Reflections on Qurtuba in the 21st Century

Reflections on

Qurtuba 21st century

in the

Reflections on

Qurtuba 21st century

in the

Introduction. 5 Eduardo López Busquets Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest.

7

Pierre Guichard Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance.

29

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus.

69

Juan F. Murillo Redondo Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage.

89

Antonio Vallejo Triano Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia.

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

111

You suppose, when you read the small label that informs you that this is an Andalusian penbox from the early eleventh century, that it is of Córdoban ivory, and the word ‘Córdoba’ comes to you, as usual, with a clamour that overwhelms the memory and the senses.1

Casa Árabe intends to use this book to underline the extraordinary fact that Cordoba is a timeless city. Just the name, from a first abstract impression, evokes a world of emotions and mental images that transcend well-known spatial and temporary borders and compose a rendition of what the city is, has been and, maybe more importantly, will be in the future.

This fact, together with the city being a pioneer of Arab culture throughout its entire history, has prompted the Casa Árabe to come up with the idea of offering a monographic study that links its Andalusi past with its most contemporary present.

Our aim is not to trace an historically continuous thread, not least because the Arab identity of the past has little to do with the present situation, yet this past partly inspires a retrospective view that transcends the city and its Arab-Islamic legacy.

The five articles by specialists from different disciplines that make up this work take on board this past in the present, reflecting on Qurtuba in the 21st century from an objective and scientific perspective.

Eduardo López Busquets General Director of Casa Árabe

1

Radwa Ashour (2011). An Andalusian Penbox, in Ahdaf Soueif (ed.). Reflections on Islamic Art. Doha (Qatar), London: Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar Foundation, Bloomsbury.

CORDOBA, FROM THE MUSLIM CONQUEST TO THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST Pierre Guichard

C

ordoba is, like Granada though for different reasons, one of the «mythical cities» whose name is usually mentioned on one side and the other of the Mediterranean within the context of the chaotic process of the Euro-Arab relationship.

It is considered as the symbol of a golden age and coexistence between cultures and religions, which we would like to be a model for our era. Sometimes, though, it becomes a caricature: in a debate about the Andalusi civilization that took place in Algiers in 2007, I heard one of the lecturers stating, obviously without mentioning any source, that during the era of the Umayyad Emir ‘Abd al-Rahman I (756-788), students from all over Europe visited Cordoba to become imbued with Arab sciences. It is known that the Reconquista of al-Andalus and Cordoba is one of the driving utopias of certain Islamic fundamentalist movements. It is easy to find in Europe references to «an outstanding [Andalusi] civilization in which the splendid cities, as a result of the boom of trade and arts, had magnificent monuments and delightful gardens, embracing poets and musicians, thinkers and wise men, jurists and mystics of the three religions» and, above all, an atmosphere of tolerance which allowed the mixture and acceptance between languages and beliefs.1 This embellishment, somewhat paradisiacal, was what allowed the French journalist Jean Daniel, in an article published in the Nouvel Observateur in October 1994, to refer to the peninsular 10th century as the «sacrosanct al-Andalus» in which, for approximately seventy years, this marvelous and amazing phenomenon called «the spirit of Cordoba» had reigned.

Obviously, one can try to avoid the representations nearer to our era rather than the facts of the past. But the myths themselves are part of a contemporary history, which is not indifferent. However, it is not necessary to ridiculously condemn them, spreading more «untruths» than those they already contain. This is the case of some WebPages which try to contradict the myth of Andalusi «coexistence». If for instance we consult one of these, whose title is History and Myth: the Muslim al-Andalus [Histoire et mythe: l’Andalousie musulmane], we will confirm, un-

1

According to the preface of Michel Zink to the work of María Rosa Menocal (2003). L’Andalousie arabe: une culture de la tolérance, VIIIe-XVe siècle. Paris: Autrement, p. 5.

7

Pierre Guichard

surprisingly but at the same time somewhat bewildered, that it is full of historical mistakes: in order to diminish the importance of the «geopolitical» break-up of the Umayyad architecture which overflowed to the Maghreb, it is asserted without any doubt that Morocco was part of Visigothic Spain and, talking more specifically about Cordoba, that the famous caliphal library was «inherited from the Visigoths». With reference to the tolerance attributed to the Andalusi civilization, it is stated, providing no sources at all, that the Christians of Cordoba were victims of a massacre in 796.2 In this text we will try to maintain some balance between an often too idealized, almost hagiographic vision (in Jean Daniel’s interpretation of Cordoba mentioned above he talks about the «sacrosanct al-Andalus») and a too dry, positivist and brusque act of demythologizing which only focuses on the «shadows» that are inevitably linked to the most famous golden ages of the history of humanity.

Focusing on history rather than on the myth, the first thing we have to do is recognize, as in fact Jean Daniel did in the passage quoted above, that the emblematic splendor of Cordoba’s 10th century caliphs and of their immense and prestigious capital did not last more than a few decades and that the city never recovered the grandeur and prestige it had enjoyed in the second half of the 10th century. Undoubtedly, it is important to take into account what Cordoba represented when a Germanic poetess called it the «adornment of the world»,3 but we also have to understand how it reached this apex and what happened to the city afterwards.

The text taken from the Internet and quoted above, which tries to diminish the splendor of Muslim Cordoba, focuses on the fact that, before the arrival of Islam, the city that would be the see of the great Western Caliphate was an «Episcopal city of great vitality».

It was indeed an Episcopal city, like many others during Visigothic Spain, but there is not much evidence of its «great vitality»! Previous to the century in which the city joined the dar al-Islam, there is probably more evidence of a certain cultural and architectural dynamism in Toledo, the capital of the kingdom, and Mérida and Seville, both of them also metropolitan sees. It is true that since 1990, archaeologists have found to the northwest of the historical centre of the city, at the location of Cercadilla, near the train and bus station, a great imperial palatine complex dating from the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the 4th century, which was probably occupied subsequently by the bishops of Cordoba; however, this complex disappears as such in the 6th century, when the reduction of developed land takes the bishops to the Guadalquivir banks, next to the palace of the Visigothic governors.4 2

Le Messie et son Prophète, http://www.lemessieetsonprophete.com/annexes/Al_Andalus_histoire_et_mythe. htm [consulted on the 2nd of February 2013].

3

Text frequently quoted of the Saxon religious author Hroswitha de Gandersheim, see Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: le siècle du califat de Cordoue. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, volume iii, p. 383.

4

Vicente Salvatierra Cuenca and Alberto Canto García (2008). Al-Andalus: de la invasión al Califato de Córdoba. Madrid: Síntesis, p. 132. Plenty of literature can be found concerning the digs of Cercadilla.

8

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

Cordoba was not the main objective of the first Muslim invasion in 711. The troops of the first conqueror, the Berber general Tariq b. Ziyad, headed mainly towards Toledo, the capital of the kingdom, and thus only sent a 700 knight detachment to take over Cordoba.

The circumstances of the taking of the city have been narrated with uncommon details by Arab sources, probably because the traditions concerning the fall of the al-Andalus capital have been preserved better than those referring to other cities. The attackers took advantage of a gap in the wall near the bridge entrance, neutralizing the defenders, through which they entered the precinct and occupied the city. The Visigothic governor and 500 men of the city were forced to evacuate the city via the door of Seville and shelter in a church dedicated to San Acisclo outside the enclosure. One of the hypotheses formulated is that this building is located at the site of the previously mentioned Cercadilla. Indeed, the building had to be powerful enough and in a good state of preservation to resist the three-month siege imposed by the Muslims.5 The Arab texts agree on the fact that the Roman bridge over the Guadalquivir river was partly demolished, which implies the city and its surroundings were in a deteriorated state.

In any case, it was not Cordoba but Seville the city chosen by Musa b. Nusayr, the governor of Kairuán who headed the conquest from 712, as the capital of the new province. After 714, the year when he was called to Damascus by the Caliph, it was still Seville where his son ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who inherited the management of the new province, lived until he was murdered in 716 —with the complicity of the caliphal power, according to some sources— by the Arab chiefs surrounding him due to the «royal» manners he had dared to adopt or, more probably, due to political differences of a nature difficult to know at present.6 The temporary governor chosen by the ruling elements —seemingly not without difficulties— stayed in power only around six months. A centralized regime such as the Damascus Caliphate was undoubtedly trying to control the province as firmly as possible and, in a short period of time, the governor was replaced by a wali hierarchically appointed, al-Hurr b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi. It was this third governor who decided to settle in Cordoba.7 The explanation offered by Pedro Chalmeta of this decision seems to be quite realistic: having arrived with a strong military force (maybe thousands of men), he intended to get rid of the influence of the yund (‘army’) already established in Spain and probably Seville and its immediate area of influence, as well of the Berber elements ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. Musa had attracted to the Peninsula, seemingly to support his policy. In 5

Cyrille Aillet (2010). Les mozarabes: christianisme, islamisation et arabisation en Péninsule Ibérique (IXe-XIIe siècle). Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, p. 79.

6

Pedro Chalmeta (2003). Invasión e islamización: la sumisión de Hispania y la formación de al-Andalus. Jaén: Universidad de Jaén, pp. 246-247.

7

Ibidem, p. 254, according to the majority of sources: «the first action of the new governor was moving the capital from Seville to Cordoba».

9

Pierre Guichard

Cordoba, thus, he would have more freedom to impose measures regulating the territorial and tax situation of the province.8 In this respect, al-Hurr was, during his three-year term of office, an energetic governor who also continued the religious war beyond the Pyrenees, in the ancient Visigothic Septimania and the south of the Frank Gaul. After him, the governors succeeded one another in a quite ephemeral way, without questioning Cordoba’s status, definitively transformed into the capital of the new province of Islam. From this moment, urban developments were carried out in line with this role. It is thus known that the successor of al-Hurr, al-Samh ordered the repair of the bridge with ashlars from the wall, restoring the latter with simple bricks. On the other hand, he ordered the building of the cemetery of Arrabal9 on the left bank of the river, on land that belonged to the Public Treasury.

It could be supposed that this is the moment the elements which configure a «Muslim city» are coming into being, but these are only mentioned briefly in texts concerning political-military events. The second quarter of the 8th century finishes in al-Andalus with a decade of civil wars, in line with the general crisis context, which affects the Damascus Caliphate before its fall in 751. The sources concerning this period show, for example, that in the battle of Saqunda, which confronted in 747 two Arab factions (the Yemenis and the Qaysis or «Arabs from the North») in the vicinity of Cordoba, the leader of the latter, conscious of their critical situation, reversed the balance of power by appealing, by means of the sahib al-suq or manager of the capital’s market, to the bazaar’s craftsmen. Four hundred of them showed up carrying sticks and butcher knives, and gave the victory to the Qaysis over their adversaries, as exhausted as them due to the combat. However, the same narration, which suggests that the market of Cordoba was being organized on the basis of rules inspired by the new legal-religious ideology, also states that the Qaysis’ leader, al-Sumayl, massacred the Yemenis’ leaders captured, after rounding them up in a church inside the city.10 Arab sources insist on the fact that this church was located in the same place where the great mosque of Cordoba would be built years later.11 If this version is accepted, which has often occurred, we would be facing a small problem; but according to a more recent source, the said church, dedicated to San Vicente, which was the cathedral church of the 8

We ignore if the rivalries between the «tribal factions» who would very soon stir up al-Andalus and the whole Caliphate really played a role in these events. It would be worth it to pick up again this issue within the context of the debates on the «parties» or «factions» opposed to the Damascus Caliphate (starting from the theses formulated by Muhammad Abdulhavy Shaban (1971). Islamic History: a New Interpretation (A. D. 600-750, A. H. 132).

Cambridge: University Press; see particularly pp. 120 and following.

9

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: la conquête et l’émirat hispano-umaiyade: 710-912. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, volume i, p. 39 [first edition in 1950. Paris, Leiden: Maisonneuve, Brill].

10

Pedro Chalmeta (2003). Invasión e islamización: la sumisión de Hispania y la formación de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., pp. 340-341.

11

Emilio Lafuente y Alcántara (1867). Ajbar Machmua (colección de tradiciones) [collection of traditions]. Madrid: Imprenta y Estereotipia M. Rivadeneyra, p. 65: «in a church inside Cordoba, where the major mosque is at present located».

10

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

time of the Arab conquest, was then shared by Christians and Muslims, offering the latter a place for their Friday community prayer.12 It is difficult to admit that the massacre of the Yemenis’ leaders took place in the same building that was already being used as the main mosque of Cordoba —at least a part of it. It would be more credible if we accepted the theories deduced from the discoveries made in the digs of Cordoba’s mosque during the last decade, by which in this site not only the great basilica destroyed by ‘Abd al-Rahman I at the end of the 8th century in order to build the new mosque would have been located, but a whole complex of Episcopal buildings.13 If this is so, it is perfectly acceptable that the Christians preserved one of the buildings while the Muslims transformed the other one into a mosque.

It is interesting to point out this relative convergence between text and archaeological data, which allow us to discern the possibility of increasing the knowledge of this transition period between the end of the Visigothic kingdom and the beginning of the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba. However, it was not until the reign of the Eastern «emigrant» ‘Abd al-Rahman I, who arrived escaping from the massacre of his family in the East by the Abbasids, who had just overthrown the Damascus Caliphate (751) and were about to establish their own caliphate in Baghdad, when the new dimension of the political and -more and more- cultural capital was beginning to become patent. Having crossed from the Maghreb to Spain in 756, the aim of the young Umayyad prince was to take control of Cordoba resorting to the military power of the mawali (‘clients’) of his dynasty established in al-Andalus, who had just incorporated several thousands of Yemeni warriors unhappy with the power which the interests of the Qaysis represented; they had finally imposed their dominion after the tribal struggles which had characterized the first half of the century.

The then governor, Yusuf al-Fihri, and his «right-hand man», the Qaysi leader al-Sumayl, were defeated at the gates of Cordoba and the Umayyad pretender took possession of the governmental palace and made the Cordoba citizens recognize him.

The long reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman (756-788) allows the new sovereign to establish in Cordoba a dynasty, which bases its legitimacy on its caliphal background in the East (the Umayyads of Cordoba, even though they have no claim on the Caliphate, say they are «descendants of the Caliphs», ‘banu jala’if’). Undoubtedly, the stability of the country is still far away, and the majority of his kingdom will be dedicated to hard internal wars against the 12

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: le siècle du califat de Cordoue. Op. Cit., volume iii, p. 386.

13

See the works of Pedro Marfil Ruiz (2001), for instance, his Urbanismo Cordobés, in María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coordinators). El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat al-Zahra, 3 de mayo a 30 de septiembre de 2001: estudios. Granada: Consejería de Cultura, through the Fundación El Legado Andalusí, pp. 360-371; and (n. d.). «Arqueología en la mezquita de Córdoba», http://www.ciberjob.org/suple/arqueologia/mezquita/mezqui.html [consulted on 2 February 2013]; as well as the specifications of Susana Calvo Capilla (2007). «Primeras mezquitas de al-Andalus a través de las fuentes árabes (92/711-170/785)», Al-Qantara, 28 (1), pp. 166 and following.

