27.08.2014
The Ancient Moors are one of the Berber tribes whose ancestors were the Libyans. And in turn, the Berbers included not only blacks, but also those who could not speak Greek. These tribes lived to the west of Egypt. Confirmation that the Berbers had the closest ties and relationships with Egypt is the fact that the Berber dynasty was the ruling dynasty in this state.
The Berbers began trading with the Egyptians much earlier than Rome. And when Ancient Greece flourished, the Berbers did not lose their identity. Whoever tried to conquer them: the Phoenicians, and the warriors of Carthage, Rome and Greece. The good neighborliness of the Berbers with Greece came to an end in 570 BC, when the Greeks tried to conquer the rebellious tribes by all available means. This continued until Greece disappeared from the historical scene.
Rome replaced it. But no one was able to conquer the Berbers. And Rome kept pressing and pressing. And by the 2nd century BC, part of the Berber tribes left their homeland and moved to the Iberian Peninsula. This is today's Spain and Portugal. Most of the resettled Berbers had black skin. It was then that they received the name Moors. On their initiative, not a single military conflict with neighbors was unleashed. They believed in their pagan gods while worshiping nature.
After the departure of the Roman Empire from the stage of history, the Pyrenees repeatedly changed hands: the Vandals, the Goths, and then the Arabs celebrated their greatness and strength here. In the 7th century, a new religion came onto the historical scene - Islam. Although the carriers of Islam were the Arabs, in a fairly short period of time it conquered half the world. The Berber Moors were no exception. And when, for the sake of Allah, the Arabs declared jihad, the Berbers, the inhabitants of North Africa, went along with everyone else to conquer the Iberian Peninsula. And the peninsula submitted to the conquerors.
The Pyrenees became an Islamic state, led by Musa ibn Nusayr. All Christian nobility began to serve the new masters. Only the mountains of Asturias were unconquered. The Islamists moved there too. But here’s the problem: the passage into the mountains did not allow the conquerors to penetrate. Moreover, the army of Charles Martell stood up to defend their lands. The island of Christianity continued its life in the mountains. Navarre, Castile and Barcelona also had Christian status.
The Crusades worsened the position of the Moors on the peninsula. With the conquest of Granada by the Islamists, very bad times came for the Moors. But they didn't give up. To their credit, it should be said that it was the Moors who were the learned people in the state of the Iberian Peninsula. The best teachers, doctors, architects, artisans and traders are the Moors. The royal nobility did everything to prevent these scientists from running away and leaving the country without science.
In 711, one of the Visigothic groups called for help from the Arabs and Berbers from northern Africa, who were later called the Moors. The Mauritanian Corps was led by General Tariq ibn Ziyad (the name Gibraltar comes from his name - “Tariq’s Rock”). The conquest of the peninsula by the Moors in just a few years is an amazing example of the rapid spread of Islam (it was not until 622 that Muhammad left Mecca, and by 705 his followers already ruled all of northern Africa). Despite the desperate resistance of the Visigoths, ten years later only the mountainous regions of Asturias remained unconquered. The victory of the Arabs in the Battle of the Guadalete River in Southern Spain on July 19, 711 and the death of the last Visigoth king Roderic two years later in the Battle of Segoyuela sealed the fate of the Visigothic kingdom. The Arabs began to call the lands they captured Al-Andaluz. Until 756 they were governed by a governor who was formally subordinate to the Damascus caliph. In the same year, Abdarrahman I founded an independent emirate, and in 929 Abdarrahman III assumed the title of caliph. This caliphate, centered in Cordoba, lasted until the beginning of the 11th century. After 1031, the Cordoba Caliphate broke up into many small states (emirates).
To a certain extent, the unity of the caliphate has always been illusory. The vast distances and difficulties of communication were aggravated by racial and tribal conflicts. Extremely hostile relations developed between the politically dominant Arab minority and the Berbers who made up the majority of the Muslim population. This antagonism was further exacerbated by the fact that the best lands went to the Arabs. The situation was aggravated by the presence of layers of Muladi and Mozarabs - the local population who, to one degree or another, experienced Muslim influence.
Until the middle of the 8th century. Moorish territories were part of the Umayyad Caliphate; the name of the Moorish state Al-Andalus, whose territory either increased or decreased, depending on the successes of the Reconquista, dates back to the same time.
