THE MOORS IN ANDALUCÍA
By Robina Lambert Lowry
The Moors left an outstanding cultural legacy behind them in Al-Andalús, or Andalucía as it is today. A complex mix, it was inextricably woven over a period of 800 years into that of the myriad civilisations which had previously invaded and settled here. The influence of their culture reached out far beyond Spanish borders, with Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada and Cádiz being recognised throughout Europe and North Africa as centres of great learning, renowned for magnificent art and architecture, and homes to eminent scientists and philosophers.
In the beginning of the 8th century the Umayyads arrived from Damascus and settled in Córdoba where they established their capital in exile. Towards the end of the 11th century the Almoravids followed by the Almohads came from northern Africa and at the beginning of the 13th century the Nasrids began their 250-year reign in Granada. When the kingdom of Granada was finally conquered by the Christians at the end of the 15th century the last Nasrid ruler, Boabdil, was exiled briefly to the Alpujarras before finally leaving Al-Andalús for Fez in Morocco.
As the distance between the cities was so vast, numerous towns and villages were built along the well-trodden routes connecting one to another. They acted not only as staging posts, but were also settled by generations of caliphs and emirs, their families and entourages, who built the alcazabas (citadels), fortalezas (fortresses) and castillos (castles) that can still be seen today. Some have fallen into ruin, others have been restored to a lesser or greater degree, but all bear testimony to a fascinating period in the history of Spain.
The irrigation systems laid out by the Romans, which had fallen into disuse after their departure at the end of the 4th century, were recovered and extended by the Moors who brought water into the very heart of urban buildings through a complex network of wells and channels, fountains and pools. The water was not only for domestic purposes, it was used comprehensively in public squares, patios and private gardens, and also for their hammans or public baths, still to be seen in many provincial capital cities throughout Andalucía.
After they left, Moorish history and culture was all but ignored, both by the Arab world and by Europe, the same fate facing the traditions and culture of the Jews who were expelled around the same time. Relegated to beautiful legends in the annals of history, those eight centuries of Spain’s past were not considered sufficiently important to study or even remember. However, this legacy has now been brought back to life again by organisations such as the Fundación Legado Andalusí (www.legadoandalusi.es) and the Fundación Tres Culturas (www.tresculturas.org ).
Umayyads
By the 8th century the Umayyad caliphate, centred in what is now the Middle East, had expanded into Central Asia as well as to northern India and westwards to Spain. Leaving Damascus when the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and took control of the great Arab empire, Abd-ar-Rahman I travelled to Al-Andalús where he formed a new emirate, or state, based in Córdoba. His descendants continued to rule as emirs there for the next 150 years, with his grandson Abd-ar-Rahman III restoring Umayyad power throughout Al-Andalús and also in parts of North Africa. In 929 he proclaimed himself caliph, elevating the emirate to a position of prestige on a par with that of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.
During this golden age of Al-Andalús the population of Córdoba increased to around half a million inhabitants, overtaking Constantinople to become the largest and most prosperous city in Europe. The surrounding land, laid out with its efficient irrigation system, produced a wide variety of crops and this, together with the produce imported from the Middle East, gave the region its reputation for being the most advanced agricultural-economic sector in Europe.
Between 1009 and 1013, however, there raged a devastating civil war and by 1031 the caliphate eventually collapsed. Al-Andalús was divided up into independent states called taifas, but without a united front they could not defend themselves against incursions by Christian forces. These raids finally became conquests and in the end the taifas had to request help from the Almoravids in northern Africa.
Almoravids and Almohads
Towards the end of the 11th century in the western Magreb, now Morocco, a new political and religious movement emerged from which was founded the Almoravid dynasty. Ethnically more Berber than Arab, it conquered Morocco and founded Marrakech as its capital. In 1085 after the fall of Toledo in central Spain, Yusuf ibn Tashufin, the Almoravid leader, was sent a plea from the Moorish leaders there to help in repelling the Christian armies who were gradually moving south from northern Spain. Five years later the Almoravids took control of the whole of Al-Andalús, while maintaining their principal seat of government in Marrakech.