11

Pierre Guichard

supporters of the former government, against the Yemeni tribal elements who were upset for having helped an «Arab from the North» to reach power and against a great Berber religious uprising in the centre of the Peninsula. In this period in which the Umayyad has to fight fiercely to remain in power, the peripheries are controlled with difficulty. There were riots in favor of the Abbasids in Beja (763) and Valencia (777). The latter is composed of the movements of dissent headed by the Arab chiefs who at that moment control the Ebro Valley and are responsible for the famous expedition of Charlemagne against Zaragoza in 778. This almost uninterrupted succession of local uprisings only emphasizes the contrast with the deep rooting of power in Cordoba, based on the settlement in the city of the last descendants of the Umayyad family, the members of the Quraysh tribe to which the former belonged, and many clients (‘mawali’) of the dynasty, those who had composed the «first circle» of the establishment of their power in al-Andalus and those who will constitute during the whole Emirate the «hard core» of the State of Cordoba.14 This is the context which allows the reconfiguration of the capital whose details we do not know exactly but whose features, broadly speaking, are clear: the powerful «state aristocracy» acquires aristocratic properties in the city and mainly on its outskirts, and these wealthy estates are the «starting point» for the fast expansion of neighborhoods and suburbs. A good example of this is the «palace of Mughith» (‘balat Mughith’), the Umayyad mawla who commanded the detachment that took possession of Cordoba and who received a large quantity of property outside the city which promoted the development of one of the main suburbs of the capital, located immediately to the East of the Emir’s qasr (‘palace’).15 The banu Mughith are, at the end of the 8th century and beginning of the 9th century, one of the main castes, which provide the regime with the higher posts of the state. A passage of Muqtabis of Ibn Hayyan allows us to catch a glimpse of an episode of the growth that developed around his residence by explaining how, subsequently to the conquest, a member of the Umayyad lineage who was the «chief» of Mughith, also immigrated to al-Andalus and settled alongside the mawali residence.16 In this case it is clear how powerful families got together in a sort of «agglomeration» and how a whole population gathered around them based on certain social mechanisms of patronage and dependency. Obviously we do not have many data concerning this population.

14

See the theses of de Mohamed Meouak (1999). Pouvoir souverain, administration centrale et élites politiques dans l’Espagne umayyade (IIe-IVe/VIIIe-Xe siècles). Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica.

15

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: le siècle du califat de Cordoue. Op. Cit., volume iii, pp.

375-376. A good location of the Cordoba neighbourhoods can be found in Juan Francisco Murillo Redondo, María Teresa Casal García and Elena Castro del Río (2004). «Madinat Qurtuba. Aproximación al proceso de formación de la ciudad emiral y califal a partir de la información arqueológica», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra’, 5, pp. 257-290 (see the photograph and the map of the p. 285).

16

Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi (2001). Crónica de los emires Alhakam I y Abdarrahman II entre los años 796 y 847 [Almuqtabis II-1] [translation by Mahmud Ali Makki and Federico Corriente]. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo, p. 96.

12

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

The symbol of the solid settlement in Cordoba of a dynasty -undoubtedly new in alAndalus, but carrying all the prestige of its well-known bloodline- is obviously the building of a great mosque which from the start appears as a «lighthouse» monument of Muslim art, the first large emblematic religious construction built outside an Eastern capital and founder of Andalusi artistic tradition. The monument, ordered by the first Emir, was built in one year on the esplanade left by the destruction in 169/785 of the constructions existing in the location of the ancient Visigothic cathedral and undoubtedly the first Muslim prayer room. This proves the concentration of economic resources obtained in Cordoba by the state taxation system, the degree of planning of which unknown architects working for the Emir were capable and their surprising ability to innovate while they remained faithful to the tradition of Damascus’ Umayyads.

This first great Umayyad mosque of Cordoba, though slightly hidden from view due to the successive extensions it would be subject to, has been analyzed hundreds of times, insofar as it constitutes the first milestone of an aesthetic and architectural tradition to which the following emirs and subsequently the caliphs successors of the first Umayyad sovereign would remain faithful, and even endow with splendor. It is presented as the starting point of what, seen at a later stage, seems a kind of «dynastic program» that still fascinates both art historians and tourists. Obviously, we will not relate here the umpteenth description, but we will endorse the opinion of Teresa Pérez Higuera, who describes the two levels of arches which sustain the roof as a «brilliant solution».17 The talent of the builder was maybe achieving to erect a mosque, which totally complied with the needs of the Muslim cult and, at the same time, was brand new in architectural terms. It is difficult to know to what extent it is inspired in local traditions (Roman aqueducts of Spain have been recalled in reference to the superposition of the above mentioned arches and the horseshoe arches of the lower level find their precedent in Visigothic churches) or it remains faithful to the patterns brought from the East (the Great Mosque of Damascus also had two levels of superimposed arches, and, on the other hand, the horseshoe arch was found in several monuments also built by the Umayyads in Syria).18 17

Teresa Pérez Higuera (2001). La mezquita de Córdoba, in María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coordinators). El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat alZahra, 3 de mayo a 30 de septiembre de 2001: estudios. Op. Cit., pp. 372-379.

18

Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza (2009) carries out an interesting analysis in La Corona de Castilla y al-Andalus. Préstamos arquitectónicos y grados de asimilación. Espacios, funciones, y lenguajes técnico-formales, in Pierre Toubert and Pierre Moret. Remploi, citation, plagiat conduites et pratiques médiévales (Xe-XIIe siècle). Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, pp. 231-257; in the p. 236: «The Cordoba formula cannot be more “anti-classical”, since the section of the whole structure increases together with the height, just opposite to what happens in the aqueduct of Mérida. This is one of the main differences between Roman and Islamic architecture; while in the first one we could guess to a large extent the structures sustained by studying the foundations of the construction basing on its highly rationalist feature, this would be impossible in the Islamic case, in which we could hardly imagine the hanging walls or the domes of the mosque of Cordoba or the Alhambra of Granada if both buildings had only preserved its foundations».

13

Pierre Guichard

The successors of the first sovereign of the dynasty, with regard to the capital, observed the former’s design. The crown of estates or munyas (‘farms’), which surrounded the city, added to the splendor with new constructions. The most prestigious ones were those of the dynasty itself, beginning with the famous Rusafa, whose construction was ordered by ‘Abd al-Rahman I19 and whose name came from a Syrian residence his ancestors were specially attached to. Even its background is interesting: The Emir bought it from a Berber chief who owned it probably since the conquest.20 Together with his successors new properties appeared, such as the munyat al-Na‘ura, on the right bank of the Guadalquivir further down the city, which was built in the middle of a great orchard by the future Emir ‘Abd Allah before his rise to power in 888. It owed its name to the wheel of a big water mill with which the estate was watered, and it was just one of the properties built by the members of the dynasty and, among them, by the wives of the Emirs, such as the famous munyat ‘Ayab, founded by one of the wives of al-Hakam I (796-822).

Unfortunately, we do not have enough numerical or topographical data concerning the growth of the city of Cordoba during the era of the Umayyad Emirate. It seems to have been important. A well-known and at the same time dramatic historical event reveals this: the famous revolt of the suburb (‘rabad’) of Cordoba which took place in 818. This episode, profusely related in written sources, shows the existence of one of Cordoba’s neighborhoods whose growth Lévi-Provençal summarizes perfectly in his Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: The physiognomy of Cordoba [he writes] had changed a lot since the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman I. The city, already important and populous during the Visigothic era, had received inside its walls, since it became the capital of the Hispanic-Umayyad Emirate, many Arabs coming from the East or Ifriqiya, as well as a certain number of Berber Maghrebians. New neighborhoods had been built at the North and West of the city. On the other hand, since the restoration of the Roman bridge over the Guadalquivir river carried out by Hisham I, the water course that surrounded the city was no longer an obstacle for its extension along the left bank: a noisy and very populated suburb (‘rabad’) spread from the bank to the vicinity of a neighboring village, Saqunda, the ancient Secunda.

This suburb was inhabited not only by the common people from Cordoba, but also by craftsmen and muwallads or Christian small merchants. Thanks to its proximity to the great mosque and the emir’s palace, both located near the 19

Rusafa was the favourite residence of the first emir and was located more than two kilometres away from Cordoba, to the northwest of the precinct, in the first hills which surrounded the plain.

20

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: le siècle du califat de Cordoue. Op. Cit., volume iii, p.

374, no. 2.

14

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

Guadalquivir and only separated from one another by a long street which ended on the bridge, the Mahayya ‘uzma, many citizens whose duties or studies were related to the Government’s headquarters or the main building of worship of the city found it comfortable to settle in the Southern suburb: it was here that the majority of the former Andalusi pupils of Malik Ibn Anas lived, now transformed into well-known and influential faqihs.21 Nothing better, in my opinion, than quoting this passage of the great historian of Muslim Spain to confirm the speed of the changes carried out and their nature. The development of the Southern suburb of Cordoba is just an example of the growth that affected in the same way the rest of the peripheral areas of the capital, to the East, North and West.

The only difference is that we are perfectly aware of its chronology, because its expansion was abruptly stopped by ruthless repression, total destruction and massacre or expulsion of its inhabitants ordered by the Emir al-Hakam I, after the great revolt which took place in 818. It is thus clear that from the beginning of the 9th century the ancient madina of Cordoba had been surrounded by populous suburbs, whose «Islamic» feature is not questioned, since, in fact, the mutual opposition between the religious factions and the urban «masses» composed of merchants and craftsmen concerning certain measures —mainly related to the tax issue— they considered abusive and ungodly according to Islam rules, was the cause of the revolt. This struggle reveals the boom of development that the city was going through at that moment, inasmuch as the elimination of several thousands of rebel inhabitants did not seem to affect more than temporarily the growth of the whole city.22 At the peak of the Emirate, under the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman II (822-852), the son of al-Hakam I, the city reached considerable prosperity unknown until then. Ibn Hayyan associates the sovereign’s foreign prestige with the ornaments with which he decorated the city: He maintained correspondence with sovereigns of several countries, raised palaces, built bridges, brought drinking water from the top of the mountains to his palace, drilling for this purpose solid rock in order to provide his palace with water, according to a well designed plan. This way he obtained water to drink and for his park, and he took the surplus to the fountain he installed in front of the central Southern gate of his 21

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: la conquête et l’émirat hispano-umaiyade: 710-912. Op. Cit., volume i, pp. 161-162.

22

We can add to the issue of the revolt that while the result was unfortunate for the rebels, it had positive consequences for archaeologists: considering that the suburb was destroyed and that an edict which banned new constructions on that location was issued, the preservation of remains at floor level were favoured, and the digs recently carried out have provided a great amount of data concerning the organisation of the neighborhood and the material culture that existed in it.

15

Pierre Guichard

palace, the so-called Garden gate, where water flowed into a marble basin to which everyone who went to the fortress or passed by had access, with great benefit for everybody.23 It was also in times of ‘Abd al-Rahman II when an important enlargement of the great mosque was carried out, nearly doubling the capacity of its prayer room, so it could take in an increasing number of the faithful population which was constantly growing in a heterogeneous city inhabited by Arabs, Berbers and natives and, from the religious point of view, Jews, Muslims descending from the conquerors, many converts and still a great number of Christians. The Umayyad capital was at that moment very lively, and there was an educated and well-off class (‘amma) large enough to give way to the emergence of a cultural center which attracted people from the East who imported the Iraqi trends the population was eager to acquire. This was the role played by the famous Ziryab, a musician and singer who came from Iraq and became the favorite of the high society.24 Obviously, we have more information about the dominant Arabian-Berber class. We have mentioned above the aristocratic property of balat Mughith, located at the Northwest of the conurbation, pertaining to a powerful family of Umayyad clients whose members were part of the highest caste who held power: son of the Mughith who entered Cordoba in 711, ‘Abd al-Malik b. ‘Abd al-Wahid b. Mughith was the general of Hisham I (788-796) and commanded in 793 the army which attacked Narbona and achieved the great victory of Orbieu over the Franks; his brother ‘Abd al-Karim b. ‘Abd al-Wahid, who participated in the same expedition and lead some others, assumed the post of chamberlain or hayib of the Emir al-Hakam I (796-822).25 According to Ibn Hayyan, when this powerful character returned to his own palace after having fulfilled the duties of his official position in the palace of Cordoba, he stopped to greet the «chief» of his lineage, the descendants of the Umayyad Habib b. ‘Abd al-Malik, who, as we have already seen, located near the balat Mughith. He tied his horse at enough distance to walk in and out on foot to honor the family, of which he was still a client (‘mawla’) in spite of his high state status. There were also bonds between these high state ranks and other elements of the society of Cordoba, particularly with the increasing influential category of the fuqaha’ (jurists and religious men) or ulama.

A famous jurist (‘faqih’) related that, when he went with ‘Abd al-Karim in his expedition 23

Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi (2001). Crónica de los emires Alhakam I y Abdarrahman II entre los años 796 y 847 [Almuqtabis II-1].

Op. Cit., pp. 169-170.

24

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: la conquête et l’émirat hispano-umaiyade: 710-912. Op. Cit., volume i, pp. 269-272. Ziryab is just the most evident fact of the process of «orientalization» of society and the State of Cordoba which is developing at that moment.

25

Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi (2001). Crónica de los emires Alhakam I y Abdarrahman II entre los años 796 y 847 [Almuqtabis II-1].

Op. Cit., pp. 95-99. ‘Abd al-Karim died in 824 or 825.

16

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

against Narbona to ensure the legal distribution of the loot, he once received a gift from him consisting of a hundred dinars (that is, in theory a hundred golden coins of about four grams, probably given in silver dirhams, since in al-Andalus they did not at that time mint gold); this gives us an idea of the financial comfort the high personalities of the Umayyad state enjoyed.

Another example of a family, which occupied high positions in the Umayyad state and played a significant role in the development of Cordoba, was the important Berber family of the banu Zayyali. At the moment of the conquest they settled in the kura or Takurunna province (at present the region of Málaga). The first to be mentioned in the texts is Muhammad b. Sa‘id b. Musa b. ‘Isa al-Zayyali, noticed by the Emir ‘Abd al-Rahman due to his poetic and literary skills who named him «private secretary» (‘katib al-sirr’) of the sovereign, a position that did not exist until then. The residence in which he settled with his relatives, to the north of the historical madina of Cordoba, seems to have contributed to the structuring of the area to the extent of giving its name to the neighborhood (the suburb or rabid of the Zayyayila); the family would be since then one of the main families of the capital, since we know of at least 11 members who carried out governmental duties in the high Administration of the Umayyad state, at the end of the Emirate and during the Caliphate.26 Their dynasty also gave name to a park (‘ha’ir’) and a cemetery, and their social preponderance is proved by the fact that, in so far as they hovered around power, they had their own dependents or clients (‘mawali’).27 We do not have as much information about the establishment in Cordoba of other families of the powerful «state aristocracy» which, during the Emirate, formed a kind of «hard core» of power and the main pillar of the Umayyad state. Its most influential elements belonged to the large group of the Eastern mawali (the banu Abi ‘Abda, the banu Hudayr, the banu Shuhayd and some other powerful castes) who were the main contributors to the accession to the Emirate of the first sovereign of the dynasty.28 In the 80s of the 9th century a very serious political crisis began which carried on for several decades and during which a fitna or era of discord and division took place; meanwhile, the country broke up in political terms and the authorities of the central power weakened up to a point at which, for twenty years, no money was minted and no yihad expeditions were carried out at the frontiers. Historians are astonished by the fact that the Umayyad dynasty, under pressure from the opposition throughout the whole al-Andalus territory and almost confined to 26

Mohamed Meouak (1999). Pouvoir souverain, administration centrale et élites politiques dans l’Espagne Umayyade (IIe-IVe/ VIIIe-Xe siècles). Op. Cit., pp. 174-175; and Helena de Felipe (1997). Identidad y onomástica de los beréberes de al-Andalus.

Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (csic), pp. 255-258.

27

Mohamed Meouak (1999). Pouvoir souverain, administration centrale et élites politiques dans l’Espagne Umayyade (IIe-IVe/ VIIIe-Xe siècles). Op. Cit., p. 175.

28

The same work of Mohamed Meouak gives many information on lineage and its power. Ibid.

17

Pierre Guichard

Cordoba during the Emir ‘Abd Allah’s reign (888-912), could manage to maintain power in such conditions. The hypothesis could be posed that one of the elements that allowed the reign’s survival was, together with the local nature of the majority of the dissidences, the importance —demographic, economic and cultural— of a capital that did not question the Umayyad’s power. On this account, the succession was carried out peacefully and without impediment and the weak and passive Emir ‘Abd Allah was substituted by his grandson, the eighth Emir, ‘Abd al-Rahman III (912-961) who, on the contrary, would take Cordoba’s power to its peak by restoring the tenacity of the authority of the central power and recovering the title of caliph that his ancestors had inherited from Damascus (in 929).

