims conquerors as "the salvation of Israel."

This Jewish link was temporary and short, however, and the separation of the site from Judaism was swift, as the Arabization and political rivalry changed the cultural and religious landscape as well as the demographics of the land of Israel.

III. Hashemite–Umayyad rivalry: the beginning of the Fitna

The Banū Umayya clan, headed by Abū Sufyān, were a largely merchant family of the Quraysh tribe centred at Mecca. They were the traditional enemies of the Banu Hāshem, another clan of Quraysh which Prophet Muhammed (570 - 632 CE) belonged to. Therefore they initially resisted Islam, not converting until 627 when they had no other choice since Muhammed triumphed over all of his enemies in Arabia and founded an Islamic kingdom. Although they subsequently became prominent administrators under Muhammad and his immediate successors, they always looked for an opportunity to retaliate against Banu Hāshem. In the first Muslim civil war known as Fitna (656–661) - the struggle for the caliphate following the murder of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, the third caliph (reigned 644–656) — Abū Sufyān’s son Muʿāwiyah, then governor of Levant, emerged victorious over the newly appointed caliph ʿAlī, a Hāshemite and Muhammad’s son-in-law and the fourth caliph. Muʿāwiyah then established himself as the first Umayyad caliph and made Damascus his capital.

IV. Jerusalem under Umayyads: the new rival city of Mecca, Temple Mount as the Masjid al-Aqsā

In 682 CE, fifty years after Prophet Muhammad’s death, ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr (a member of the Banu Hāshem clan) rebelled against the Umayyad dynasty and conquered Mecca. Now with a rebel dynasty based in Mecca, both sides (Hashemites and Ummayads) engaged in a struggle for control of the Muslim world. The Umayyads opted to fight the rebels by damaging Mecca's economy, which was based almost entirely on revenues from Muslim pilgrims. Their secret weapon was to create a competing pilgrimage site by building a magnificent edifice, the Dome of the Rock, on the site of the destroyed Jewish temple and hoping that this mosque would turn Jerusalem into a religious and political center which would weaken Mecca's economy by siphoning off pilgrims from Mecca. Thus, a political strategy designed to fight mutineers in far-off Mecca transformed Jerusalem's Temple Mount into a Muslim holy site with far-reaching implications to this day.

Both the Hashemties and Umayyads resorted to fabricating prophetic traditions known as Hadith (sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammed) in their favor in order to give political and religious legitimacy to their claims and their rule.

Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Caliph, in order to legitimize the construction of the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, connected the city and the site with the the Qur'anic verse 17:1 (below) which describes the night journey of Muhammad's Isra and Miʽraj:

“Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.”

The designation of Temple Mount as the "Farthest Mosque" mentioned in that verse was made possible by making up Hadith which links the site with the night journey to heaven (Isra and Miʽraj). The Qur'anic reference to the masjid al-aqsā, however, applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah (in Saudi Arabia), where there were two sanctuaries, Masjid al-Adnai and Masjid al-Aqsā, and where Muhammad sojourned in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.

Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of the Dome of the Rock in the late 7th century. Al-Aqsa Mosque, the second mosque on the Temple Mount, was built in 715. The wooden structure that was built over the Foundation Stone was first intended for a synagogue, but before it was completed, the site was expropriated by the city's Arab rulers. The Jews received another site on the mount for a synagogue in compensation for the expropriated building.

In this way, the Umayyads cleverly associated Muhammad's life with Jerusalem even though the prophet died years before the city's capture by the Muslims. This construction further cemented the site's holiness to Islam, as explains the Muslim historian al Ya'qubi (d. 874) who accuses Abd al-Malik of attempting to divert the pilgrimage from Mecca to Jerusalem, thus characterizing the Umayyad Dome of the Rock as a rival to the Kaaba.

There was an active synagogue on the Temple Mount during most of the early Muslim period. Solomon ben Jeroham, a Karaite exegete who lived in Jerusalem between 940 and 960, affirmed that Jews were permitted to pray on the Temple Mount, noting that "the courtyards of the Temple were turned over to them and they prayed there [on the Temple Mount] for many years."