In 756, Abdarahman I Umayyad proclaimed the independent Caliphate of Cordoba, which flourished during the reign of Abdarahman III, who proclaimed himself caliph of the new Western Islamic Empire. The dominance of the Moors cannot be called simply a conquest of the peninsula. The Moors were very tolerant of Christians and Jews, granted autonomy to various areas and made an enormous contribution to the development of Spanish culture, creating a unique style in architecture and fine arts. At the beginning of the 11th century. After the death of dictator Mansur, the Arab Caliphate broke up into many small independent caliphates and kingdoms.
Two more waves of conquerors from northern Africa invaded the peninsula in the 11th and 12th centuries. (Almoravids and Almohads), but after the victory of the Christians over the Almohads in 1212. under Las Navas de Tolosa, only the last Islamic state on the Iberian Peninsula survived - the Emirate of Granada, which existed until 1492.
Arab rule in Spain in the 8th-11th centuries.
After the Visigothic kingdom fell under the attacks of Muslim Arabs and African Berbers (“Moors”), Spain almost entirely became part of the Arab Caliphate. Only in the far north, in the mountains of Asturias, did a small Visigothic-Spanish Christian kingdom emerge (718).
The tribal nobility of the Arabs and Berbers that had established themselves in Spain, having taken possession of the land fund and become feudalized, was burdened by dependence on the distant Caliphate and the need to share their income with the Caliph. In 743, the Berber tribes in Spain rebelled against the caliph. The kingdom of Asturias took advantage of this and advanced its border to the Duero River. After the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in the Caliphate (750) and the Abbasids coming to power, one of the surviving Umayyads, Abd-ar-Rahman, fled to Spain. He managed to win over the Arab and Berber nobility there and found an independent emirate (the Umayyads ruled in Spain from 756 to 1031).
At first, the Arab conquest of Spain did little to change the position of the peasantry there. At first, peasant taxes were even slightly reduced. However, gradually the Arab and Berber landowners, who seized the lands of the Visigothic feudal lords, kings and churches, began to intensify the exploitation of the peasants. The state levied taxes on them, and Arab landowners demanded that the peasants perform various feudal duties.
The Arabs who settled in Spain continued to maintain connections with the more cultural countries and peoples of Western Asia and borrowed a lot from them. In the parts of Spain occupied by the Arabs, new crops began to be cultivated: rice, date palm, pomegranate and sugar cane; In addition, irrigation became more widely used, sericulture was introduced, viticulture expanded, and sheep breeding became more widespread. At the same time, metal processing and weaving improved, and mining developed.
The growth of cities founded in antiquity and preserved during the Visigothic conquest (Seville, Cordoba, Valencia, Granada, Toledo) was of great importance for the economic and cultural development of Spain under Arab rule. In Cordoba in the 10th century. there were 113 thousand houses and about 500 thousand inhabitants.
The ethnic composition of the population of Arab Spain was very diverse. Spanish-Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, Berbers, and Jews lived here. Some of the Spanish-Romans converted to Islam (the so-called Muealladas), partly preserving their Romance language, while others adopted Arabic, preserving the Christian faith (the so-called Mozarabs). At first, the conquerors observed complete religious tolerance, but already in the middle of the 9th century. There were outbreaks of Muslim fanaticism, which became more frequent from the 11th century.
The process of feudalization developing in the Emirate of Cordoba led to the fact that Arab and Berber feudal lords increasingly exploited the defeated population (peasants and townspeople), even those groups that converted to Islam. The heavy oppression of the conquerors and their religious fanaticism led to repeated uprisings of the conquered population. Particularly significant was the uprising of the Spanish-Roman peasantry in the mountainous region of Ronda, which began in 880. This uprising was led by Omar ibn Hafsun, a native of the Visigothic nobility, but the bulk of the rebels consisted of peasants. Having captured a large territory, Omar ibn Hafsun ruled it as an independent sovereign for 30 years.
The struggle between the Arab feudal lords and the local peasantry continued after the suppression of this uprising. As a result, there was a constant outflow of the local population from villages and cities to the north, where Spanish-Christian regions independent of the Arabs remained.
The Emirate of Cordoba, renamed the Caliphate of Cordoba in 929, achieved its greatest political power under Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III (912-961). For a time, the Arab and Berber provincial feudal cliques were pacified, as a result of which it was possible to achieve significant centralization of government. During this period, the fleet of the Cordoba Caliphate dominated the western part of the Mediterranean Sea.