While in order to refer to the Umayyad’s capital in the 9th century we often have to resort to the historians’ reconstructions and hypotheses based on the brief indications disseminated in Arab sources, as well as on those recently provided by archaeological digs, in the case of the Caliphate, on the contrary, we can at least refer to a contemporary description, fairly detailed and apparently reliable: that of the Eastern geographer Ibn Hawqal, a great traveler who visited al-Andalus in the 10th century.29 His text reads as follows: The largest city of al-Andalus is Cordoba, with no other equivalent in the Maghreb, except for Upper Mesopotamia, Syria or Egypt, with reference to its population, the area it occupies, the space dedicated to the markets, cleanliness, the architecture of the mosques and the great number of baths and grain storage cooperatives. Several travelers coming from this city who have visited Baghdad say that it equals one of the neighborhoods of the Mesopotamian city. […] Cordoba is perhaps like one of the two halves of Baghdad, but it is not far away from reaching its size. The medina has a stonewall which is located on a beautiful site with spacious esplanades; […] [the sovereign] has his residence and fortress inside the fortified enclosure which surrounds it. The majority of the gates of the fortress connect with the core of the city on several sides. Two gates of the city are open in the wall itself of the medina on the road that leads from Rusafa to the river. The houses of Rusafa are the tallest of the suburbs and its constructions reach the lowest suburb of the city. It is a conurbation which surrounds the city to the East, North and West; when the 29

We know that Ibn Hawqal was in al-Andalus in the summer of 948. He probably stayed there for some time to become familiar with what was happening there, since he provides accurate information on facts that happened later on. His Kitab surat al-ard [Description of the Earth] apparently suffered successive draftings until the end of the 10th century. In this regard, see the review included in the book of Jorge Lirola Delgado and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Biblioteca de al-Andalus: de Ibn al-Dabbag a Ibn Kurz. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, volume 3, pp. 320-321.

18

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

midday sun reflects on the river, along which there is a path called «the reef» (‘al-Rasif’) and over which you can find the bazaars, taverns, caravansaries, baths and the lower-class houses. The mosque temple, beautiful and large, is inside the medina; the prison is located in the vicinity.

Cordoba is separate from the houses of its suburbs, except for one that is attached to it. The medina is located in the centre surrounded by a wall; more than once I have walked the length of the wall within an hour; it is a circular, very solid, stonewall. […] Cordoba has seven iron gates. It is a considerable and large city with an elegant plan. There are large fortunes and luxury spreads out in many ways: in the beautiful fabrics and dresses made of smooth linen, wild or refined silk, as well as in its agile horsemen and the different kinds of food and beverages.30 It is not our intention here to describe in detail the Cordoba of the 10th century, but to transmit the impression the city provoked on an experienced and curious traveler who had already visited nearly all the Muslim world and, thus, could compare what he saw in the capital of al-Andalus with many other cities he had visited, especially the largest of all of them: Baghdad. We can add that he had sympathy for the Fatimid regime of Kairuán and that he was very critical of some other facts he witnessed in the Iberian Peninsula, for instance, the state of the military forces, which he considered insignificant. This makes even more interesting the admiration he feels for the grandeur, the good organization, the pleasant appearance and the wealth of the city. Apparently, he thinks that this is the only city of Dar al-Islam which can be compared to Baghdad.

In the previous quote we have omitted some indications about the princely city of Madinat al-Zahra, which the caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III had been building since the year 936, some kilometers to the West of the madina of Cordoba, and to which the governor and his court were progressively moving. For example, when Ibn Hawqal arrives at the Iberian Peninsula, the minting of money, which until then was done in Cordoba, is taken to Madinat al-Zahra.31 Both the first caliph and his son, al-Hakam II (961-976), will live almost permanently in the new princely city, which on its own was as large as a provincial capital (a hundred of hectares, which at that time corresponded to the area of a city like Toledo).

It was built at great expense —a third of the incomes of the state would have been invested for years—, with the most beautiful buildings constructed with ashlars, imported marbles, 30

Ibn Hawqal (1964). Configuration de la Terre (Kitab surat al-ard). Introduction et traduction, avec index, par Johannes Hendrik Kramers et Gaston Wiet. Beirut and Paris: Commission internationale pour la traduction des chefs-d’oeuvre, Maisonneuve et Larose, volume i, pp. 110-112.

31

Rafael Frochoso Sánchez (1996). Las monedas califales: de ceca al-Andalus y Madinat al-Zahra’ (316-403 H., 928-1013 J. C.). Cordoba: Publicaciones de la Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía, Obra Social y Cultural Cajasur, p. 15.

19

Pierre Guichard

columns and artistic objects brought from different Mediterranean regions.32 Archaeologists have brought to light this immense location, showing its structure and revealed its wealth and restyling. A few kilometers away from Cordoba, this is another element that shows the splendor of the Caliphate.

The Cordoba-Madinat al-Zahra ensemble is completed and enlarged during the 80s of the same century by means of a second palatine city, built this time to the West of Cordoba by the great Amirid hayib al-Mansur during the period in which he rose to power and ruled the Cordoba Caliphate in an almost dictatorial way, a power he extended to the present Morocco; at the end of the 10th century, the said ensemble was an immense conurbation which extended along the right bank of the Guadalquivir river for nearly 15 kilometers. Thanks to the digs that have been carried out in the areas located between the ancient city and the palatine city of Madinat al-Zahra, remains of constructions have been found that support the idea that the urban fabric was also dense in the gap between the main cores that structured this ensemble. All this invites us to consider that the Umayyad capital was at that time comparable to the other two large caliphal conurbations: the Fatimid Cairo and the Abbasid Baghdad. It was during this last stage of growth of the caliphal Cordoba, undoubtedly to meet the increasing demographic needs, when two new enlargements of the great mosque were built: that of al-Hakam II, spattered with notable ornamentation (domes in front of the mihrab, tiles inspired by Byzantine art, new kinds of arches), and that of al-Mansur, more sober and consistent with the first phases of the mosque. All in all, the dimensions of the prayer hall were more than duplicated. It could be said that the enlargement carried out by alMansur, which adds eight lateral naves along the whole prayer hall to the eleven that already existed, responded particularly to the increase of the army’s permanent forces due to the recruitment of saqaliba (European slaves, «Slavs» at first) and Berbers, mainly concentrated in the capital and its vicinity; but also that it was necessary to take into account the size of a metropolis which had become the political, economic and cultural centre of an empire that around the year 1000 extended from the Ebro Valley to the limit of the Sahara.33 32

Manuel Gómez-Moreno (1951). Ars Hispaniae: historia universal del arte hispánico. El arte árabe español hasta los almohades.

Arte mozárabe. Madrid: Plus Ultra, volume 3; or, more briefly, Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1999). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane: le califat umaiyade de Cordoue (912-1031). Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, volume ii, pp. 138-139, already allowed to catch a glimpse of the luxury displayed in Madinat al-Zahra. Many full color publications have spread in the last twenty years images concerning the architecture and objects which show this princely luxury, such as the two works published by El Legado Andalusí on the occasion of the exhibition of Madinat al-Zahra, from the 3rd of May to the 30th of September 2001, in María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coordinators).

El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat al-Zahra, 3 de mayo a 30 de septiembre de 2001: estudios. Op. Cit.

33

The best synthesis on the Umayyad metropolis, focused on its peak moment, is that of Manuel Acién Almansa and Antonio Vallejo Triano (2000). Cordoue, in Jean Claude Garcin (dir.). Grandes villes méditerranéennes du monde musulman médiéval. Roma: École Française de Rome, pp. 117-134. The idea of an Umayyad «empire» which extended from the Sahara to the Pyrenees can undoubtedly be questioned, but it can anyhow be supported by certain «tangible» facts such as the minting of golden coins in the name of the Cordoba caliphs in the presaharan city of Sidjilmassa.

20

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

It is almost impossible to determine how many inhabitants Cordoba could have at that moment. Various figures have been suggested which range from a thousand to a million, and we should not depart from these two extremes.34 We do not know if the immensity of the Umayyad capital, maybe excessive for the supply possibilities of that moment, contributed to the weakening that would occur later on, in comparison to Baghdad at the time of the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate. We can only confirm that its peak was suddenly interrupted as a result of the deep crisis which affected the Caliphate since the «Cordoba revolution» of the year 1009, apparently provoked by the incapacity to govern of the second son of al-Mansur, ‘Abd al-Rahman «Sanchuelo»; he ascended to power in 1007, undoubtedly due to the various internal tensions which affected the regime. The following two decades will be characterized by the rivalry between the different political-military factions which aspired to take control of Cordoba, a correlative weakening of central power and the appearance of multiple local powers which progressively shaped the new political geography of al-Andalus: the fifteen years of the «Taifa kingdoms» already created when the Cordoba Caliphate disappears completely in 1031. The power established in Cordoba itself corresponds exactly with the socio-historical reality of a down-at-heel capital, as the urban oligarchy decided to entrust power to one of the families of the «state aristocracy» constituted by the group of the mawali Umayyads: the banu Yahwar; power does not extend anymore beyond the city and its immediate vicinity, as other local powers independent from Cordoba appear everywhere, in Seville, Granada and other secondary cities of Andalucía such as Morón or Carmona.

In contrast to the splendor the city had acquired in the 10th century, the political history of Cordoba during the Taifa Kingdoms of the 11th century is particularly dull. The short dynasty of the banu Yahwar (1031-1070) is formed by three rulers who illustrate very well the thesis of Ibn Jaldún about the decline of the princely powers. The first of them, Abu l-Hazm Yahwar, was recognized by the oligarchs from Cordoba when the Caliphate disappeared as a sort of primus inter pares responsible for taking care of the city issues. He is presented solely as the most eminent member of the vizier’s council and he avoids adopting any nickname for his kingdom (‘laqab’), trying not to confer a monarchical aspect to his power. His son, Abu l-Walid Muhammad, who succeeded him in 1043, imitated his caution. He merely adopted the modest laqab of al-Rashidm («the one who shows the good 34

We could establish as a reasonable number the figure of 270,000 inhabitants suggested by Jesús Zanón (1989) in his small book Topografía de Córdoba almohade a través de las fuentes árabes. Madrid: csic, Instituto de Filología, p.

18, taking into account that the only reason for this choice is its «moderate» feature. Manuel Acién Almansa and Antonio Vallejo Triano, in the work quoted in the previous footnote, recall that in a census ordered by al-Mansur the total figure would have been established between 200,000 and 300,000 houses (there are differences between the sources) belonging to the khassa (‘common people’) and the ‘amma (‘aristocracy’), and they would be inclined towards the higher hypothesis, in the light of the said figures and certain archaeological evidences which indicate a quite dense urban fabric (pp. 121-122).

21

Pierre Guichard

path»). But after him, his son ‘Abd al-Malik, who succeeded him in 1063, after having destabilized with his maneuvers the state of Cordoba when his father was still alive, breaks up with this tradition of governmental modesty by accumulating ostentatious caliphal-style laqabs (such as that of al-Mansur bi-Llah, «the one to whom God gives victory»), in the same way that other taifa sovereigns did although with more logic, since they had more power and less unpopularity. The power of the third Yahwaride lacks strength. He is unpopular, hardly any money is minted in Cordoba and the weakness of his military forces encouraged his neighbors, the Toledo and Cordoba Emirs, of a different rank, to pursue the annexation to his states of such a historically prestigious city. In 1070, the situation finally comes to an end in favor of the Abbadid Kingdom of Seville, which was unifying under its aegis the majority of the Southern al-Andalus, from the Algarve to Murcia.

Undoubtedly, the caliphal metropolis of the 10th century suffered from many serious political-military conflicts during the second decade of the 11th century. The two princely cities of Madinat al-Zahra and Madinat al-Zahira were looted and devastated. We know the name of several personalities who lost their lives in those lootings carried out by rival factions, briefly victorious: this was the case of the famous author of the first great biobibliographic dictionary of Andalusi wise men, Ibn al-Faradi, who was killed by the Berbers in favor of the caliphal power when the capital was plundered in April 1013. There are many references concerning political-administrative and intellectual elites who became dispersed throughout the provinces due to these riots. This was the case of many civil servants saqaliba or of the family of the «dictator» al-Mansur himself, who we find again later on in power in the Sharq (eastern region) of Valencia, as well as many other influential personalities of cultural Andalusi life. The author of El collar de la paloma [The Ring of the Dove], the great Ibn Hazm, of whom it is always said he is «from Cordoba» because it was where he was born and where he began his studies, left the city when he was eighteen, after the looting of the Berbers and he would only come back occasionally between his long stays in the Eastern and Western regions. His case is quite interesting from the point of view of the disappearance of a part of the old caliphal conurbation: we know for sure that, having spent his childhood as the son of the vizier in a munya called de al-Mughira, located in the neighborhood created around the Amirid residence of Madinat al-Zahira, and subsequently in another aristocratic residence situated in balat Mughith, both houses were destroyed by the riots, and when later on he lived for a while in the city, he had to stay in the house of one of his family’s relatives, maybe inside the old part of the city.35 We can only suggest hypotheses regarding the reduction of probably two thirds of the urban space of Cordoba between the 10th and 11th century. Antonio Almagro, who has tried to make such hypotheses, suggests for the second period a surface of 185 hectares 35

See the article of José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004) dedicated to Ibn Hazm in Biblioteca de al-Andalus: de Ibn al-Dabbag a Ibn Kurz, published by Jorge Lirola and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez himself. Op. Cit., volume 3, pp. 392-443 (pp. 392-395).

22

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

and a population of 65,000 inhabitants, undoubtedly more concentrated than that of the previous century, when a four or five times larger population had spread throughout an immense area of 2,500 hectares.36 This figure of some tens of thousands of inhabitants, which will still be acceptable during the following century, refers however to a still important urban reality, although it did not place the city in the very first rank of Andalusi capitals.

Seville, for instance, inside its 12th century precincts, is undoubtedly much more vast and populated, with almost 300 hectares and around 100,000 inhabitants. In this same area, a great Western city would not have more than 50,000 inhabitants. The prestige of Cordoba had such an influence that in the 11th and 12th century it still maintains its predominant cultural role. The famous phrase of Averroes, cadi of the city from 1180 to 1190,37 said that if a musician died in Cordoba, his instruments would be taken to Seville, while if a wise man died in the latter city, his books would be taken to Cordoba. However, we state that since the 11th century a great poet such as Ibn Zaydun began his life in 1003 in Cordoba, where he lived his first forty years, but his last twenty years were spent in Seville, where he dies in 1071.38 At the end of the 11th century the dispossession of the taifas’ sovereigns takes place by Yusuf b. Tashfin, the powerful leader of the Almoravid movement that had just imposed in Morocco, from its new capital Marrakech, the authority of a regime aimed at reforming Islam. The advance of the «Reconquista» of al-Andalus begun by the Christian kings (the taking of Toledo in 1085) is interrupted. The destiny of Valencia, temporarily occupied by el Cid (1087-1099) finally falls to the Almoravids, who reconquer it in 1102. From the end of the 11th century to the beginning of the 13th century, al-Andalus is successively linked to two large «African» empires: that of the Almoravids and, in the middle of the 12th century, that of the Almohads, who overthrew the first. All this provokes vicissitudes in Cordoba, such as a revolt in the city in 1121, under the Almoravid power, as well as the creation of an autonomous power headed by the cadi of the city coinciding with the crisis of the Almoravid regime (in the years 1145-1146, when the so called second Kingdoms of Taifas were established). Obviously, it is not our intention here to narrate history in detail when the Christian Reconquista reached Cordoba in 1236. This happened after the fall of the Almohad regime in al-Andalus (1228), during a new period of political fragmentation logically called third Kingdoms of Taifas. However, it is interesting to point out that, on the contrary to what happened in other cities (mainly Murcia, Valencia, Granada and Seville), Cordoba did not play a prominent political role and no independent political power was established in the city.

36

Antonio Almagro (1987). «Planimetría de las ciudades hispanomusulmanas», Al-Qantara, viii, p. 427.