After the conquest of Jerusalem by the army of the Fatimid dynasty (969), a Temple Mount synagogue was rebuilt and used until the Jews were banished by Caliph al-Hakim in 1015. When a subsequent ruler canceled Hakim's eviction order, the Jews again returned to this synagogue on the Temple Mount and worshipped there until the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. Hebrew writings found on the internal walls of the Golden Gate are believed to have been written by Jewish pilgrims at least one thousand years ago, thus testifying once again to the continued Jewish attachment to and presence on the Temple Mount in this era. An eleventh-century document found in the geniza or storeroom of a Cairo synagogue also describes the circuit followed by the pilgrims and the prayers they recited at each of the gates.

Sources:

Amikam Elad. Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts 8. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995.

https://books.google.iq/books?id=CDz_yctbQVgC...

F.M. Loewenberg. Did Jews Abandon the Temple Mount?. Middle East Quarterly Summer 2013, pp. 37-48.

Moshe Gil. A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Nuha N. Khoury, The Dome of the Rock, the Kaʿba, and Ghumdan: Arab Myths and Umayyad Monuments, in Muqarnas, Vol. 10, Essays in Honor of Oleg Grabar, Brill (1993), pp. 57-65, p.58.

Boris Havel. "Jerusalem in Early Islamic Tradition". Miscellanea Hadriatica et Mediterranea, University of Zadar v.5, 2018: 113–179.

Himdad Mustafa

[tamamita]

what's kind of absurd about that anon is the notion that the arab conquests constitute a unique and ongoing stage of oppressive conditions in iran. the arabs were preceded by the sassanians and, you know, the achaemenid *empire*. and an iranian state wasn't even constituted for almost a millennium after the umayyads. acting as if these distant historical events have any direct bearing on the current situation is just magical thinking. those are no longer the material conditions. which is not to say the current conditions aren't oppressive but like, keep your eyes on the actual target u kno.

I didn't really bother with the red-herring anon, because they'd have to take into consideration that Palestine was conquered during the 7th century as well, but that would compromise the legitimacy of their pro-Palestinian stance. Nevertheless, Iran became a Persian state, converted from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. None of these things constitute "colonization."

[nomadomar]

Nomadic Travel Series

Spot one, Yerevan, Armenia

Fiction

Yerevan, the heart of Armenia, beckons you with its ancient spirit wrapped in modernity. You, a wanderer, drawn to the pulse of a city that’s both familiar and strange. You walk its streets, your eyes absorbing the layers of time, from the echoes of ancient kingdoms to Soviet-era architecture that seems frozen in time. You feel the weight of centuries pressing against your soul, calling for transformation. But this is only the beginning of your nomadic journey. Georgia awaits next, but for now, Yerevan speaks to you.

In a quiet corner of Yerevan’s Republic Square, you meet him: a local Armenian, Arabized in subtle, striking ways. He stands tall, his beard meticulously groomed, wearing traditional Armenian attire, but with a twist. The familiar lines of a chokha coat mixed with an Arabesque design, his presence commanding yet serene. He gazes at you with a blend of Armenian pride and Arab mystery, chin raised slightly, arrogance embedded in his stance. You can’t help but feel the allure of his transformation. His authority is palpable, but it’s his blend of identities that fascinates you the most. You see in him what you hope to become—more than a man of one culture, but a bridge between worlds.

As you talk, the conversation drifts to history. Arab Muslims have walked these lands before. You know the deep connections between Armenia and the Arab world date back to the 7th century, during the Arab conquests when Armenia became part of the Umayyad Caliphate. Yet, despite centuries of external rule, Armenia preserved its identity, much like how you, Omar, will preserve yours. The Arab influence lingers, not as dominance, but as a layer of cultural memory. Islam never dominated here, but traces of Arab culture remain embedded, woven into Armenia’s vast historical tapestry, something you can appreciate.

As you explore, Yerevan’s residential architecture reveals itself. You see the common Soviet-era apartment blocks, concrete structures that stand like stoic relics of another era. Yet, nestled between them are quaint houses made from tuff stone, their reddish hue gleaming under the Yerevan sun, revealing the city’s ancient volcanic legacy.