But in the second half of the 10th century. The struggle between the two main factions of the feudal class intensified again - the serving nobility associated with the central state apparatus, and the provincial nobility. The latter relied on the feudal militia. In order not to depend on this militia, the Cordoban caliphs created a permanent guard of slaves (Mamluks, otherwise known as ghoulams), who mostly came from the Slavs or other tribes and nationalities of Eastern Europe and were sold to Spain by slave traders. All these young warriors from slaves in Arab Spain were called Slavs (in Arabic “as-sakaliba”). The Mamluk Guard at first was the support of the Cordoba caliphs, but by the 11th century. these guards turned into the actual arbiters of their destinies.
From the beginning of the 11th century. the growth of large feudal landownership at the expense of small ones led to the strengthening of large Arab and Berber rulers. Their centrifugal tendencies have also increased. From the second decade of the 11th century. Feudal internecine wars began, which contributed to the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba (1031). In its place, several dozen emirates and principalities were formed (Seville, Granada, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona, etc.) with dynasties of Arab and Berber origin, as well as dynasties whose founders came from the Mamluk guard.
Culture of Spain in the 9th – 11th centuries.
In the first centuries after the Arab conquest, Andalusia became one of the centers of development of early medieval culture. At the beginning of the 8th century. The conquerors of Spain - North African Arabs and Berbers, mostly nomads, were no higher in cultural level than the Spanish-Roman population. But later, Arab Spain, which became part of the complex of countries conquered by the Arabs, adopted the achievements of the culture that developed in Muslim countries as a result of assimilation and processing of the heritage of Iranian, Central Asian, Western Roman and Byzantine-Syrian cultures. In addition, the culture of Andalusia was not the culture of a closed Arab elite, but developed in the closest interaction with the culture of the indigenous population of Spain. All these circumstances explain the flourishing of Spanish-Arab culture in the 9th-11th centuries.
The Arab architectural style, established primarily in Cordoba and Granada, was influenced by the emerging local Romanesque style, and subsequently influenced Romanesque and Gothic buildings in the lands conquered from the Arabs (“Gate of the Sun” in Toledo, buildings in Avila, Salamanca XI-XII centuries, etc.). Of the architectural monuments in Arab Spain in the early Middle Ages, the cathedral mosque in Cordoba, which was finally completed in the 10th century, stood out especially well.
The interaction of Arab and Spanish culture was also reflected in poetry. Literary language in Arab Spain in the 9th-11th centuries. Not only for Muslims, but also for local Christians, classical Arabic was the language of choice. However, the most significant Andalusian poet, Ibn Kuzman (born about 1080), abandoned the traditional conventions of old Arabic poetry. He wrote in a simple, almost colloquial language with a large number of Spanish words, ridiculing Islam in his poems and praising the enjoyment of life. Andalusian culture was greatly influenced by the achievements of the then advanced Arabic-speaking Western and Central Asian culture, the works of the outstanding scientist Muhammad ibn Musa Khorezmi (9th century) and the great thinker Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
In the high schools of Cordoba in the 10th century, in addition to Muslim theology and law, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics and medicine were taught. People came here to study from Western European countries and from countries of Western and Central Asia. The library of Caliph Hakam II (961-976) in Cordoba contained up to 400 thousand manuscripts. In Cordoba, scientific works were translated from ancient Greek into Arabic. Since the 11th century. In Arab Spain, a lot of work was carried out on the translation into Latin of the works of ancient Greek authors preserved in Arabic translations. This gave Western European scholastic scholars the opportunity to become fully acquainted with these works for the first time.
Moor - who is this? A representative of a cruel and willful people or someone who made an invaluable contribution to the development of cultures in different countries? What is truth and what is fiction?
The Birth of an Empire
The inhabitants of Mauritania, located in northern Africa, were called Moors. Their history is inextricably linked with the development of Islam.
In the 12th century, the city of Medina was founded by the Prophet Muhammad. After this, the people, who had previously followed a nomadic lifestyle, found a permanent place to live. Then they began their development, conquering new lands, preaching Islam to the east and west.
Hunger for knowledge
Moor - who is important to whom conquests are important? Contrary to the generally accepted attitude towards the Moors as uneducated people, it must be said that this is a big misconception. For a Muslim, knowledge was important. Due to the heat of the day, nomadic peoples moved at night. The result was the emergence of such a science as astronomy. When meeting with representatives of other cultures, the Moors tried to gain as much new knowledge as possible. They attached special importance to books. Their value was very great and a large number of them were published.
Due to the fact that the Crusaders created an unflattering reputation for Muslims, many do not know exactly who the Moor is? Believing that this is a synonym for the word "barbarian".