37

See the article about Ibn Rushd written by several authors in the volume 4 of the book of Jorge Lirola Delgado (2006). Biblioteca de al-Andalus: de Ibn al-Labbana a Ibn al-Ruyuli. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, p. 524.

38

See the review of Jaime Sánchez Ratia focused on Ibn Zaydun in the volume 6 of Jorge Lirola Delgado (2009).

Biblioteca de al-Andalus: de Ibn al-Yabbab a Nubdat al-‘Asr. Op. Cit., pp. 287-304.

23

Pierre Guichard

The demographic situation of Cordoba during the whole period of the Berber-Andalusi empires is not easier to determine than in previous eras. The old capital of the Umayyad caliphs is still, undeniably, a great city of provinces. It still maintains an important intellectual activity. To confirm the latter it is sufficient to mention the name of the greatest Islam philosopher already quoted, Averroes, who was born and lived the most part of his life in Cordoba. However, the city still had to suffer more political-military riots that would stir up that era, particularly the wars between the Almohads and the independent Emir of Murcia, Ibn Mardanish, which took place in the region at the end of the 50s of the 12th century. We ignore what an Almohad secretary and chronicler, Ibn Sahib al-Sala, actually means when he states that in September 1162, being in Cordoba at the time of the entrance into the city of two princes of the Almohad dynasty returning from an expedition precisely against the said Emir of Murcia, Ibn Mardanish, the city did not have more than 82 men, since the rest «had left during the rebellion to retire to the countryside. This depopulation and emigration revealed its misery and disgrace; their country was immersed in desolation and they were dressed in rags».39 Undoubtedly, he refers to the ‘amma, the urban aristocracy, but his testimony deserves to be taken into account. What has been said above concerning the lack of «reaction» of the city after the disappearance of the Almohad regime is more in the sense of a really reduced dynamism, which observes events in a passive way. Without being able to provide real statistics, it is confirmed that, while the illustrated and wise people from Cordoba quoted in biographical dictionaries were more numerous in Cordoba than in Seville until the middle of the 11th century, in the Almohad era it was the second city that took the lead.40 This lack of dynamism in Cordoba is also revealed in its archaeological remains.

While the constructions carried out by the Almohads in Seville are famous (beginning with the Giralda, an ancient minaret of the great mosque built at that time) and in Murcia important remains from the 12th and 13th centuries have been discovered, there are no testimonies of such building activity in Cordoba, which lives off, so to 39

Ibn Sahib al-Sala (1969). Al-Mann bil-imama: estudio preliminar [translated by Ambrosio Huici Miranda]. Valencia: Anúbar, p. 49. The figure may seem quite unbelievable, but it is also exactly reproduced by a later author (Ibn al-Abbar). Moreover, in the context of the text, it is quite clear that Ibn Sahib al-Sala refers to the «noble families» who remained in Cordoba, whose chiefs, as it can be imagined, left the city together with their civil servants from Seville —including the author— to welcome the two Almohad princes.

40

This is perfectly summarised by an Eastern author such as Yaqut (1179-1229), who says that in his era the splendor of Seville still remains while «Cordoba is in a decline stage, nothing more than a city of the central region [of al-Andalus]», Gamal ‘Abd al-Karim (1974). La España musulmana en la obra de Yaqut (s. xii-xiii): repertorio enciclopédico de ciudades, castillos y lugares de al-Andalus: extracted from the Mu‘yam al-buldan (dictionary of the countries). Granada: Publicaciones del Seminario de Historia del Islam, Universidad de Granada. This weakening, also cultural, of the city is deduced from the calculation of the number of wise men who lived in the different Andalusi cities in each period; see the tables proposed by Christine Mazzoli-Guintard (1996). Villes d’al-Andalus. L’Espagne et le Portugal à l’époque musulmane (VIIIe-XVe siècles). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes II, pp. 332-334.

24

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

speak, the architectural heritage left since the Umayyad era. It is true that the qasr (‘palace’) or the governor’s palace inherited from the Umayyads was enough for the political mediocrity of the city, and that the great mosque, which was still the biggest mosque in use of the Muslim world at the time, was also more than enough for the needs of the congregation. Nonetheless, the city still maintained its symbolic prestige: in 1109 the work of Ghazali, Revivificación de las ciencias religiosas [The Revival of Religious Sciences] was burnt in front of its western gate because the Andalusi fuqaha’ did not like it.41 The Arabian authors who describe Cordoba later on dedicate enthusiastic pages to its splendor. What follows is an example of ‘Abd al-Mun‘im al-Himyari, a Maghrebian author of the end of the 13th century and beginning of the 14th century, for whom the mosque of Cordoba is: […] one of the most beautiful monuments of the world, for its large area and the perfection of its plan, the richness of its adornment and the strength of its construction… There is no comparison in the Muslim world, neither of its ornamentation nor its width and length.42 We can conclude this contribution comparing these favorable lines, not very surprising since they come from an Arab-Muslim author, from which we know of the admiration the Christians professed to the mosque of Cordoba. Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza highlights suggestively this point, which could be perceived from the perspective of history of art and through texts: «The impact that the mosque of Cordoba had during the Middle Ages among the Christian Kingdoms was tremendous», he writes.43 In fact, it is not just a matter of admiration; according to the same author: The mosque of Cordoba became […] thus a source of patterns for the visual culture of the sacred from the 9th century onwards, although the conquest of the city in 1236 by the troops of Fernando III undoubtedly deepened knowledge and opinion, as it has been made clear by the laudatory texts written by important and crucial personalities of the 13th and 14th 41

Jacinto Bosch Vilá (1990). Los almorávides. Granada: Universidad de Granada, p. 248.

42

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (publisher and translator) (1938). La péninsule Ibérique au Moyen Age d’après le Kitab ar-Rawd al-mi‘tar fi habar al-aktar d‘Ibn Abd al-Mun‘im al-Himyari: texte arabe des notices relatives à l’Espagne, au Portugal et au Sud-Ouest de la France. Leiden: E. J. Brill, p. 183. In reference to al-Himyari, whose exact identity has been discussed, see the article of Vicente Carlos Navarro Oltra (2012), in Jorge Lirola Delgado and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (eds.). Biblioteca de al-Andalus: de al-Abbadiya a Ibn Abyad. Almería: Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, volume 1, pp. 444-451.

43

Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza (2009). La Corona de Castilla y al-Andalus. Préstamos arquitectónicos y grados de asimilación. Espacios, funciones y lenguajes técnico-formales, in Pierre Toubert and Pierre Moret. Remploi, citation, plagiat. Conduites et pratiques médiévales (Xe-XIIe siècle). Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, p. 240.

25

Pierre Guichard

centuries of the prestige of Pedro Jiménez de Rada, Alfonso X, don Juan Manuel or the chancellor Pedro López de Ayala.44 From this point on there is a process of assimilation of such Muslim models in the development of Mudejar art. The dynamism of the art of Castilla has such magnitude, continues Ruiz Sousa, that occasionally it integrates and adapts these models with even more creativity than the Muslim art from Granada itself, imbued with a higher conservatism.45 But this is another stage of the history of the Iberian-Arab culture that is not the responsibility of the mediaeval scholar.

44

Ibid, p. 253.

45

Ruiz Souza refers in this regard to Almagro Gorbea and Ladero Quesada («This is the reason why we would come back to the approach of Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, exposed above, about the assimilation of the Andalusi material heritage and its subsequent development under the creativity of the whole new society which appeared after the conquests of the Christian troops»). Idem, pp. 244-245.

26

Cordoba, from the Muslim Conquest to the Christian Conquest

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR Pierre Guichard is a professor emeritus of Medieval History at the University of LumièreLyon 2, specialist in History of Muslim Spain, senior member of the scientific section of the Casa de Velázquez of Madrid and associated to the Academy of Ancient Scripts and Writings (Institut de France). He has published several works, among which are Al-Andalus.

Estructura antropológica de una sociedad islámica en Occidente (Barcelona, 1976) and Les musulmans de Valence et la Reconquête (XIe-XIIIe siècles) (Damasco, 1990-1991).

ABSTRACT Cordoba is one of the «legendary cities» of the area of contact between the Arab-Muslim world and the Christian world. In this article we have tried to show the splendor of the ancient capital of the Umayyads of al-Andalus since they chose it, instead of Seville, as the capital of one of the provinces of the Damascus Caliphate after the Arab conquest of the 8th century until its occupation by the Christians in 1236. In the 9th century, the city, under the Emirate, undergoes a very fast process of growth and orientalization and, in the 10th century, a tremendously brilliant peak during the Caliphate. Together with the two princely cities built in the vicinity, around the year 1000 it is one of the largest conurbations of the Mediterranean world. The fall of the Caliphate at the beginning of the 11th century puts an end to its political predominance. Living on its previous glory and in spite of its demographic decrease, it still maintains a certain cultural splendor during the 11th and 12th centuries, until it is finally substituted by Seville. However, its incomparable great mosque and the remains of the nearby caliphal city of Madinat al-Zahra still witness this glorious legacy.

KEYWORDS Qurtuba, Cordoba, al-Andalus, history.

27

QURTUBA’S MONUMENTALITY AND ARTISTIC SIGNIFICANCE José Miguel Puerta Vílchez For me, Cordoba is Art. Outside Art, Arab-Islamic presence bears no significant meaning in Cordoba.

Adonis, 20071

N

otwithstanding the importance of Qurtuba, together with Baghdad, as the main source of Humanist learning in classic Arab Islam, the Umayyad capital can unquestionably lay claim to the distinction of being an exceptional and active centre of artistic creation. In fact its architecture and manufactures became an essential symbol of the splendor of Islamic art, capturing the attention, first of all, of its own Arabian erudition in Al-Andalus and then, later, the attention of the Hispanic and European scholars. This interest has expanded even more in modern times and today art historians, artists, authors, collectors, the media and the public from all walks of life continue to admire the wealth, monumentality and subtlety of its art forms. The complete volume that al-Maqqari devoted, within his great encyclopaedia of the history and literature of Al-Andalus (1629-1630), to the description of Qurtuba, gathering together an extensive anthology of texts by the most important chroniclers, poets and scholars from all the eras of Al-Andalus, or travelers who visited it,2 comprises a striking and enlightening palimpsest that offers a detailed and on occasions hyperbolical image of the face of a splendorous city, maqarr al-mulk (‘Seat of the Sovereignty’) and qubbat al-islam (‘Dome of Islam’), with its doors, walls, abundant mosques, baths, gardens, country houses and palaces and, more specifically, the Great Mosque and the palatine cities of al-Zahra and al-Zahira. It does also not forget the civil war (‘fitna’), which saw the end of the Caliphate and how Qurtuba became, thanks to the subsequent Andalusi and Arabian literature, a symbol of the decline and transient nature of all human construction. Fortunately, a significant example of that extraordinary conjunction of «manual and imaginative genius» as Adonis defines the «architectural-artistic miracle» that is Qurtuba’s Great Mosque lives on, not only at monumental scale (very much concentrated around the city of Cordoba) and 1

Adonis (2008). Gaymatun fawqa Qurtuba [Cloud over Cordoba] (21/04/2007), in Laysa al-ma’u wahda-hu yawaban ‘ani l-‘atash [Water does not only quench thirst]. Dubai, p. 42.

2

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Beirut: Ed. by I. ‘Abbas, Vol. iv [of 8 vols.], with references and texts by al-Razi, Ibn Bashkwal, Ibn Sa‘id, Ibn Hayyan, Ibn Jaqan, al-Hiyari, Ibn Hawqal, Ibn al-Jatib and others, including poets of all genres and walks of life.

29

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

in the refined miniaturist decoration of numerous sumptuary and popular objects (widely dispersed among museums in Spain and on other continents) but also in the high level of aesthetic self-awareness shown in the texts and in the exhibition of the names and signatures of the patrons responsible for and orchestrators of the works.

The Prodigious Great Mosque of Qurtuba According to Arabian sources, when ‘Abd al-Rahman I, al-Dajil (‘the Immigrant’), reached Qurtuba he began an intense military, civil and religious building program3 designed to convert the former Roman and Visigoth city into the «capital of Al-Andalus» (‘qa‘idat Al-Andalus’) and «government seat» (‘qa‘idat al-mulk’) of the new and first Islamic state of the Iberian Peninsula. The most momentous project of all this was, obviously, the Great Mosque (Illustration I). Commenced in 165 H. (785/786 A.D.), the project required an investment of «eighty thousand dinars» and was rapidly completed on the remains of a modest Christian building, St Vincent’s Church, which, according to the same sources, the Emirate acquired following negotiations with the Christians «for one hundred dinars», thus re-enacting the story of the founding of Damascus’ Great Mosque on the site of the temple of John the Baptist. Both Christian edifices were located, in turn, on the sites of Roman temples, with which the new Great Mosques of both Umayyad capitals stand on «sacralized» sites as an expression of continuity and symbolic surmounting of the preIslamic past. Its anonymous master builder designed it with a square ground plan measuring 80 square cubits, both for the patio and for the prayer hall (with sides measuring around 76 m), following the models of the first oriental Umayyad mosques, with 11 naves perpendicular to the kiblah wall and 12 rows of recycled Roman, Early Christian and Visigoth-Byzantine columns. Showing great creativity and architectural skill, to compensate for the extremely weak foundations of the prayer hall, limited to a few stones under each column, and the way the top of the building linked together via the flat wooden roofs that connected the naves under the ashlar stone perimeter wall, which were what gave them consistency, he invented a new and daring system of overlapping arches, which would be perpetuated in the successive enlargements of the mosque and maintained in subsequent Christian interventions, agglutinating up to the present day the image par excellence of the monument. This system, so frequently described and admired, was calculated in proportion to the ground plan taken coherently as a whole, and it consists in the overlapping of two arches of a different order; the lower horseshoe arches (intrados of 55 cm), which act as braces between the pillars that support the upper arches, which are rounded and double 3

‘Abd al-Rahman al-Dajil «began the aggrandisement of Qurtuba, renewing its buildings, constructing new ones, fortifying them with walls and building the Emirate palace-fortress and the Great Mosque, with a large patio; he also reconditioned the mosques in the coras [districts] and built the city of al-Rusafa for his own personal enjoyment, including a beautiful palace and extensive gardens, where he transplanted unusual plants and valuable trees from Syria and other regions». Ibidem, p. 546.

30

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

the width of the former (intrados of 107 cm) and support a 45 cm wide channel that drains water between the naves’ pitched roofs to the patio. This is a progression from the lintel structure used to overlap the arches in the large oriental Umayyad religious constructions (Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa and Damascus mosques), increasing the sensation of weightlessness and the fantasy of architectural multiplicity and movement and emphasized by the two-color red/white painted decoration on the arch voussoirs.4 Furthermore, the placement of the pillars made it necessary to select them laterally in order to fit them elegantly on the capitals, creating the scroll modillions; the pillars, as in the case of the two horseshoe arches attached to each pillar, rest on a cross-shaped stone piece added to the capital and which, though imperceptible, is a key cohesive element.5 Illustration 1. View of the prayer hall, looking towards the patio, in the first Qurtuba Great Mosque built by ‘Abd al-Rahman I in the 8th century.

Source: Photograph by Agustín Núñez.

Also remaining from the 8th century mosque is the bab al-Wuzara’ (Viziers Door, subsequently San Esteban Door), the outer façade of which was reformed under the orders of Masrur, servant (‘fatà’) of Emir Muhammad I, in 241 (855/856), according to the Kufic 4

Apart from any possible symbolic values that may be attributed to both colors (white was the color of the Umayyads, red was mentioned in the hadiz as the Prophet’s favourite color), in Arab literature and philosophy, the combination of both colors, white due to its luminosity and purity, red due to its link to life, were considered signs of aesthetic superiority; this two-color pattern, which is one of the modalities of the al-ablaq technique (black and white or contrasts of other colors, habitually found in Syrian architecture), was one of the predominant characteristics of the Cordovan Umayyads and it singled out their works and many of their decorative designs.

5

Among the abundant bibliography on the monument, I remit at this point to the study by Antonio FernándezPuertas (2009). Excavaciones en la Mezquita de Córdoba, in Antonio Fernández-Puertas and Purificación Marinetto Sánchez (2009).