In your mind, you begin to reshape these homes. The blocks are cold, rigid, functional—but what if they were softened by Arabic influence? Imagine: the concrete facades adorned with Arab arches, subtle geometric patterns carved into the balconies, and the windows replaced with mashrabiya screens, letting the wind flow through while casting intricate shadows on the ground. You envision a hybrid—a home that breathes both Armenian history and Arab art, a perfect balance between strength and elegance.

But Yerevan is also a city that’s evolving. The luxury apartments and villas in new districts sparkle with modernity. You propose something bolder. You see grand homes with sweeping Arab-style arches framing the entrances, while sleek glass walls reflect the city skyline. Inside, the fusion continues—luxurious modern interiors accented with traditional Arabic calligraphy, hanging lanterns casting warm golden light across marble floors. Here, luxury doesn’t just speak—it sings of two worlds intertwined.

Walking the streets, you notice the men. Most are dressed in modern, Western-style clothing—jeans, jackets, casual shirts. Practical, efficient, but it lacks the gravitas that you crave. It feels disconnected from the land beneath their feet, the history in their blood.

You imagine them differently. The casual clothing shifts in your vision. The shirts become long-sleeved tunics, with Arab-inspired embroidery on the collars and cuffs. Simple jeans, but softened by the flowing fabrics of the Middle East. A light scarf draped around their necks, a subtle nod to Arab fashion but grounded in Armenian practicality. It’s a fusion, but one that respects the heritage of both.

Armenia, a land steeped in Orthodox Christianity, yet remarkably secular in everyday life, teaches you more than history. You learn that the people, despite centuries of conquest and foreign influence, have held onto their identity fiercely. From the warmth of their hospitality to the solemnity of their churches, you realize that strength lies in resilience. The local customs, from the slow, deliberate drinking of coffee to the sacred ritual of greeting, reflect a philosophy of balance and patience. The mythological stories of Hayk and Aram, the legendary patriarchs of Armenia, tell of a people unyielding in the face of adversity, and you feel a kinship to them. Like Armenia, you too will forge your path, unyielding, yet adaptable.

Sitting in a small cafe, the sun dipping low over Yerevan, you reflect. Armenia isn’t a place for grand transformations but subtle ones. The fusion you seek isn’t about dominance but co-existence. Here, in this land that remembers so much, you find yourself pondering what it means to belong to two worlds. Arabization doesn’t erase; it enhances, enriches, and molds. You think of the man you met earlier—his quiet strength, his arrogance. You will be like him, but more. You will transform, not just as a nomad but as a creator of worlds.

Night falls, and you retreat to your modest stay. The house is simple, stone walls, a small wooden door, and a single window that overlooks the city. It’s nothing luxurious, but it’s enough. In the corner, you have created a small space for prayer, your salah corner. A prayer rug, minimal, but the geometric patterns remind you of home. Here, surrounded by simplicity, you feel connected—grounded, yet ready to embark on your next journey.

As you prepare to leave for Tbilisi, Georgia, you take with you the lessons of Yerevan. This is a place where identities mix but don’t fade, where history stands tall yet welcomes new ideas. You carry with you the knowledge that Arabization doesn’t mean change—it means integration, understanding, and respect. With each border you cross, you will take the best of what the world offers and make it yours.

[thatdebaterguy]

'Colonisers'

So along with saying the west is some genocidal oppressive system, another big argument is saying that the west is solely responsible for the idea of colonisation and settler colonisation. This is when people need to do their history. The UK, arguably the most successful empire in history, has been subject to being colonised so many times in history it's unreal. Viking invaders establishing settler colonies in the North-East of England are mostly responsible for why people in that region have blonde hair. I personally have about 12% of my heritage tracing back to Scandinavia. The Saxons moved over to England and intermixed with the native Anglos and Gaelic speaking peoples to create Anglo-Saxons. Then the Normans invaded in 1066 and created the modern English culture over hundreds of years.