Initially the Almoravids disapproved of the opulence and lack of piety favoured by Spanish Muslims and put into place quite austere regulations, especially as regards art and architecture. Their later monuments, however, show they were eventually seduced by the so-called ‘luxury’ culture in Al-Andalús. This survives today in the ideas and designs they took back with them to North Africa in, for example, the mosques at Algiers and Fez.
In the mid-12th century the Almoravids were overtaken by another religious movement: the Almohads, who came from a Berber tribe originating in the very heart of the Atlas Mountains. This new dynasty spread through Morocco, crossed over to the Iberian Peninsula and, by 1150, had conquered the cities of Sevilla, Córdoba, Badajoz and Almería. Marrakech was again retained as their centre of power and, as religious reformation was an integral part of their culture, their courts in that city and also in Sevilla became significant focal points of Islamic learning.
The Almohads built grand mosques, mansions and palaces throughout their empire, which gradually extended as far north as the Ebro River, near the modern city of Tarragona. Continuing with the use of geometric design in their art and architecture (patterns begun by the Almoravids), they rebuilt the Alcázar in Sevilla, enlarged the city’s Grand Mosque and constructed nearby a new minaret, the Giralda. Rising over 100 metres tall, the slim, elegant tower was built in 1184 to mark the accession of Abu Yusuf Ya’qub al-Mansur. The minaret, serving as a model for similar ones in the Almohad imperial capitals of Rabat and Marrakech, still stands today, an emblematic landmark of Sevilla.
Like the Almoravids before them, the Almohads gradually succumbed to the relaxed customs and spiritual neglect that generally characterised Al-Andalús. The Christian states to the north were by then too well organised to be conquered by the Muslims and, despite minor forays into ‘alien’ territories, the Almohads made no permanent advances against them. Al-Mansur’s successor, Muhammed III (Al-Nasir) was finally defeated in 1212 at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena, marking the end of Almohad dominance.
Nasrids
On the northern borders of present-day Granada province numerous battles for property and land took place from the beginning of the 13th century as Christian armies fought to wrest control of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. But it was the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa that became one of the turning points in the Christian reconquista. Alfonso VIII and his troops had sneaked through the Despeñaperros Pass in the rugged Sierra Morena and taken the Moors by surprise. The Almohads suffered fatalities of some 100,000 men, the Christians 2,000 only. This marked the end of the Almohad era and left the way clear for the next, and longest lasting, Muslim dynasty in Al-Andalús – the Nasrids.
Al-Ahmar ibn Nasr, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, was appointed governor of his native town of Arjona in 1231, extending his power soon after from Jaén to Guadix. But by now the Christian reconquista was in full swing and, when Córdoba was conquered in 1236, the Nasrids aligned themselves with Fernando III of Castile and ruled as a vassal state for the next 250 years. Trade links with the rest of the Muslim world were strengthened. This was especially so with the gold trade with sub-Saharan regions in Africa, and the Nasrids were also providers of mercenary troops for Castile. But they are principally renowned for the elegance and splendour of their architecture, including the complex network in Granada, unique in Europe, of fountains, wells and baths to supply the numerous, large hammans, or public baths, which formed an integral part of their culture.
During the Nasrid dynasty their rulers’ centre of power was the city of Granada. Their style was very decorative. They covered walls and floors with a profusion of beautifully designed ceramic tiles, used stucco or creatively carved plaster, and painted artistic decorations on many surfaces. Their usual ornamental motifs were geometric, or took the form of plant life, and they also included writings from the Koran. Although the Nasrids continued to follow models of architecture of their predecessors the Almohads, they brought in the innovative use of marble in many of their more important buildings.
The pièce de resistance of Granada is the Alhambra, considered the epitome of Nasrid architecture. Originally a complete government city built for the Moorish rulers, it had mosques and mansions, schools and army barracks, as well as large areas of formal gardens such as the incomparable Generalife. The Alcazaba, or fortress, and the Nasrid palaces, where Arabic inscriptions feature prominently and decorative ceramics abound, remain almost intact nearly 700 years later as testimony to their constructive artistry. Numerous Moorish buildings in Granada were however destroyed or built over during the subsequent Christian era, but those that remain comprise the most complete group of Muslim housing architecture in Europe.