Arte y cultura. Patrimonio Hispanomusulmán en al-Andalus. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, pp. 9-132, where he reviews significant aspects of the mosque’s structure and decoration, based on documents, images and unpublished data obtained by Félix Hernández during his excavations. See also Manuel Nieto Cumplido (2005). La Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba. Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Granada: Edilux; Christian Ewert (1995). La Mezquita de Córdoba: santuario modelo del Occidente islámico, in Rafael López Guzmán (coord.). La arquitectura del islam occidental.

Granada: El Legado Andalusí, pp. 53-68; Rafael Moneo (1985). «La vida de los edificios. Las ampliaciones de la Mezquita de Córdoba», Arquitectura, 256, pp. 26-36, a revealing analysis of the building and its Christian transformations from the perspective of a present-day architect; and the subtle synthesis with good bibliographic guidelines left by Juan A. Souto (2007). «La Mezquita Aljama de Córdoba», Artigrama, 22, pp. 37-72.

31

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

inscription over its lintel;6 it should not be forgotten that this Emir was, in turn, the constructor of the Mayrit fortress, from which, centuries later, Madrid would be born. This façade, the tripartite structure of which, flanked by tower-like buttresses, has late Roman and oriental Umayyad precedents, constitutes the very origins of the Andalusi monumental doors. In the center, the door with lintel is framed by «Cordovan» arches with alternate red voussoirs and embossed plant motifs; the horseshoe arch, with Visigoth and not oriental antecedents, but with wide extrados in a proportion of 2:3 in the arch, two-colored red/ white painted decoration on the voussoirs and a thin protruding rectangular frame, would become, from this moment on, the classic Qurtuba arch, unmistakable due to the solemnity and delicateness of its shape. Above the three small blind horseshoe arches on the upper section of the façade, there are eaves supported by corbels with modillions, circled overhead by the stonework of stepped crenulations, imported from the Middle East and which, as from this moment, would become a habitual characteristic of Andalusi architecture.

To the right and left, the upper decorative section contains two marble lattices and below these, flanking the entrance door, the remains of the oldest plant motifs carved in stone on the outside of the mosque. The initial project was completed by the son and successor of the Immigrant, Hisham I (788-796), who built the minaret, the ground plan of which was marked out on the floor of the Patio de los Naranjos, as well as the mida’a, a 20 × 16 m pavilion for ablutions, which contained latrines and was located on the outside of the east-facing façade of the prayer hall, though it was hidden with the extension carried out by Almanzor.

The progressive development of Qurtuba led ‘Abd al-Rahman II (ca. 848 A.D.) to extend the mosque with eight new sections of columns, the foundation of which were now laid in a continuous line for each row of columns, and which incorporated 17 Cordoba-built capitals, which were still not as refined as those made during the Caliphate period; the mihrab of the first mosque, probably a niche crowned by a round arch with scallops,7 was replaced with a new mihrab located further south, with stepped footings and overhanging from the wall of the new kiblah, in front of which two white fluted Roman marble columns were placed to highlight it. The two pairs of red and black columns that supported the arch of this mihrab were conserved, according to Ibn ‘Idari,8 by al-Hakam II in his construction and they can still 6

Manuel Ocaña Jiménez describes the pyramidal hierarchy of project management and completion, based on the inscriptions and other sources preserved: 1) Honorary project manager (Emir or Caliph); 2) Construction manager (‘sahib al-bunyan’); 3) Construction inspector (‘nazir al-bunyan’); and 4) Laborers: ‘urafa’ or Master builders (‘banna’un’), Surveyors (‘muhandissun’) and artisans (‘sunna’), as well as the artisan builders and sculptors (‘naqqashun’).

See Manuel Ocaña Jiménez (1986). «Arquitectos y mano de obra en la construcción de la gran mezquita de Occidente», Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 22, pp. 5-85. Recently, Juan A. Souto (2010) reviewed these data and extended them to all the Umayyad architecture of between 711 and 1013, in «Siervos y afines en Al-Andalus omeya a la luz de las inscripciones constructivas», Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie III, Historia Medieval, 23, pp. 205-263, where he provides a list of over 80 people, principals, managers and artisans, based on their signatures and lapidary symbols.

7

See Antonio Fernández-Puertas (2009). Excavaciones en la Mezquita de Córdoba. Op. Cit., pp. 46-49.

8

Ibn ‘Idari [edited by Georges Seraphin Colin and Évariste Lévi-Provençal] (1998). Al-Bayan al-Mugrib, II. Beirut: Dar al-Taqafa, p. 238.

32

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

be seen today. Prior to that, his father, ‘Abd al-Rahman III, al-Nasir li-Din Allah (‘Defender of the Divine Religion’), following proclamation of the Caliphate in 929, had remodeled the mosque’s patio, first of all building a new minaret in 340-341 (951-952), for which the previous one was demolished and the patio was extended, and later, in du l-hiyya in 346 (23 February-24 March 958, according to the commemorative plaque that attributes the project to the Vizier and Magistrate Sa‘id ibn Ayyub), the oratory façade overlooking the patio was reinforced, given that it had been affected by the increased load of the eight new sections added during the extension carried out by ‘Abd al-Rahman II. The access arch to the central nave, which is wider than the others, still conserves the 10th century red and white geometric bands, together with the more sober 8th century arch. Clearly, the new Caliph was in a hurry to build a new monumental minaret; however, this strange 47.14 m. high construction in the form of two parallel towers and with separate stairways, one on each side of a dividing wall, was to become a visual reference point in Qurtuba, as well as the focus of admiration and subsequent emulation in Al-Andalus and the Maghreb. According to the intervention by Félix Hernández Giménez9 and his restoration based on the remains embedded in the tower of the cathedral designed by Hernán Ruiz II in the 16th century, the minaret, built with ashlar stones on headers and stretchers, had two storeys of windows at the same height, with three small blind horseshoe arches on one wall with geometric decorations, supported by four columns (on the east and west sides), and two open windows with double arches and mullioned columns (on the north and south sides). These windows incorporated the first columns attached to jambs to be found in Caliphate art. Overhead there was a frieze with nine small arches, with intertwined extrados and frames like those of the windows, topped by the stepped crenulations that crowned this huge lower tower. Above this tower there was a second little tower with a chamber for the Muezzins, probably covered with a small dome topped with a yamur with four golden spheres and which, together with the stucco cladding imitating white ashlars bordered by layers of red ochre mortar, would have produced an impressive sensation of majesty and vigor, worthy of the Caliphate.

After 961, the imposing minaret was joined by the most spectacular enlargement of the mosque, carried out by al-Hakam II, who had been in charge of his father’s project in Madinat al-Zahra. Here, he added 12 new sections of columns and, although the kiblah of the Great Mosque in the aforementioned palatine city had been oriented years previously towards the southeast (with an error of 9º), for the one in Qurtuba it was decided to maintain the original traditional south orientation, for which the land that drops away towards the Guadalquivir was leveled. Not only does the Umayyad architecture reach its maximum splendor at this point, but also many historians consider that this work by al-Hakam II represents the greatest milestone in western Islamic architecture; its constituent components, so often dwelled upon, can be summarized as follows: 9

Félix Hernández Giménez (1975). El alminar de ‘Abd al-Rahman III en la mezquita mayor de Córdoba: génesis y repercusiones.

Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra.

33

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

a) Unified construction of all the columns with reddish and grayish alternating shafts that converge in diagonals of both colors in the small red and black double pillars of the mihrab. b) New system with four domes, forming a T and with the footings laid out over Villaviciosa Chapel, where this extension begins, three of which lighted and ennobled the maqsura in front of the mihrab, which encompasses five naves and rises up over ten meters.

It should be noted that these domes, built with eight intertwined arches on an octagonal base, were the first monumental ridged domes known and they would find continuity in the Andalusi constructions (Bab Mardum Mosque10 and Du l-Nun Palace in Toledo, Aljaferia Oratory in Zaragoza), in North African buildings (al-Qubba al-Murabitiya or al-Barudiyin in Marrakech and the Tremecen Great Mosque, both Almoravid), in the Gothic, Mudejar, European Baroque styles (San Lorenzo in Turin, by Guarino Guarini, 17th C.) and in modern architecture (Islamic Centre in Rome, 1996). c) In the magnificent aforementioned maqsura, the area reserved for the Caliph in front of the mihrab (Illustration 2) is delimited by screens of overlapping arches, which include lobed arches imported from the Abbasid architecture, but which in Qurtuba reached unexpected splendor, becoming the protagonists of the façades in which intertwined and projected arches were also used in order to create a greater sense of opulence and architectural complexity than that offered by the original overlapping arches, which were still reproduced, nevertheless, in other areas of these extensions. These new elevations become large and unexpected «trellises» derived from the overlapping, projection and intertwinement of poly-lobed, horseshoe and round arches that, furthermore, display greater density in the stucco decoration. The visual and plastic effectiveness of these arches does not, however, pose any obstacle for them to distribute the load and tensile strength of the domes.

10

Although many of the components of Qurtuba Great Mosque survived, today there are few examples of the Andalusian religious architecture linked to its aesthetics; the most significant of these is the small Bab Mardum Mosque (later the temple of Cristo de la Luz) in Toledo, financed by a Toledo nobleman in 999-1000, that is, a few years after the extension carried out by Almanzor. Almost square with a ground plan in T and structured in 3 × 3 compartments, its most outstanding aspect is the dome in front of the mihrab, which clearly emulates the Cordoban model, but at a much smaller scale.

34

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

Illustration 2. Maqsura and mihrab of Qurtuba Great Mosque; extension carried out by al-Hakam II (ca. 965-970 A.D.).

Source: Photograph by Agustín Núñez.

d) Returning to the traditions of the oriental Umayyad sanctuaries (Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa and Damascus mosques, the now disappeared Medina mosque), a magnificent mosaic design was added to the mihrab façade, in the central dome and the two lateral doors leading to the bayt al-mal (‘treasury’) and the sabat (two-storey passageway that connected, via an exterior enclosed bridge, with the Caliphate palacefortress); the mosaics were laid in 360 (970/971) under the orders of Ya‘far, and not only are they unique in Al-Andalus, but they can also be considered the culmination and epilogue of this art in classic Islam. In this respect, it is habitual to quote Ibn ‘Idari, according to whom the Byzantine monarch (‘malik al-Rum’), after receiving a message from al-Hakam II requesting an artisan «to emulate that done» by Caliph al-Walid in Damascus Mosque, sent him a gift of 320 quintals of mosaics (‘fusayfisa’) together with an artisan (‘sani‘’), with whom al-Hakam put a group of slaves to work so that they could learn this art (li-ta‘allum al-sina‘a); the slaves became so proficient that the artisan was no longer required and was returned, together with valuable gifts. The work carried out, according to Ibn ‘Idari, was such that it was visited by «all the expert artisans from all over the world».11 The mosaics comprising approximately 1 cm square tessera, are made of glass paste, limestone, ceramic and marble, in 18 colors, apart from gold (mentioned very frequently in Arabian texts on the mosque) and white, among which

11

Ibn ‘Idari (1998). Al-Bayan al-Mugrib. Op. Cit., pp. 237-239.

35

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

the most outstanding are the red, green and blue ones,12 used in the Kufic calligraphy and the plant and the geometric motifs; the inscriptions are set out in gold on a blue background and vice versa, and on the doors that flank the mihrab there are also borders, straight ones forming frames and curved ones, with gold Kufic symbols on red and blue backgrounds. e) The central dome is made up of eight braided groin vaults (which the tessera fit very well), at the base of which there is a border with gold Kufic script on a background of blue lapis lazuli with the basmala and a fragment of the Koran 22, 78, referring to the duty to pray, the endeavors required of Moslems (‘yihad’) and the Abrahamic prophecies.

The tessera on the vaulted surfaces comprise a network of astronomical lines with white stars leading to the vertex, where there is a larger, 10-point star in blue; together with this design, full of cosmic symbolism, there are representations of two crowns (central vaults to the north and south) of Byzantine tradition, designed to give weight to the appearance of the Caliph before the mihrab as a great sovereign, protected and enlightened by divinity. f) The inside of the mihrab has a magnificent scalloped vault (which has lost its color), inserted within an octagon, six sides of which are decorated with three-lobed blind arches with small columns attached to small pillars. g) In 355 (965/966), a parquetry minbar with nine steps was installed next to the mihrab, decorated with Arabic texts assuring that it was manufactured using noble woods (ebony, sandalwood, aloe, etc.) at a cost of 37,505 dinars. Destroyed in the 16th century, it was almost certainly a direct antecedent of the one made in the Qurtuba workshops in 1125-1130 for the Almoravid sovereign ‘Ali ibn Yusuf (r. 1106-1142),13 an excellent example of the continuity of the great Caliphate art in the city. The minbar was used for taking oaths, as well as during the Friday sermon, for which it was taken out and put back. Other aspects of the Cordovan Great Mosque that also attract great interest are the doors, with their bronze cladding and magnificent decoration, its lamps, which 12

Henri Stern highlighted the great skill shown in these mosaics, in which extreme care was taken in the color distribution, the most visible and best formed of which are to be found in the octagonal frieze with inscriptions from the Koran on the central dome, which offers the greatest contrast. See Henri Stern, Manuel Ocaña Jiménez and Dorothea Duda (1976). Les mosaiques de la grande Mosquee de Cordove. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

13

As regards this minbar, known as Kutubiya minbar (today in the al-Badi‘ Palace Museum in Marrakech), worthy of mention are some of its artistic elements, for which it is considered one of the most important Arabian and Islamic parquetry structures: the geometric sections with eight-point stars that adhere to a precise dynamism and perceptive ambiguity, the minute details and precision of the chequered lines and, in particular, the admirable plant motifs, extremely deep and with leaves that come alive, even escaping from the delimiting fields, which were achieved with great skill and the use of special blades that did not reach Europe until the Italian Renaissance. Furthermore, there are the Koran borders that refer to the divine throne in beautiful non-florid Kufic script, the polychromatic motifs, lost for the most part, with golden elements in the upper part and the meta-architectural decoration with horseshoe arches, footings and capitals on the fronts of the steps, all of which also links to the best mural decoration and Cordovan ivories, to which we will refer later on.

36

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

were brass on the outside and silver inside and included a large zuraya that hung from the main dome (‘qubba kubra’), where the Korans were placed in front of the maqsura.14 h) With this extension, the Great Mosque ended up with a double kiblah wall, only equaled by its antecedent in Madinat al-Zahra; this double wall encloses a succession of rooms divided, to the east, by the bayt al-mal and to the west by the sabat, which, as already mentioned, connected the maqsura to the neighboring Caliphate palace-fortress. i) The wooden roofs of the extension carried out by al-Hakam are the most profusely decorated and colorful, and the best conserved, although with notable modern restorations. Some of the wood is signed by Ibn Fatah; unfortunately, several of the beams were auctioned in London in 2004 and 2008, whilst others, as well as panels from the framework are museum pieces displayed in the galleries in the Patio de los Naranjos. j) The façades built by al-Hakam II follow the tripartite model of the first Qurtuba Emir, but incorporating the artistic novelties of the overhanging and intertwined lobed arches supported by thin columns, together with a rich geometric decoration based on a red and white square pattern, stucco with wide stemmed Cordovan plant motifs, Kufic script bands and lateral latticed windows. k) A profuse epigraphic program was deployed, which has been conserved to a great extent and includes: 1) Express mention of the constructor Caliph «al-Mustansir al-Hakam, Commander of the Faithful», on the right impost of the mihrab arch, which continues on the interior skirting and states that the mihrab and its marble cladding constitute a godly project carried out thanks to the «executive management» of Ya‘far and the building inspectors and police chiefs (‘sahib al-shurta’) Ahmad ibn Nasr, Muhammad ibn Tamlij, Jald ibn Hashim, as well as of the katib (‘secretary or scribe’) Mutarrif ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman, and that it was completed in du l-hiyya in 354 (28 November-27 December 965); on the skirting inside the mihrab it says that «it was the work of» Fath, Nasr, Tarif and Badr, as servants (‘abd’) of the Caliph, names that also appear as sculptors (‘naqqash’) and creators of the capitals and works in Madinat al-Zahra and other places. 2) Systematic deployment of Koran inscriptions with content relating to justice on the exterior doors (those on the west and those conserved on the east), perhaps in relation to the bab al-Sudda of the neighboring Caliphate palace-fortress, where justice was administered and capital punishment carried out. In the maqsura and on the kiblah wall there is a selection of landscapes that emphasize 14

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 551. In the wall of the al-Hakam kiblah there were mural paintings, some of which were uncovered a few years ago when carrying out restoration work in ‘San Bartolomé Chapel’ (St. Bartholomew Chapel), specifically the wall on which a black-shafted column rests. Notably, together with the geometric decoration with floral motifs on the left-hand side of the column, to the right a succession of vertical cartouches appeared, forming vignettes with a square base and a three-lobed arch, made up of a cord of pearls that linked them with loops, and each of them including a stylized animal with artistic characteristics similar to the zoomorphic figures in the «green and manganese» ceramics and other Caliphate works of art.