Eastern Germany around Berlin used to be controlled by tribal Slavic groups like the Polabian people, before the Germanic people under the Holy Roman Empire conquered it and integrated the land. Spain was full of Catholic Europeans until the Umayyad conquests where Southern Spain was occupied and integrated into the Caliphate. The West has some of the most documented cases of colonising each other, invading each other, assimilating each other. African and Native American tribes had been waring each other for centuries long before the Western civilisations showed up. And this is my hot take; if you yourself believe that the colonisation of America or Africa by white Europeans were worse than the Africans and Natives slaughtering themselves and enslaving each other, then you yourself are racist. The West did exactly what any other country throughout history has ever done, but on a larger scale due to technological superiority over the rest of the globe. When the Islamic golden age was taking place, the Muslim Caliphates of Arabia conquered the Turkic lands, the Steppes, North Africa, parts of Europe, even the Ottomans who were around until only 100 years ago, subjected millions of Christians in the Balkans and enslaved them, long after places like Britain abolished slavery. In fact, the gap between 2024 and 1918 (when the Ottomans existed) is a larger gap than 1918 and 1807, which is when the UK abolished slavery.

The thing is, you don't see Saudi Arabia paying Spain reparations for conquering half of their entire country and selling their women across the Mediterranean, and you don't see Turkey giving reparations to America for raiding American ships and capturing their women too, even in recent history, Turkey has killed Americans in Syria despite being allies, and the US recently sent a variety of aircraft to Turkey to bolster their military. Meanwhile in the US, you've got affirmative action and diversity quotas, and Microsoft proudly displaying how minorities are paid more than white people, which is literally pay discrimination based off skin colour. If you asked a South African what they'd think about introducing quotas where the minority and discriminated white population get benefits, they'd tell you to leave before they drove a knife through your skull.

The point is, colonialism, oppression, slavery, it's a stain on human history, not just Western history, but at least the West has had the decency to acknowledge its dark past, teach it, learn from it, pay reparations from it, even the UK is sending aid to India, while the UK has a cost of living crisis and India has a stronger economy. The west has the freedoms and liberty to let you scream in the streets about how oppressed you are and how bad it is, something you can't do in half the world. You call the government, which is a royal family, terrible in Saudi Arabia and you get hanged for treason or beheaded, same if you're openly gay. Yes we've done some bad things, but no one is innocent throughout history. What matters is what we do now.

[horizon-verizon]

You are incredibly racist, GRRM himself has said that the closest equivalent of Dorne to the real world is the Moorish influences of Spain, and mentions PALESTINE and Wales as being two other influences. Literally his own words. Even in Game of Thrones, they filmed the Water Garden scenes in the Alcazar of Seville, a beautiful Moorish castle in Spain. That castle was literally built by Muslims and incorporates verses from the Quran and countless traditional Arabic and Islamic architectural elements. Fun fact: Alcázar comes from the Arabic word (al-qasr), meaning fort/castle/palace.

Dorne’s conquest by Nymeria parallels Spain’s conquest by the Moors. Nymeria Martell most obviously can be paralleled with Tariq Ibn Ziyyad, the Muslim Amazigh general hailing from Morocco that led the Muslim conquest of Spain on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate, by crossing the Mediterranean sea and landing in Gibraltar. According to legend, Tariq Ibn Ziyyad burned his fleet before the Battle of Guadalete to prevent any of his troops from retreating back home. Who else burned their fleets to show commitment to their new conquest ? Nymeria Martell.

GRRM credits the “hot, dry” climate to being similar to that of Spain or Palestine’s, and that the mountains where the stony Dornishmen dwell being the equivalent to Wales. The Sandy Dornishmen are described to dwell in the deserts and along rivers, which is a descriptor that describes so many parts of West Asia (incorrectly called the “Middle East”) and North Africa. GRRM mentions Palestine, which has many streams and a very important river, the River of Jordan, as well as the Naqab region, a desert region of Palestine, therefore drawing parallels from the Sandy Dornishmen to the Palestinians is correct since Palestine is sandy, dusty, and dry. Finally, there’s a Stony Dornishmen, which GRRM equates to Wales.



*EDITED POST* (4/14/24)

I assume that this is the post you are responding to.

