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Image of a Jewish cantor reading the Passover story in al-Andalus, from a 14th-century Spanish Haggadah. Jews constituted more than five per cent of the population. [120] Al-Andalus was a key centre of Jewish life during the early Middle Ages, produced important scholars and was one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities.
The taifas (green) in 1031. The taifas (from Arabic: طائفة ṭā'ifa, plural طوائف ṭawā'if, meaning "party, band, faction") were the independent Muslim principalities and kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain), referred to by Muslims as al-Andalus, that emerged from the decline and fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba between 1009 and 1031.
During the unification of al-Andalus in the reign of Abd ar-Rahman before his death in 788, al-Andalus underwent centralization and slow but steady homogenization. The autonomous status of many towns and regions negotiated in the first years of the conquest was reversed by 778, [44] in some cases much earlier (Pamplona by 742, for example).
The etymology of al-Andalus is itself somewhat debated (see al-Andalus), but in fact it entered the Arabic language before this area came under Moorish rule. Like the Arabic term al-Andalus, in historical contexts the Spanish term Andalucía or the English term Andalusia do not necessarily refer to the exact territory designated by these terms ...
In al-Andalus, Muslims referred to the converts to Islam as musalima or asalima and to the descendants of these converts as muwalladun (singular muwallad; Spanish: muladi)—a word derived from the language of cattle breeders and meaning “cross breed” or “mixed ones.”
Some of the most important Spanish terms today include Alcazaba (from Arabic: القَـصَـبَـة, romanized: al-qaṣabah), meaning a fortified enclosure or citadel where the governor or ruler was typically installed, and Alcázar (from Arabic: القصر, romanized: al-qaṣr), which was typically a palace protected by fortifications.
Infighting was a constant in al-Andalus due to the conflicting interests of the various racial and religious communities living there. The dominant aristocracy of Arab origin was frequently opposed by Berbers , Hispania-romans , Mozarabs , Muladis , Jews , Slavs and freed slaves from the north of the peninsula or from Central Europe .
Detail of the Cantiga #63 (13th century), which deals with a late 10th-century battle in San Esteban de Gormaz involving the troops of Count García and Almanzor. [1]The Reconquista (Spanish and Portuguese for ' reconquest ') [a] or the reconquest of al-Andalus [b] was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the ...