In fact, Arab culture was open to new knowledge. After the capture of Egypt, the Moors gained access to which allowed them to seriously expand their horizons. Many works have been translated into Arabic. It should be noted that the Arabs and Berbers who professed Islam were also called Moors.
She tried to protect herself as much as possible from new knowledge, which significantly hampered her development.
Moors in Europe
Having overcome Gibraltar in 711, the Moors arrived in 4 years, capturing a large territory right up to France. Considering the fact that Europe at that time was in a deep crisis, many cities were only too glad to receive a fairly strong patron who could protect them from warriors and tribal raids. Despite the fact that Islam was unknown to the population of the Iberian Peninsula, they began to accept the new religion quite easily. Many cities were rebuilt practically from scratch, with Cordoba becoming the main one. The Moor - who is he and what is his contribution to the development of Spain? New technologies were introduced: an irrigation system was used to water gardens, and houses had running water and sewerage systems.
Of particular importance was paper, which was discovered in Europe thanks to the Arabs. It is not surprising that there were 10 libraries in Cordoba. The foundations of modern algebra and chemistry were born in Toledo; only here it was possible to study works on mathematics and astronomy.
The Crusades, which aimed to rid the countries of Europe of the invaders - the Moors, mercilessly destroyed them, buildings and all technical structures. People were forced, under pain of death and confiscation of property, to convert to Catholicism. Thus, a new but ambitious culture replaced a more developed one, which gave Europe a lot of influence over the 12th centuries.
Quite often you can hear the phrase: “The Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave.” This is a quote from the play “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa,” written by I. F. Schiller at the end of the 18th century. The phrase is a symbol of the unprincipled use of a person for one’s own purposes. The attitude towards him was as if he were a tool to achieve a goal, which was no longer needed after the action was completed.
The Visigoths themselves destroyed their state. In 710, discord between the kings and the aristocracy led to the fact that King Vitizya, fighting with his fellow tribesmen, turned to the Muslim tribes of North Africa for help. The ruler of Tangier, Tariq ibn Seid, with an army of twelve thousand Berbers crossed Gibraltar, helped Vitizier defeat his enemies, but after the victory he did not go back. After the Visigothic king Roderic was killed in the battle of Seguela in September 713, the entire southern part of the peninsula and the Visigothic capital Toledo were in the hands of the Moors. Thus was born Moorish Spain, which became the richest and most prosperous state of medieval Europe.
Unlike Russia, which found itself under the rule of nomadic Horde tribes for several centuries, Spain inherited conquerors whose sophisticated civilization was significantly superior to that of the Visigoths. Arab-Moorish rule was not a yoke for Spain, but a blessing. It lasted eight centuries, from 711 to 1492. and did not go beyond the Iberian Peninsula - in 732 the Arab army was defeated by Charles Martell in the Battle of Poitiers.
In the narrow sense of the word " Moors"(or Berbers) are the name given to North African tribes who converted to Islam, and the word "Arab" is usually used to designate the inhabitants of Western Asia. However, often these names are transferred to all Islamic tribes - both African and Asian Muslims came to Spain. The Arab state was called Al-Andalus (hence the name of the province of Andalusia), its capital was in Cordoba. The Arabs did not seek to convert all the inhabitants of the conquered territories to Islam; in their state there were not only mosques, but also Christian churches and synagogues (Christians and Jews paid higher taxes to the treasury).
In the 8th-10th centuries. Cordoba was the largest, most comfortable and cultural city in Europe. Here, Greek texts collected during the Arab campaign in the Middle East were translated and commented on: thanks to the Arabs, Europe learned about Aristotle, Euclid, Hippocrates, Ptolemy and Plato. Arabic poetry flourished. The number of inhabitants of Cordoba exceeded 300 thousand, more than 600 mosques, 700 public baths and a public library (750 thousand volumes) were built for them. The streets of Cordoba were paved and there was running water. The finest fabrics, embossed leather and colored ceramics were exported to all European countries. Toledo and Cordoba were major centers for the production of weapons in the 9th century. Glass and watches were made here. The Arabs introduced the Spaniards to sugar, oranges, watermelons, and taught them to irrigate the land (in Andalusia and Valencia the irrigation canals they dug are still used). Cordoba was the scientific capital of Europe, excellent doctors worked here (according to some information, the Arabs used anesthesia, removed cataracts and even drilled the skull). The Spanish Arabs taught European traders to use Arabic numbers; algebra and astronomy developed here. The influence that Arab civilization had on the entire culture of the Iberian Peninsula is evidenced by the Spanish language, thousands of words of which retain Arabic roots.