We must remember that the rules determining what racial group you are a part of is solely determined by the legal definitions of the created designations of "white", "mestizo", "Black", or whatever said society has created in their past and present. which is why when you travel, you sorta change race or have it "tweaked" to mean something else. In Westeros, there is not such legal, social, etc. concept of race that matches the modern U.S.A or any European definition. If you said Corlys was "Black", it would mean nothing to a Stark.

Race is also different from ethnicity or nationality: you can be Paelstinian Arab but or a Black American but be white passing enough to "become" white. You can be of East Asian descent and have monolids to be racialized as "Asian", but were born and partially raised in Germany (nationality) with the ethnicity of Uyghur. 

Definitions of racism:

(Google) prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another (Merriam Webster) a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

This is from GRRM about "race" in ASoIaF and the Dornish:

Did GRRM ever actually say the words, "stony Dornish men are a completely different ethnic group from sandy or salty" or that "stony vs salty vs sandy Dornish people--apart from the nonDornish peoples' ways of categorizing them--are peoples with very different and maybe opposing customs the reflect in certain "laws" in Dorne"?

For the Martells and Dornishpeople to be PoCs exactly like the PoCs today in real life, there kinda has to be a history of a) the Dornish having been assimilated into Westerosi society/infrastructures and made subordinate to the "white" Westerosi b) actual systematic oppression against the Dornish from the nonDornish, and Dorne has been able to maintain its independence from Westeros pretty much since Westeros' inception. Even after Daeron II married Myriah Martell, the Martells and the Dornish still worked as their own principality rather than a region totally under the control of the Westerosi monarchy. There was no colonization or successful imperialist campaigns on Dorne. Like the Targs, Dorne is "queer" not for skin color nor religion so much as the Rhoynish traditions towards gender equity--at least regarding succession and leadership--and sexuality

I argued for how the Westerosi see the Dornish, which is not like how medieval EUs saw non-Christian Africans or Arabic-speaking Muslims. It is how Anglo Saxon Normans would have seen Spanish/Eu Mediterraneans. Watsonianly. This is a question of who are the people categorizing "race", and how is "race" categorized by those people.

There is tension b/t Stormlanders/Reachmen and the Dornish people (mostly Stony Dornishmen of the north) but it's hardly equivalent to what is known as "race". Not yet. Daeron I's categorization is a beginning, A PRECURSOR. With how Daeron II's subjects rebelled with a strong anti-Dornish sentiment (not enough misogyny [succession rules] & and a persistent sense of having court & office positions "taken" from the "local" nobles) the Otherness indicates a xenophobia but here is no concept of "white" or "PoC" anywhere.

I have also already addressed the whole stony vs salty vs sandy thing HERE and HERE. In both of those posts, I acknowledge that there are Islamic and Arabic inspirations for the creation of Dorne and I still recognize them there. And the Rhoynish (mot the Martells or any Dornish people) are definitely PoC. It's pretty obvious. But Dornish people--including the Martells--while descended from the Rhoynish and Rhoynisheness definitely determine how nonDornish perceive and identify Dornish people, are not racialized as today's PoCs are. They are closer to how Jewish, Spaniards, Mediterranean Europeans, and Southern European Europeans are racialized by Northwestern Europeans.

Those monikers Daeron I gave distinguished them based on appearance alone, hence the beginning of skin-color-race in terms of how much Rhoynish culture and blood mixed with the previous Andal-only people's, more of the Rhoynish cultural influence the more you go south and less when you go north. If you called a Wyl (example of a Dornish house of the north) anything something other than Dornish and just called them a "stony" Dornishman, I think they'd take offense.

Once again, when we see how the concept of race developed from religion to skin color, in Spain, you see that religion was the first way for medieval people to differentiate themselves into "races"--and when they used the word "race", they meant just "people from that region/religion/history", not necessarily people with such looks--more than skin color (though color was sometimes mentioned alongside, to identify, so as to say that this African was "safer").

Then there is the fact that there were intermarriages between Arabic-speaking, Muslims, Africans to be called "Moors" (a word from Christian Europeans of the pale variety, not those peoples) and with Catholic Spaniards. Today, Spain is considered a white European country even with its numerous ethnicities and history of conquest by the Umayyad Caliphate. Dorne, in autonomy and a unit of territory, is like both Wales and Spain. Today, European regions that are considered, racially, white.