This part of the kiblah wall displayed paintings of a trotting gazelle (top), a bird with open wings (center) and a quadruped, perhaps a gazelle or a deer, almost erased (bottom). See Manuel Nieto Cumplido (2005). La Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba. Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Op. Cit., pp. 104-105.

37

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

the Caliphate’s Malik orthodoxy (in opposition to the free will defended by certain sects and in favor of predestination), as well as verses relating to mercy (obligation to give alms, etc.), on Christianity (for example, the Surah of al-Iklas or Pure Faith, in which it is affirmed that God does not beget) and Doomsday.15 The last of the extensions, that of the Amiri leader Almanzor (ca. 987-1000), was the largest in terms of area, comprising the addition of eight naves on the western side and extension of the patio in that direction, for which it was necessary to demolish the houses in the medina. The classic Arabian sources at the time praised the execution of the works, carried out applying the system of overlapping arches invented in the 8th century, although they noted the lack of decoration, especially compared to the project carried out by al-Hakam.16 This extension gave the complex, it has to be said, significant monumental and visual amplitude, transforming it into the largest mosque in the Western world with 112 doors, 1,103 internal columns (of which 856 remain) and a surface area of 175 × 128 m, that is, approximately 22,400 sq. m. Later, the Christians would carry out the first and discreet intervention following the city’s conquest by Fernando III in 1236; another of greater importance was carried out by Alfonso X the Wise, in 1260, removing two naves between the extensions carried out by ‘Abd al-Rahman II and al-Hakam. Finally, in 1523, at the height of the Granada wars, it was decided to build a cathedral —in the centre of the Umayyad temple— giving the monument its absolutely matchless appearance and creating what has been and still is a bone of contention between those who argue that the cathedral should be demolished and those who consider it an ingenious piece of architectural engineering, combining the delicate and horizontal reticular structure of the mosque with the elevation of a Gothic temple. To achieve this, following an in-depth study of the Islamic structure, Hernán Ruiz, took advantage of the strong walls of the eliminated kiblahs whilst at the same time foregoing greater height for the Christian building. In the end, however, the mosque considered the «most grandiose, marvelous and best constructed of all mosques»17 retained its essential constituent and artistic components, which today continue to be seen as the most creative and subtle construction and the closest to the current aesthetics.

15

See Susana Calvo Capilla (2000). «El programa epigráfico de la Mezquita de Córdoba en el siglo x: un alegato a favor de la doctrina ortodoxa malikí», Qurtuba, 5, pp. 17-26; Susana Calvo Capilla (2010). «Justicia, misericordia y cristianismo: una relectura de las inscripciones coránicas de la Mezquita de Córdoba en el siglo x», Al-Qantara, 31 (1), pp. 149-187. The author includes the necessary references to the studies of the inscriptions in the mosque carried out by Amador de los Ríos, Manuel Ocaña, Martínez Núñez, Nuha N. Khoury and others.

16

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 551. In the extension carried out by Almanzor appear the signatures of Aflah, Aflah al-Farra’ and al-Farra’ (they may have been one and the same), Durri, Faray, Fath, Hakam, Jalaf, Nasr, Sa‘ada, some of which have been found in previous works and on capitals, column components and other objects not belonging to the Great Mosque.

17

38

Ibidem, p. 545.

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

Qurtuba’s two Jewels: Al-Zahra and Al-Zahira To give the new State the necessary representative and residential architecture, the Umayyads also transposed to Qurtuba the Syrian palatine constructions of Byzantine, Hellenistic and Middle East tradition, which they enhanced with their own notable contributions. Following the layout of the oriental Umayyad cities, ‘Abd al-Rahman I built an Emirate or governmental palace (‘Qasr al-Imara’) next to the main mosque, the connection to which would be maintained and renewed by his descendents; in fact, one of its towers was used to call to prayer before Hisham built the minaret of the Great Mosque, initiated by his father. Replaced by the Episcopal palace and other constructions in the area of the palace-fortress built by the Christian kings, there are only a few remains of this palace and the Caliphate palace-fortress that succeeded it, together with some of the walls and capitals and the baths of the Caliphate area, discovered in the Cemetery of the Martyrs and which were rescued in the last century.18 ‘Abd al-Rahman I also constructed an idyllic country estate (a recreational and gardened palatine city, according to others), located on the slopes of Sierra Morena, with extensive gardens (‘yinan wasi’a’) and planted with vines, pomegranates and other fruit trees imported from his country of origin, which he called al-Rusafa, in memory of the mansion of the same name built by his grandfather Hisham, next to Raqqa, in the north of Syria,19 of which only written references remain. This has also been the fate of other Umayyad palaces, of which we only know their beautiful names, evocative of these lovely places: al-Kamil (‘Perfection’), al-Muyaddad (‘Renovation’), al-Ha’ir (‘the Reservoir’), al-Rawda (‘the Garden’), al-Zahir (‘the Radiant’), al-Ma’shuq (‘the Loved’), al-Mubarak (‘the Blessed’ or ‘the Fortunate’), al-Rashiq (‘the Elegant’), al-Surur (‘the Joy’), al-Tay (‘the Crown’), al-Badi’ (‘the Marvelous’), al-Bustan (‘the Orchard’).20 Qurtuba’ palatine jewels would, indeed, be al-Zahra (‘the Resplendent’) and al-Zahira (‘the Brilliant’ or ‘the Flourishing’). Of the latter, there are sufficient material remains, together with some isolated palaces, such as al-Rummaniya,21 as well as literary traces, to give us an approximate idea of its artistic and monumental splendor.

Madinat al-Zahra, discovered at the beginning of the 20th century and which a short time after became the most important Medieval archaeological site in Europe, was founded by ‘Abd al-Rahman III, according to some sources, on 1 muharram, that is New Year’s Day 18

Regarding this palace-fortress, Andalusi sources mention the doors of al-Sudda (‘Throne’), al‘Adl (‘Justice’), alYinan (‘Gardens’), Ishbiliya (‘Seville’), al-Hammam (‘Bath’) and al-Siba‘ (‘Lion’), as well as the al-Sath or Roof Terrace, from where the sovereign watched military parades and capital punishments carried out on the esplanade beside the river.

19

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 467, following passages from al-Mugrib by Ibn Sa‘id.

20

Ibidem, p. 464, taken from Ibn Bashkwal.

21

Country estate built next to al-Zahra by al-Durri al-Sagir, or al-Asgar, that is, Abu ‘Utman al-Saqlabi al-Mustansiri, servant and treasurer of al-Hakam II, to whom it was gifted in 973 and of which there are still palatial remains with a large pool. Al-Durri al-Sagir directed the architectural works and the manufacture of some of the court ivories.

39

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

325 (19 November 936),22 although archaeologists have found that work began before this.

Furthermore, although the recently self-proclaimed Caliph al-Nasir had his own palaces in the capital, as well as those of his forebears, he decided to embark on an ambitious, lengthy and risky architectural adventure, building a new palatine city, to where he would move his court, the state government and his throne, as well as coin money in a new mint.

For his new representative universe that would compete with those built by the Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphs in the East, the first Al-Andalus Caliph chose a location «close to Qurtuba», at a «distance of four miles and a third of mile», that is, prudently distant and, at the same time, well connected with the metropolis. Very soon a mythologizing mechanism arose, presided over by the location’s archetype of feminization and the aesthetics of its luminosity. The luminous dimension is intertwined, in its very name, with the feminine character of the project: al-Zahra is, simultaneously, the resplendent and/or flourishing city of the new Caliphate established by al-Nasir and the capricious and beautiful slave that demanded from the sovereign the construction of such an enormous monument. The celebrated founding legend transforms al-Zahra into a beauty reclining in the lap of Bride’s Mount (‘yabal al-‘arus’), which the Caliph himself covered with fig and almond trees in order to achieve the splendorous environment requested by his love. Furthermore, he irrigated it with abundant water that filled the orchards and gardens, likewise synonymous with chromatic and luminous beauty, as well as evoking harmonious sounds, aromas and fertility. It was in this place, until then a wild hillock in the foothills of Sierra Morena, that al-Nasir concentrated his building activity and modeled the city in the mountain, laying it out on terraces and constructing a labyrinth-like collection of walls, palaces, places of worship, patios, pools, gardens, baths, pathways, homes for the army, the court, the service and artisans, as well as factories, military buildings, etc. until composing a complete regal city with a regular layout and which fulfilled the requirements at that time, even though the promoter of these works would not see them completed.23 Madinat al-Zahra occupied, therefore, an extensive walled rectangular space of 1,518 × 745 (112 ha), which exceeded even the area of Qurtuba, with the buildings staggered over a 70 m slope, in order to always ensure splendid views of the landscape over the Guadalquivir valley and towards the metropolis in the distance, to which it was con22

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, pp. 524 and 526.

23

From among the enormous amount of bibliography available on the city of al-Zahra, I remit here to the report on the excavations of Félix Hernández Giménez. See Félix Hernández Giménez, Purificación Marinetto Sánchez and Antonio Fernández Puertas (1985). Madinat al-Zahra: arquitectura y decoración. Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra; see also the synthesis by Antonio Vallejo Triano (2001). Madinat al-Zahra, capital y sede del Califato omeya andalusí, in María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coords.). El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat al-Zahra,3 May to 30 September 2001: estudios.

Granada: Ministry of Culture, via the Fundación El Legado Andalusí, pp. 386-397; and Antonio Vallejo Triano (2007). «Madinat al-Zahra. Notas sobre la planificación y transformación del palacio», Artigrama, 22, pp. 73-101, with a precise critical analysis of the bibliography; and not forgetting the great comprehensive work: Antonio Vallejo Triano (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra. Arqueología de su arquitectura. Cordoba: Almuzara.

40

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

nected via two main thoroughfares that originated at the north and south gates. The best known and extensively excavated area corresponds to the Caliphate palace-fortress, the construction of which is generally considered to have been carried out in three consecutive stages, which we will not consider in depth here: the first two include Dar al-Mulk or regal residence, as well as the main mosque, the Pool House and the two large protocol halls called Dar al-Yund or al-Wuzara’ (‘House of the Army or the Viziers’) and Maylis al-Dahab (‘Golden Hall’) or al-Maylis al-Sharqi (‘Oriental Hall’). These were joined, in the third stage during the Caliphate of al-Hakam II, by the House of Ya‘far and the bab alSudda or the Grand Throne Room Door. Outside the Caliphate palace-fortress, there are the remains of two small mosques and homes and factories in the medina, as well as areas of land left free from building for crops and to allow for the city’s growth. The buildings had a square layout, though juxtaposed one against the other, without any prior planning of the complex as a whole. Following are some of the most significant artistic components: 1. Great care was taken to preserve the landscape views when constructing the Caliphate palace-fortress buildings, in turn walled on the central axis and attached to the north wall, the only canvas that was somewhat sinuous in order to adapt it to the terrain. As already mentioned, the upper galleries of the residential buildings, above their patios and the rest of the buildings on the lower terraces, afforded views of al-Zahra itself and the surrounding hills, Guadalquivir valley and Qurtuba; its walls, towers and domes also provided an impressive presence, seen from the outside.

2. In the surrounding area, separated from the guard and stable areas, the monumental representative area was made up of the Dar al-Yund, practically in contact with the north wall, accessed from the bab al-Sudda or from the north door, in a bend, via a sinuous route of doors and guardrooms. In the Dar al-Yund there was a magnificent basilica hall, comprising five parallel naves and large transversal hall-portico that opened onto a spacious porticoed courtyard, probably designed for military parades or other solemn occasions. Reconstructed by the archaeologists up to the frames of the main arches and without a roof, the ruins show the solemnity of the space, with its wider central nave and a north wall that, despite not conserving the decoration, suggests it was probably used to accommodate an important figure. The exterior courtyard could be seen from there, via the triple horseshoe arch with red and white voussoirs at the entrance of this nave and the transversal hall-portico, as can the spaciousness of the hall itself, as this north-south axis was complemented by another imposing east-west axis, the most outstanding characteristic of which were the two large horseshoe arches located in the centre of the nave on wide pillars and flanked by two triple horseshoe arches supported by much smaller columns. The entire space of the Dar al-Yund could be viewed or walked via multiple straight or diagonal routes between separate naves/naves joined together by the aforementioned arches, offering different perspectives of what must have been a magnificent landscape for guests, ambassadors and visitors.

41

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

3. The ‘Abd al-Rahman III Hall, at a lower level than the above described one, was also built with a basilica layout and a transversal hall-portico, but with a central façade incorporating five horseshoe arches that opened up to the main pool in front of the hall and to three deep naves, which were divided by two galleries with five free-standing columns and two columns attached to the wall at the ends; on the north wall of the central nave, also wider, stood the Caliphate throne,24 from where, through the spans in the hall-portico, the pool, the façade of the pavilion at the other end and its reflection in the pool could be contemplated. This pavilion, comprising three naves and a portico hall, was surrounded by three lesser pools and the High Garden, which, in four beds, formed an almost square spacious area in front of the Golden Hall and up to the palace-fortress wall; it also had its own lookout tower with views over the south part of the garden. On the east side of the al-Nasir Hall lie the remains of the rooms and the palatial baths.

4. To the east of the hall and outside the walled palace-fortress complex, but connected to it via its wall, the ruins of the Dar al-Zakat (‘House of Alms’) can also be seen, next to those of the main mosque of al-Zahra, which clearly diverges from the north-south axis of the palatine buildings, as it was built looking towards the southeast, seeking the Mecca with greater precision, as already mentioned; its location shows its connection to the Caliphate palace-fortress, from where al-Nasir could access the maqsura through the bridge to the sabat, in the double wall of the kiblah, as well as to the city, so that the faithful could gather at that essential point of contact between the Caliphate and the other social classes, without entering the palace. It is still possible to discern its layout, with five hypostyle naves, the porticoed patio and the base of the minaret (5 m), which rose 20 m high, with two overlapping prisms and crowned with stepped crenulations. According to Arabian texts, a battalion of 300 masons, 200 carpenters and 500 other laborers, between artisans and salaried workers, worked there to complete a magnificent project in only 48 days, and that a sumptuous minbar was installed on 20 May 941 so that the mosque could be inaugurated the following day, Friday, by the Imam and Khadi Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi ‘Isà, who officiated, for this purpose, the prayers at sundown.25

24

Continuing with the Byzantine, Abbasid and Fatimid protocol, and in competition with these, diplomatic and commercial receptions where organized in the court halls in Qurtuba and al-Zahra, such as those organized by al-Nasir in 949 for Byzantine diplomats, or for the monk Juan de Gorze, ambassador of Oton I, in 956, in which the halls were decked with magnificent carpets, curtains and tapestries; the throne would have been placed under the painted arch on the north wall, like a mihrab, probably slightly elevated, as al-Maqqari mentions the fabric that covered the tiers of al-Hakam II’s throne when he received Ordoño IV of Leon, indicating that it was a kind of bed with cushion on which the Caliph reclined —See María Teresa Pérez Higuera (1994).