Boabdil: el rey chico
Boabdil was born in the Alhambra Palace to the Sultana Aixa. His father, Abul Hassan Ali, known by the Spaniards as Muley Hacén, gave his name to the highest mountain peak on the Iberian Peninsula, Mulhacén, where it is said he was buried. Boabdil’s name was Abu’Abd Allah, pronounced ‘bu-ab-di-lah’ from which came the andaluz pronunciation with its knack of cutting short every word... His nickname of ‘el rey chico’ (the small king) did not in fact have anything to do with his stature but referred to the size of his ever-diminishing kingdom. By many, he was also known as el zogoybi – the unfortunate one – but that came later.
He came to the throne in 1482 following an uprising by the population in the Granada district of Albaicín against the extraordinarily high taxes that had been levied upon them. Boabdil, supported by an important local family, the Abencerrajes, deposed Abul Hassan Ali who was driven from the land and Boabdil became Muhammed XII, the last Nasrid king of Granada.
To gain more prestige, Boabdil endeavoured to invade the region of Castile. At the same time he was continually fighting against his father and his uncle, who both considered themselves the rightful ruler of the kingdom of Granada. In 1483, during one of his forays against the Christian armies, Boabdil was captured and imprisoned in the castle at Lucena. Its unusual octagonal tower, the Torre del Moral, is a surviving remnant of the original castle that can still be seen today. Three years later, in exchange for his liberty, Boabdil agreed to govern Granada under the Catholic kings. He had his throne returned to him, but had to hand over part of the territory ruled by his father to the kingdom of Castile.
The next six years saw more frequent civil wars and internecine strife, greatly favouring the ever-stronger Christian forces who eventually laid siege to Granada. The city fell on 2 January 1492 and, four days later, after total capitulation by its inhabitants, the so-called reconquista came to an end. From this magnificent centre of culture, of science and learning, of glorious art and architecture, Boabdil was expelled and the armies of Fernando and Isabel, the Reyes Católicos, or Catholic Kings, raised the Christian cross on the Alcazaba alongside their royal standards of Castile and Aragón.
Boabdil was granted a fiefdom in the region of Las Alpujarras and left Granada by the southern route to La Zubia. About 12 kilometres from the city he paused at a mountain pass before descending to Padul, looked back at his birthplace, his palace and his kingdom and sighed for what he had lost. His mother travelling with him is said to have been somewhat unsympathetic, telling him: “You do well to weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man.” ThePuerto del Suspiro del Moro (the Pass of the Arab’s Sigh), around 860 metres above sea level, is the last place on that road from where the Alhambra Palace can be seen.
From Padul, Boabdil travelled south to Lanjarón, the gateway to Las Alpujarras. Lying at the south-western end of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it was originally settled by the Romans who discovered seven natural springs in the area and has been renowned for its spa waters ever since. Turning east, Boabdil travelled to the land he had been ceded near Láujar de Andarax by the wide Guadalfeo river valley.
Protected by the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada to the north and bounded by the lower sierras of Gador, La Contraviesa and Lujar to the south, the Alpujarras stretch from west to east through the province of Granada and into that of Almería. The snow from the high sierras melts in late spring and early summer keeping the towns and villages well supplied with fresh water throughout the year. With their innate knowledge of agriculture, their engineering skill in laying out complex networks of channels for the supply and drainage of water and their talent at maintaining the intricate terracing that originated from as far back as the time of the Visigoths, the Moors turned the Alpujarras into a veritable paradise on earth.
Boadbil lived in exile for less than a year in the Alpujarras before travelling to Fez in Morocco where he died fighting other battles in 1527. His followers stayed behind but most were finally expelled around 1570. However, much of their culture remained: two Moorish families were forced to stay behind in each village to instruct the Christian peasants sent down from the north to repopulate the area, in matters of agriculture and water management. They formed the basis of a new society, which still pays respect to the old in many of its traditions.
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