Doylistically, while the narrative gets its inspiration from real life PoCs architecture and figures, the fact that Dorne, wherever you go even with the different levels of Rhoynish influence, is an amalgamation of Andal and Rhoynish that still has that Andal Seven/Catholic religion, and the Common tongue (Rhoynish is not spoken by most people in Dorne except the Green blood bc the Red Princes outlawed it) set up universally despite equal primogeniture and tolerance of homosexuality/extramarital sex means that those things that precede race-by-face/skin and then set up the basis for race-of-skin/face (religion, language, customs) does exactly not resemble what happened for the same as real life (again, Spain is not a PoC country in spite of the Umayyad conquest and influence).

Again, to me it felt like they are socially Othered how Jewish and Welsh, Scot, Irish, etc. people are Othered in Europe...not in modern times but in the context of various medieval English regions temporally and geographically. Again, Watsonianly. But there's strong argument for the other. While they are definitely Othered and have PoC inspiration and but they aren't Othered in their world like PoCs are Othered.

Either way, I don't think GRRM is conveying that Rhaegar left Elia specifically because he thought she was racially inferior to himself or wasn't owed respect due to her Dornishness. Which I already argued was untrue in the linked post above for the history that Tags and Martells have. And which was the point of me even bringing up race and Elia, since that was the argument Elia-supporters-Rhaegar-bashers have.

[ghostofasecretary]

i wish i knew my area of history in the "can answer middle school essay questions about it accurately" way

i have read a lot of history! i've done some work in the field, though exclusively about written works so far. but i haven't, like, sat down and memorized a timeline. my grasp of geography is shaky and my grasp of empire and dynasty is worse

i remember in my first class on economics, we had to do a research paper re: the history of a US economic policy, and i picked our Iran deal, and as background i read the wiki pages on US military conflicts in the region and made a timeline and a spreadsheet with context and it was kind of basic background research, but. i dunno. i feel like i'm missing that stuff! i don't want to miss stuff!

probably i should just pick one book on the Achamenids, one on the Sasanians, one on pre-Islamic Arabia, on the life of the Prophet, on the Radishun, on the Umayyads, on the Abbasids, and then on ~the Mongol invasion~ since that would probably include notes on a lot of the smaller dynasties, plus a book on Mongol India, and the Mamluks, Ottomans, Safavids, and Qajars. possibly whoever ran Egypt after the Mamluks? and, like, i'm sure i can sketch a rough oil timeline but my knowledge of the Great Game is so bad and probably should get better. and then write a timeline and summary of the accounts of (counts on fingers) 13-15 books

i love that the smallest version of this my brain came up with is 13 fucking books. (i have read books on some of these topics before, even broad books! but i didn't take good notes.) "middle school understanding" my ass. i'm sure i could find a decent *basic* book for the broad overview i want to hammer down important facts

on the other hand pop history makes me want to scream and tear at my face

on the third hand i did already do a "quiz myself on basic topics and see how right i am" thing earlier this year and while i got many things right it didn't really scratch the "i am missing MAJOR AREAS (for my own definition of adequate knowledge)" gap

man i also really wanna reread that one book re: the Islamic conquest of Iran now that my brain is no longer on fire. at least in the way it was when i was that year

perhaps instead of making a giant reading list i could go just through my notes with my friend and mentor and READ ALL THE BOOKS HE'S TOLD ME TO READ. that would probably be helpful!!! be responsible learner move!

perhaps i should just read two whole encyclopedias. no, that would be inefficient and a poor introduction to scholarship since i would *see* good bibliographies but they might not have the same context as good books

ugh. i also have. like. other things to do. and have spent most of the last 2-3 days in a semi-conscious fiction devouring state, which is not bad per se but it also isn't my favorite way to live, especially when it feels like avoidance. which it has. (every day i ignore emails and do not send others i know i should.)

let's go to a coffeeshop tomorrow and conquer emails and mail and fucking. figure it out. take steps in the right direction. move!