Objetos e imágenes de al-Andalus. Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional-Lunwerg, p. 38. On this protocol, see Emilio García Gómez in Ibn Hayyan (1967). Anales palatinos del califa de Córdoba al-Hakam II, por Isa ibn Ahmad al-Razi (360-364 H. = 971-975 J. C.) [translated by Emilio García Gómez]. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones; and Miquel Barceló (1991). El califa patente: el ceremonial omeya de Córdoba o la escenificación del poder, in Reyna Pastor, Ian Kieniewicz and Eduardo García de Enterría (1991). Estructuras y formas de poder en la historia: ponencias. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, pp. 51-71.

25

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, pp. 563-564.

42

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

5. Of special interest are the lesser palatial constructions, specifically those called Pool House and House of Ya‘far, particularly because this model, comprising two small porticos, one in front of the other overlooking a patio, the first with a small pool, gardened flower beds and perimeter pathway, as well as private rooms and baths; and the second, with a tiled patio and a central fountain, together with simple, shallow rectangular rooms off the porticos, would find continuity in the subsequent Andalusi architecture, whilst the deep basilica type rooms would disappear. Nevertheless, the house of Ya‘far conserves three traditional basilica rooms, though small and slightly off-center in relation to the axis of the portico.

6. The decoration of al-Zahra, reserved for these noble areas of the palace-fortress and for the Great Mosque, continues to amaze due to its profusion, detail, creativity and the quality of the materials used; together with the ashlar stone, the panels of purple rock and mortar with limestone and compacted earth used for pathways, itineraries and floors, purple limestone and alabaster slabs and marble pieces were carved to cover the main areas; the skirting of many rooms, corridors and baths were painted with red ochre, plain or with white plant motifs, using techniques of Roman origin. For the Dar al-Yund and Maylis al-Dahab excellent columns of red and black marble were carved and placed alternatively to form naves and façades; here the bases and the capitals reach their purest Caliphate configuration, showing such formal variety and high quality in the carving of their mesh strips, calligraphic bands and tree structures (called «honeycomb» due to the painstaking and deep trepanation), that they constitute the culmination of the Andalusi and Islamic history of art. Some of these pieces have been conserved onsite, others were subsequently proudly re-used in Andalusi and Christian buildings and several are on display in museums. The horseshoe arches that supported these beautiful columns, on wide inverted pyramid shaped cornices, had a deep intrados that reinforces the sensation of weightlessness as it rises above the construction mass. In this era, oriental tendencies were introduced in al-Zahra, and then in Qurtuba Great Mosque, such as the plant motifs on alternate voussoirs on the arches and the Abbasid lobed arches (for the first time, perhaps, in the circular walkway next to al-Nasir Hall), and a rich mural decoration pattern was developed, considered the most important of the late Middle Ages in the Mediterranean and, furthermore, carved on stone plaques superimposed on the construction, while in the Dar al-Mulk, the Pool House and the Great Mosque, this was limited to the façades with plant motifs of Emirate tradition with acanthi and palm leaves. In the al-Nasir Hall, all the walls were covered with framed panels, resembling rectangular pictures, filled with vegetable compositions made up of a central stem and divided and intertwined branches, with a great many deliberate asymmetries and pairs of fruit (possibly references to the Koran), all of which, despite the schematic nature and the powerful unified control of their execution, exude vitality, exuberant variety and solemnity. These panels (over 65, all of them different, constituting a one of a kind ornamental design)

43

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

have been explained as a reflection of paradise. The gardens/paradise, denomination given in some of the Arabian texts to describe the aspect of these walls,26 and subscribed by modern historians with greater precision, it is thought may possibly have been a recreation of the paradisiacal hierarchy expressed in the Koran and Islamic eschatology, with the purpose of exalting the Caliphate and the figure of the Caliph.27 He would have been represented enthroned in stratified combination with the rationalized exterior garden of plants and pools and in a space given cosmic connotations provided by the geometric decoration and the possible qubba that would crown him, judging by the Arabian texts that mention and describe it as covered in gold and solid marble of the most varied and pure colors, with stalls also in gold and silver, with which its light irradiated, catching the eye from the surrounding fields and from the distance.28 The Caliph would appear, therefore, in the upper part of an illuminated paradisiacal stairway and protected by divinity, located, as mentioned in the Andalusi literature that mythologized it, in the paved terrace (al-sath al-mumarrad) in clear reference to the «palace paved in glass» built

by Solomon to reveal the dark mysteries of Bilqis, Queen of Sheba (Koran 27, 44); in the decoration, the Hom Tree or Tree of Life also flourishes profusely on the keystones of the arches (blind arch in the throne room and lateral doors), which would be reproduced later in the arch of the mihrab in al-Hakam II’s Great Mosque.29 26

In an extremely useful text, Al-Maqqari says that Madinat al-Zahra «was the most marvelous thing that those who traveled through Al-Andalus at the time could hope to contemplate or talk about [...]. And this is so, even if they only found the paved terraces that looked out over the proud garden in the Golden Hall and the qubba, plus all the marvels it contained in terms of its perfect execution (itqan al-san’a), sumptuous grandeur, beautiful views, skilful rendering and carved marble cladding and worked gold, together with its columns that could have been cast from moulds, its ornamental carvings like gardens (nuqush ka-l-riyad), its enormous pools perfectly made, its fountains and its marvelous statues of human figures, for which not even the imagination can find the words to express». Ibidem, p. 566.

27

See Manuel Acién Almansa (1995). Materiales e hipótesis para una interpretación del Salón de ‘Abd alRahman al-Nasir, in Antonio Vallejo Triano (coord.). Madinat al-Zahra. El Salón de Abd al-Rahman III. Cordoba: Junta de Andalucía, Ministerio de Cultura, pp. 177-195. Maribel Fierro proposes an interesting interpretation of the paradisiacal symbolism of the hall based on the Koran 55, 46-78 and eschatological works, such as the Kitab wasf al-firdaws by ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Habib, and places al-Zahra’s entire constructive and decorative program in the context of the political-religious conflict between the recently proclaimed Cordoba Caliphate and the Fatimid Caliphate. See María Isabel Fierro (2004). «Madinat al-Zahra, el paraíso y los fatimíes», Al-Qantara, xxv, 2, pp.

299-327.

28

See José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Ensoñación y creación del lugar en Madinat al-Zahra, in Fátima Roldán Castro (coord.). Paisaje y naturaleza en al-Andalus. Granada: Junta de Andalucía, Ministerio de Cultura, Fundación El Legado Andalusí, pp. 313-338.

29

The paradisiacal utopia that was al-Zahra had its dystopian counterpoint, and therefore its confirmation, in al-Duwayra, the famous prison at al-Zahra, which, as other prisons and dungeons, was located in the palacefortress, very close to the Caliphate residence. We have already referred, in passing, to the punishments that were witnessed from the Caliphate palace-fortress next to the Qurtuba main mosque and we will see further references to violence and punishments in the aulic iconography of sumptuary art, where the multiple meanings linked to the exercising of power, the battle to achieve it and its imposition on enemies can be seen underlying the significance of the artistic beauty.

44

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

7. Together with the boards and the geometrical red and white frames and panels, there were a series of inscriptions, of which there are interesting examples in the mosque, the Dar al-Mulk, the south pavilion and, above all, in the ‘Abd al-Rahman III Hall, where they can be seen in borders running around the frames of the arches on the façades and the interior naves, as well as on the throne’s blind arch and some of the footings of the columns and capital. They were carved in an extremely elegant renovated florid Kufic script and their purpose was to glorify the sovereign as Imam and leader of the Caliphate and display the construction date (between 953 and 957) and the names of the project managers and some of the most important creators, some of whom also appear in the work carried out by al-Hakam II in Qurtuba’s Great Mosque.

8. In respect of those responsible for or creators of the works at al-Zahra, the Arabian chronicles provide data of interest, such as those collected by Ibn Jaqan (12th C.) who describes how al-Nasir employed 10,000 men, including servants (‘juddam’) and laborers (‘fa‘ala’), who were paid 1.5, 2 or 3 dirham a day to build the spacious complex of al-Zahra; there is even a mention of the master surveyor (‘al-‘arif al-muhandis’) Maslama ibn ‘Abd Allah, of Syrian origin to whom, therefore, it is possible to attribute the transposition of the Oriental forms to al-Zahra.30 We also know the name of the master builder (‘arif al-banna’in’), ‘Abd Allah ibn Yunis, who, with the aid of the sons of Ya‘far al-Iskandarani, Hasan and ‘Ali, brought pink marble (‘rujam’) from Ifriqiya, green marble from Isfaqus church (Tunisia), white marble from Almeria and striated marble from Raya (Malaga), for which, according to Ibn Hayyan (987/988-1076), al-Nasir gave them 10 dinars for each large or small piece of marble, apart from the cutting and transport costs.31 Furthermore, in the epigraphic remains of alZahra it is still possible to read the names of the project managers, sculptors and some of the marble workers (‘rajjam’), mentioned frequently in pairs or groups, on the footings, capitals, arches, friezes and decorative panels; between 954 and 957, the workers in the al-Nasir Hall included: Sa‘d, Aflah, Zarif, Badr, Tarif, Nasr, Galib ibn Sa‘d, Sa‘id ibn Fatah, Muhammad ibn Sa‘d, Sa‘id al-Ahmar, Rashiq (the three signed a beautiful capital) and Muzaffar, who were probably highly qualified sculptor servants posted to the Caliphate workshop (‘dar al30

Rafael Manzano suggests that he could have brought the basilica structure. See Rafael Manzano Martos (1995).

Casa y palacios en la Sevilla almohade. Sus antecedentes hispánicos, in Rafael López Guzmán and Julio Navarro Palazón (1995). Casas y palacios de al-Andalus: siglos xii y xiii. Granada, Barcelona: Fundación El Legado Andalusí, Lunwerg, p.

315; according to the master surveyor Maslama ibn ‘Abd Allah, 6,000 slabs were leveled, smoothed and carved daily at al-Zahra, apart from those prepared for paving (‘tablit’), and 1,400 or more mules were used, 400 of which belonged to Caliph al-Nasir and the rest were hired; each mule carried three loads a month and had to transport a total equivalent of 3.000 meticals per month, with which around 1,100 loads of bricks and gypsum came into al-Zahra every three days —see Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, pp. 566-568. The Arabian chronicles emphasize especially the number of columns that, according to Ibn Jaqan, were as many as 4,300, that is, almost four times the amount in Cordoba’s Great Mosque; other chroniclers assure that 1,013 columns came from Ifriqiva, 19 from the territory of the Franks, and 140 were a gift from the Byzantine king; the rest of the noble supports came from North Africa (for example, those from Sijilmasa cost 8 dinars) and from different areas of al-Andalus.

31

Ibidem, pp. 526-527.

45

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

sina‘a’).32 The project managers were Shunayf (in the entire interior of the hall and the baths; he was a Berber client who ascended to the Caliphate court), ‘Abd Allah ibn Badr (in the entrance to the inside of the hall; he was the supreme chief of police and Vizier)33 and Ya‘far Ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman, in the south pavilion built in 345 (956/957), and in the baths (Ya‘far was promoted from servant and head of the stables and of the tiraz (royal weavers) with al-Nasir, to hayib (‘chamberlain’), sayf al-dawla and katib with al-Hakam, for whom, as we have seen, he managed the work in Qurtuba’s Great Mosque and palace-fortress.

9. The idealising rhetoric of al-Zahra was nurtured, not only by the paradisiacal references (Koranic, eschatological and literary) and the chronicled accountancy of the materials, workers and money invested (a third of the state budget), of which the veracity or level of exaggeration is not easy to determine, but also with more purely artistic descriptions on how marvelous the buildings and their components were. Any of today’s tourist guides mention the pool full of quicksilver (for others, a mere basin) that, according to some Arabian texts, was placed in a palatine room surrounded on each side by eight doors with ivory and ebony arches encrusted with gold and pearls and supported by colored columns with diaphanous glass. When al-Nasir wished to impress a visitor, he made a sign to one of his slaves to shake the mercury and the flashes that irradiated on the hall façade (‘maylis’), and inside, produced such displays of light that the audience was captivated and even had the impression that the building was taking flight together with those present as the quicksilver moved.34 This artifice was presented as a scenic innovation invented by al-Nasir, although other Arabian historians assure that his Fatimid competitors had already caused a sensation with another similar mercury pool.

10. However, all this aesthetic-representative zeal on the part of al-Nasir to build architectural landmarks, at any cost and on any terrain, providing them with water brought long distances and in perpetuating his works (‘tajlid atari-hi’) as a sign of monarchic strength (‘quwwat al-mulk’), vigorous power (‘izzat al-sultan’) and supreme aspiration (‘ulw l-himma’), albeit in the words of the Andalusi chroniclers, meant that he devoted so much of his energies to achieving the perfect construction and decoration of the al-Zahra palaces that he was absent three consecutive Fridays from the Great Mosque and in the face of such a serious 32

See María Antonia Martínez Núñez (1995). La epigrafía del Salón de ‘Abd al-Rahman III, in Madinat al-Zahra.

El Salón de Abd al-Rahman III. Cordoba: Junta de Andalucía, Ministerio de Cultura, pp. 107-152. The fact that several of these same names appear in al-Hakam’s expansion of Qurtuba’ Great Mosque and palace-fortress, and even on some of the ivories and «green and manganese» ceramics, would seem to indicate, according to the author, that they were more the direct supervisors of the Caliphate workshop, rather than all-purpose artisans.

33

María Antonia Martínez Núñez mentions the participation of Shunayd and, in particular, ‘Abd Allah ibn Badr, in the persecutions carried out years previously by the Caliphate against the Massaries in the context of the confrontation with the Fatamids; according to Martínez Núñez, the titles taken by the Caliph in the inscriptions in the hall, in which most important parts contain the sole title of Imam, also correspond to the ideological dispute. Ibidem.

34

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 527.

46

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

breach of his religious obligations, as remarked upon by the chroniclers, his faithful and watchful faqih, Mundir ibn Sa‘id al-Balluti, had no choice but to censure him in the Great Mosque of al-Zahra, exclaiming: Do you construct on every elevation a sign, amusing yourselves, and take for yourselves palaces and fortresses that you might abide eternally? And when you strike, you strike as tyrants.

So fear Allah and obey me. And fear He who provided you with that which you know, provided you with grazing livestock and children and gardens and springs [...]! [Koran, 26, 128-134].35 In another of the many ups and downs in the strained relationship between aulic architecture and religious piety, probably the example most reported in Andalusi literature, and which renders the Caliphate legitimacy more believable and solid, as commented by Maribel Fierro, gave al-Nasir the opportunity of responding firmly to the renowned faqih who had managed to bring rain to Qurtuba in a public prayer; it is said that the Caliph recited: «When kings seek to have their grandeur remembered after they have gone they use the language of buildings (alsun al-bunyan). / Have you not seen how the pyramids live on whilst the kings are erased by time? / The construction (bina’), when it is grandiose / of great status it becomes a sign». Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Imam and Commander of the Faithful endeavored, with the aid of his collaborators and artists, to «sacralize» his projects, not only with the pious construction of the Great Mosque next to the palace-fortress, but also through the mural decorations and the always eloquent epigraphs, its final hours came prematurely, and al-Nasir’s own enjoyment of al-Zahra was short-lived. In fact, its brilliance was eclipsed a short time after, following the accession to the throne of al-Hakam II’s son, the weak Hisham II (976-1009 and 1010-1013) and Almanzor’s entrenchment of the Caliphate administration in Madinat al-Zahira, in 370 (981). The final decline came in the era of the second son of the Amiri leader, ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Al-Mansur ibn Abi ‘Amir, nicknamed Sanchuelo, upon the outbreak of the fitna and al-Zahra was repeatedly burned and destroyed by the people; finally, during the government of al-Mustakfi (1024-1026), the palace-fortress was sacked of all that was left.36 A little after the dominion of Qurtuba by King al-Mu‘tamid of Seville in 462/463 (1070), his minister Abu l-Hasan Ibn Siray visited the ruins with other Viziers and officials from the Abbasid court who, captivated by the fascination now exercised by al-Zahra, that of a decrepit woman in her twilight years, surrendered to premature romanticism —as Rubiera Mata called it—, which would become the topic of the Arabian poetry and literature, from the contemporary Ibn Zaydun, at least, up to our days. The illustrious visitors, at the service of Al-Andalus’ most renowned king poet, 35

Translation from El Corán by Julio Cortés (1991). Barcelona: Herder.