[cherryhodrialsblog]

1.Jews in Israel mainly classify themselves along a fourfold axis, from least to most observant, hiloni (lit. 'secular'); masorti (lit. 'traditional'); dati (lit. 'religious' or 'orthodox', including religious zionist); and haredi (lit. 'ultra-religious' or 'ultra-orthodox').[6][7]

Israeli law guarantees considerable privileges and freedom to practice for the recognized communities,[8][9] but, in tandem, does not necessarily do so for other faiths. The Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high restrictions" on the free exercise of religion[10] and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox Jewish religious movements, which are unrecognized.[11][12] Pew ranked Israel as fifth globally in terms of "inter-religious tension and violence".[13]

2

Most Jews across the religious spectrum agree in principle that Israel can be both a democracy and a Jewish state. But they are at odds about what should happen, in practice, if democratic decision-making collides with Jewish law (halakha). The vast majority of secular Jews say democratic principles should take precedence over religious law, while a similarly large share of ultra-Orthodox Jews say religious law should take priority.

Even more fundamentally, these groups disagree on what Jewish identity is mainly about: Most of the ultra-Orthodox say “being Jewish” is mainly a matter of religion, while secular Jews tend to say it is mainly a matter of ancestry and/or culture.

3,.Roughly eight-in-ten Israeli Arabs (79%) say there is a lot of discrimination in Israeli society against Muslims, who are by far the biggest of the religious minorities. On this issue, Jews take the opposite view; the vast majority (74%) say they do not see much discrimination against Muslims in Israel.

4.Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an umbrella organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before international states.[62] The Palestinian National Authority, officially established in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[63] Since 1978, the United Nations has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. According to British historian Perry Anderson, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees, and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–2009 prices.[64]

5.The origins of Palestinians are complex and diverse. The region was not originally Arab – its Arabization was a consequence of the gradual inclusion of Palestine within the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphates established by Arabian tribes and their local allies. Like in other "Arabized" Arab nations, the Arab identity of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins.[92]

6.In the 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant; they were later succeeded by other Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyads, Abbasids and the Fatimids.[99] Over the following several centuries, the population of Palestine drastically decreased, from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period.[100][101] Over time, much of the existing population adopted Arab culture and language and converted to Islam.[97] The settlement of Arabs before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to have played a role in accelerating the Islamization process.[102][103][104][105] Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim,[106][107] while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that the Christians lost their majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.[102][108]

[readyforevolution]

ISLAM IN AFRICA.

The ancient Arabians are described as “Cushites” and “Semitic”, whom were described as “dark” and “brown” in complexion respectively.

According to the collaborative scholarship of Dr. Ben and Dr. George Simmonds, Muhammad’s grandparents originated in the Kingdom of Aksum modern day Ethiopia and were Kushites.

Muhammad’s grandfather frequently visited Aksum. Bilal, Muhammad’s “closest advisor" mother, was an Auximite and his father was an Arab and the same can be said for the Caliph Umar. (Jochannon 1991, p. 151) Bilal carried Muhammad’s lance, which was given to Muhammad by a companion, to whom it was gifted by the Ethiopian ruler of the kingdom of Axum.

You would now understand why the messenger of Allah may the peace and blessings of Allah ta'ala be upon him sent his companions to the Kingdom of Axum (Ethiopia) and not elsewhere on the Arabian peninsula. A similar journey he himself had undertaken when employed by his beloved wife Kadijah before his prophethood.

It is a commonly held belief that the 7th century Arabians attacked the African people and converted them to Islam by the sword. However, the works of Edward Wilmot Blyden known as “Father of Pan-Africanism” and of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop show, Arabians introduced the people of the continent to Islam with no coercion.

“…What really took place, when the Arab met their Negro brethren in his own home, was a healthy amalgamation, and not an absorption or an undue repression.” (Blyden 1994, 14)

The primary reason for the success of Islam in black Africa, with no exception, consequently stems from the fact that it was propagated peacefully, Islam therefore is a religion of Africa and Africans.

An 18th century publication says, Islam was spread through Africa by African Muslims who established schools to teach its tenets to

their children, not by the sword.

The introduction of Islam into Kushite and Egyptian Africa liberated North Africa from oppressive Byzantine colonial occupation and rule.

Greek rule had become extremely repulsive in Egypt and it was gladly exchanged for the rule of the Muslins whom were called Saracens.

“The people of Egypt wanted the Muslims to enter the country in an effort to rid themselves of the Roman oppressors.” (Asante 2007, 213)

“The black Muslims came chiefly as traders. . ." and, “. . . gave frequent evidence of their respect for these black brethren nations." (Dubois 2001).

MUSLIM LIBERATION OF ISRAELITES IN PALESTINE.

The Hebrews Israelites under the colonial domination of the Byzantines in Palestine, were among the nations liberated by the 7th century Muslims.

After taking possession of Palestine from the Byzantines, Umayyad khalif Umar ibn Abdul Aziz (Omar II) opened Jerusalem to the black Israelites the decendants of Yakoob and gave them equal rights with the Christians. He himself helped to clean the Holy Temple of the filth and rubbish piled upon it by Christians to spite the Israelites. Israelites, here does not refer to the current white Ashkanazis Zionist of occupied Palestine.

“For a while, it must have seemed that the Moslems would overwhelm all of Christian Europe”.

“It is clear, however, that the conquest of Spain was undertaken upon the initiative of Tarik ibn Ziyad . . . a member of the Warfadjuma branch of the Nafza Berbers.” (Van Sertima 1993, 54)

Below, is an artistic rendition of General Tariq ibn Ziyad (670 CE – 720 CE).

THE PERSIAN OVERTHROW OF THE KUSHITE-ARABIAN KHALIFATE.

The Umayyad Dynasty from Muhammad’s tribe of Quraish (Quraysh), exercised exclusive rule over the Islamic World from 661 – 750 CE.

The exclusive rule of the Islamic empire by the Umayyads was short lived.

In a coup engineered by the Persian general Abu Muslim, in 750 CE, they were overthrown by the Abbasids. Abbasid culture would come to be dominated by the legacy of Persian civilization, and the capital of the Islamic empire was moved from Damascus to Baghdad, near the old Persian capital of Ctesiphon. (Latif 2019, p.3)

“Under the Umayyads, only those of full Arab parentage on both sides were admitted to the highest offices of the state. Under the ‘Abbasids, not only half-Arabs, but Persians and and former slaves rose at the caliphal court, where the favor of the ruler, more than noble descent, was the passport to power and prestige.” (Lewis 1995)

The remnant of the Umayyads, who grieved the decline of Arabian power, migrated westward and settled in Spain under the Fatimid Caliphate, or abode in Africa under the suzerainty of an Arab potentate, at a distance from the power of the Abbasids.

note-Israelites here refer to the descendants of prophet Yakoob who were all black and not the current European Ashkanazis jews who are currently occupying Palestinian lands.

[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...

[dan6085]

The Moors were a Muslim people of Arab and Berber origin who conquered much of the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) from the early 8th century until the late 15th century. The period of their conquest and rule in Spain is commonly known as the "Moors' Conquest of Spain."

The Moors first arrived in Spain in 711 CE, when they invaded the Visigothic kingdom in the south. Led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, they quickly defeated the Visigothic forces and established the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. Over the next several centuries, the Moors expanded their territory northward, conquering cities and territories throughout the region.

During their conquest of Spain, the Moors brought with them a rich Islamic culture, including new technologies, mathematics, philosophy, and architecture. They also allowed religious freedom and tolerance for Jews and Christians living under their rule, although they did impose taxes and restrictions on non-Muslims.

In 1031 CE, the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba broke apart into smaller states known as taifas, which were then conquered by Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain. However, the Moors continued to control the southern region of Andalusia until 1492, when the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista, or reconquest, of Spain.

The fall of the Moors marked the end of Muslim rule in Spain and the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, which targeted Jews and Muslims who did not convert to Christianity. Despite this, the Moors' conquest of Spain left a lasting legacy on Spanish culture and architecture, as well as on the broader history of the Mediterranean world.