36

«Con esta ruina se plegó la alfombra del mundo y se desfiguró aquella hermosura que había sido el paraíso terrenal», in the words of Ibn Hayyan set out in al-Dajira by Ibn Bassam —translated by Emilio García Gómez (1947) [‘This ruin wrinkled the carpet of the world and defaced that beauty, which had been a paradise on earth’]. «Algunas precisiones sobre la ruina de la Córdoba omeya», al-Andalus, xii, fasc. 2, p. 281; for the fate of the ruins of al-Zahra throughout history, see Félix Hernández Giménez, Purificación Marinetto Sánchez and Antonio Fernández Puertas (1985). Madinat al-Zahra: arquitectura y decoración. Op. Cit., pp. 182 and following.

47

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

al-Mu‘tamid, arrived at the desolated palaces of al-Zahra, they entered its high chambers, finished their drinks on the balconies and, and after visiting the ruins (‘atar’), probed the effects of destructive time, seeing how plants and varmints had taken over the place, how the songbirds had been replaced by birds of ill omen and how the splendid and fertile al-Zahra had become an old lady, whose sons were long gone, a rose that has swiftly lost its bloom.37 The place’s symbolic feminization, paradisiacal and nuptial, encompassed even Qurtuba, which al-Hiyari saw as a splendid bride adorned, for a short time, with two jeweled studs (‘qurt’), al-Zahira and al-Zahra, which he classed as royal seats (‘hadirata l-mulk’) superior to al-Jawarnaq, al-Sadir and Gumdan (Nafh, i, 153), the mythical oriental cities, prototypes of architectural marvels, and at the same time, of human arrogance defeated by time. Unfortunately, even less traces remain of al-Zahira than of al-Zahra, of which it was actually a rival, as the de facto usurper and creator of a usurping Amiri state, Muhammad ibn Abi ‘Amir, Almanzor, commenced its construction —also on the outskirts of Qurtuba— in 978, as a new aulic city. Whilst al-Zahra was located to the west of the metropolis, Arabian sources place al-Zahira to the east and alongside the River Guadalquivir, localization that would seem to be corroborated by the many and fragmented remains found in the area. Almanzor installed himself in al-Zahira in 980 for security purposes, emulating the Caliphs and as a show power. Extended over the plains next to the river and surrounded with walls, according to Ibn Jaqan, it took him only two years to build.

There he placed the government offices, the Administration and the Treasury, he distributed plots amongst his secretaries, generals and ministers, he planted orchards and gardens, established markets and held receptions. One of the palaces at al-Zahira was «the Home of Joy», with double marble columns that were soon praised in poems, whose authors had no qualms in comparing them to Solomon’s topical and Koranic constructions in Bilqis.38 Al-Saqundi and Ibn Sa’id, in the 13th C., and al-Maqqari in the 17th C. would insist, in a less literary manner but with similar eulogizing intention, on the luminosity that imbued the vast ribbon that both Cordovan jewels formed together with the mother city: «the construction joined the buildings of Qurtuba, al-Zahra and al-Zahira, and it was even possible to walk by the light of the lamps (‘daw’ al-suruy’) placed over a distance of ten miles».39 All of this has now been snuffed out, but many of the works of art created in the workshops of both ephemeral hubs of splendor, as well as those of the metropolis, still retain their brilliance; all of them were created for the enjoyment of the sovereign and the court, to adorn the gardens and the rooms or as gifts to show off, in other latitudes, the image of Cordovan opulence and refinement.

37

See María Jesús Rubiera Mata (1988). La arquitectura en la literatura árabe: datos para una estética del placer [prologue

by Antonio Fernández Alba]. Madrid: Hiperion, p. 131; and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Ensoñación y creación del lugar en Madinat al-Zahra. Op. Cit.

38

María Jesús Rubiera Mata (1988). La arquitectura en la literatura árabe: datos para una estética del placer. Op. Cit., pp. 132-134.

It should be noted that Almanzor also built himself a country estate of which only the name is known: al-‘Amiriya.

39

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 456.

48

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

The Plastic and Figurative Dominance of the Objects Some of the aulic objects were legendary in their time, such as the pool (‘hawd’) installed in Madinat al-Zahra, which Andalusi literature dwells on due to its peculiar shape and its ornamentation and gilding carried out in the Orient, in Damascus or Constantinople, and transported by sea and land by Ahmad the Greek and the Bishop Rabi; it is thought to have been green and with carvings (‘nuqush’) and images (‘tamatil’) that included human figures (‘alà suwar al-insan’) and that it was placed in the al-Mu’nis (‘the Intimate’) bedroom that al-Nasir had installed in the Golden Hall; 12 images were added, made of red gold and incrusted with valuable pearls, manufactured in the dar al-sina‘a (‘royal workshop’) at Qurtuba, under the supervision of al-Hakam’s son, the only person it was said that al-Nasir delegated to and trusted.

The depictions in question made up a significant aulic zoo: a lion, together with a gazelle and a crocodile, on one side, on the other, a serpent, an eagle and an elephant; and on the two flanks, a dove, a falcon, a peacock, a hen (or cockerel), a kite and a vulture.40 This sculptured fauna was thought to have been manufactured in gold with incrustations of rich pearls, with water gushing from their beaks and jaws forming a majestic fountain, as so many others that were installed and were later praised in poetry by the prolific Andalusi aulic literature.41 Although without gems and precious materials, different pools and fragments of marble fountains have survived to the present day, some of which were complemented with zoomorphic spouts cast in metal. Well-known Caliphate examples of these pools, with felines and birds of prey (lion and eagle) devouring herbivorous animals (gazelles, deer, bulls, etc.) —millenary illustrations of power that were incorporated in Islamic royal symbols via Sassanid art— include the Cordovan Caliphate pool, brought to Granada by King Badis (Alhambra Museum) and which displays a double scene of a feline attacking a herbivorous animal, divided on either side of a central tree of life, which is accompanied by hunting eagles on the sides. Other examples are the two Amiri pools, originating probably from Madinat al-Zahira; Almanzor’s Pool, to whom it is dedicated in a Kufic inscription that dates it at 377 (987) (National Archaeological Museum, Madrid) and the one dedicated to his son ‘Abd al-Malik (1002-1008), which is conserved in the Madrasa ibn Yusuf in Marrakech, which is similar, though it has lost some of its decoration. On this latter, the abundant decoration combines fields of vegetable and floral ornamentation, aquatic birds and fish around the edges, with classic aulic zoomorphic imagery (eagles with quadrupeds on their spread wings and gazelles in their claws, as well as gryphons facing each other on each side of a tree). In Almanzor’s Pool, one of its frontals is a vigorous meta-architectural composition formed by small columns designed to look like they are supporting three three-lobed 40

Ibidem, pp. 526-527 and 568-569; and Al-Maqqari (1978). Azhar al-riyad fi ajbar ‘Iyad. Rabat: E.A.U., pp. 270-271; translation by María Jesús Rubiera Mata (1988). La arquitectura en la literatura árabe: datos para una estética del placer.

Op. Cit., pp. 91-92.

41

Ibn Jaldún attributed to al-Nasir the possession of other royal beasts (‘wahsh’) and birds (‘tuyur’) in al-Zahra. See Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, pp. 578.

49

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

arches with typical Cordovan alternating voussoirs, each of which house an axial tree of life, with which, plainly, the architectural imagery is incorporated in the aulic iconography of status and sovereignty. From al-Zahra there are also traces, and some still remain in its ruins, of several circular pools with braided sections, without figurative elements and with sparse and attractive vegetable decoration, or simply with a Kufic calligraphic frieze, such as the 12 braided sections with inscriptions referring to al-Hakam II and his minister Ya‘far, with date corresponding to 970 (Granada Archaeological Museum). It goes without saying that the construction of pools, fountains and animal spouts lasted in Al-Andalus until the Nasrid era, taking with it an abundance of poetic literature. However, the most celebrated of all of them were, without a doubt, the zoomorphic fountain spouts that, with pre-Islamic origin and subsequent exaltation in Arabian architectural mythology, enjoyed a golden era in Al-Andalus, and which are represented mainly by the fawns of Madinat al-Zahra (Illustration 3) of which the following have been conserved: one in Cordoba Museum (now Madinat al-Zahra Museum), one in Doha Museum in Qatar, and another, more deteriorated one, belonging to the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. Manufactured in cast bronze using a lost wax casting technique, their exquisite profile, which emanates both grace and solemnity, and their stereotyped almond-shaped eyes and the fine scrolls of plant motifs that cover their bodies, distance them from copies of nature, giving them an eminently symbolic presence that evokes abundance, beauty and status. This is corroborated by the figure considered a quadruped in Bargello Museum (Florence) (10th - 11th C.), probably another fawn, although not as streamlined and with different vegetable decoration, which has a central band with a Kufic phrase baraka kamila (‘complete rendition’).

From the series of lion spouts that, with variants, reached the latter years of Al-Andalus, we will mention the lion with articulated tail and open jaws in Kassel Museum, and the one from Monzón, Palencia (Louvre Museum), attributable to 12th C., but with many similarities to the precedent Umayyad bronzes, among them, the border with a propitious Kufic inscription displayed on its flanks.42

42

Its function was similar to that of an elephant carved in stone that poured water into a pool of a country estate close to Qurtuba (Cordoba Diocesan Museum), the image of which reappears in 11th C. poetry, specifically in a poem by Ibn Wahbun, which describes another elephant-fountain in the palace of al-Zaki de al-Mu‘tamid in Seville —Ibn Bassam (2000). Al-Dajira [ed. by Ihsan ‘Abbas]. Beirut: Dar al-Garb al-Islami, vol. iv, p. 519. Apart from the prolific poetic idealization of this type of fountain, we can also find some pictorial recreations, such as that in one of the Hadit Bayad wa-Riyad miniatures (13th C., Vatican Museum) in which two heads (perhaps of a deer) pour water into a pool in the Garden of Our Lady.

50

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

Illustration 3. Madinat al-Zahra fawn, 10th century. Cordoba Archaeological Museum.

Source: Photograph by Agustín Núñez.

Within these same aesthetics, although with a different function, fall the two peacockshaped bronze pitchers, possibly for rituals, one of which (Louvre Museum) carries the Arabic inscription: «the work of ‘Abd al-Malik the Christian» and another in Latin: «Opus Salomonis era T X», that is, with the Andalusi date T X (1010), equivalent to the year 972. The symbolic link between birds and Solomon is well known in both the Islamic and Christian worlds and this peacock and another similar ones found in Mores (North Sardinia, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Cagliari) contain the same plant motifs on the wings and breast as those on Hisham II’s wood and silver casket (Gerona Cathedral) and the semicircles are like those on the Pisa Gryphon. All of this indicates that they must be Andalusi and fall within a Christian context, given that they bear a cross, the inscription thus suggests and because, furthermore, for Christians the peacock was a «symbol of the Gentiles who come to Christ from distant lands», according to Raban Maur (s. ix).43 As regards the famous Pisa gryphon, the figure of this fantastic being is elevated to the status of grand bronze, constituting a rounded mass with extraordinary presence. A hybrid with the head, beak and wings of an eagle and the legs of a lion, it is therefore a fusion of both solar animals and emblems of sovereignty, as well as being associated with the tree of life and traditionally considered as a vigilant and beneficial being.

43

María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coords.) (2001). El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat al-Zahra, 3 de mayo a 30 de septiembre de 2001: estudios. Op. Cit., p. 47. Worthy of mention within the refined metallurgy of Qurtuba and its area of influence are other pitchers and a large range of other pieces, such as pierced candle holders (especially the Algeciras candle holder with the Kufic inscription Baraka and the figure of a bird, dating from the Caliphate era), and others originating from Cordoba and Madinat Ilbira, or the bronze lamps and brazier feet adorned with lion heads, of a simpler manufacture, also found in Madinat Ilbira (9th - 10th C., Granada Archaeological Museum), as well as different objects for daily use, coins, and jewels (Garrucha, Loja, Ermina Nueva and Charilla Treasuries), or the beautiful Caliphate scenes from Cordoba and Lucena (Cordoba Provincial Archaeological Museum). Ibidem, pp. 190-246.

51

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

From the ancient Middle Eastern arts it migrated to Islamic art and can be found in fountains, ivories, textiles and other Umayyad and Andalusi objects. This gryphon, to which some attribute a decorative function while others give it a ceremonial use, was almost certainly cast in Al-Andalus in the 11th century and it bears propitious or desiderative borders with beautiful Kufic calligraphy («Absolute and constant blessings, benefits, bliss, health and happiness for its owner»). On the upper part of its legs there are carved lions (two front legs) and eagles (two hind legs), thus dividing the archetype image of the gryphon, whilst the wings and areas of the head are decorated with stylized feathers and the body with incised circles.

This imagery reappears, miniaturized, on the ivory caskets and jars manufactured in the workshops at Qurtuba and Madinat al-Zahra, and later on those in Cuenca, but enhanced, on the valuable ivory supports, with anthropomorphic figures to form small books illustrated with elegant calligraphic bands, delicate ornamentation, symbolic animals and subtle aulic scenes, which raised these objects to the summit of Medieval artistic luxury.44 The ivory must have reached Qurtuba following ‘Abd al-Rahman III’s military campaigns in the Maghreb and it was a common material used for gifts by the African leaders, as is confirmed by al-Maqqari in his well stocked Andalusi library, which refers that 8,000 pounds of ivory reached Qurtuba, sent to Hisham II in 991 by Emir Zuhayr Ibn ‘Atiya. From the workshops in Madinat al-Zahra, the oldest documented, originate other works, such as the Zamora Cathedral jar (National Archaeological Museum, Madrid), the one in the New York Hispanic Society and the little box in Fitero (Navarre), the latter two signed by Jalaf. Specialists have detected another workshop in Qurtuba itself, active between 960 and 970, although their production was less refined than that of alZahra. The Zamora pyxis is made up of two pieces of ivory, body and lid, topped with a knop in the shape of an amalak fruit; carved with a hammer and chisel, it displays straight and deep cuts and a beautiful chiaroscuro effect. The Kufic inscription, well visible on the plain border placed around the base of the lid, asks for «divine blessings for Caliph al-Hakam al-Mustansir bi-Llah, Commander of the Faithful» and records that the jar was made «for the honorable mother of ‘Abd al-Rahman, under the orders of Durri al-Sagir, in the year 353 [964]»,45 that is, for the legendary Subh, Basque slave who became the wife of al-Hakam II and mother, therefore, of heir to the Caliphate at this date. However, ‘Abd al-Rahman was to die prematurely and he would be succeeded on the throne by Hisham II, who was born the year after the manufacture of the piece in 965. The body is adorned with vegetable shapes punctuated by vertical symmetry 44

See José Ferrandis Torres (1935-1940). Los marfiles árabes de Occidente [2 vols.]. Madrid: s. n.; John Beckwith (1960). Caskets from Cordoba. London: Victoria and Albert Museum; Ernst Kühnel (1971). Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen: VIII-XIII Jahrhundert. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft; and María Teresa Pérez Higuera (1994). Objetos e imágenes de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., pp. 27-31 and bibliography.

45

We have already indicated above the ascendance and high offices held by Durri al-Sagir. Another casket was made for another woman, «the lady and noble wife of ‘Abd al-Rahman, Commander of the Faithful» (Victoria and Albert Museum) with the sole decoration of a florid Kufic border with plant motifs, almost certainly made in Madinat al-Zahra after the death of ‘Abd al-Rahman III in 961. Likewise, the little boxes of Fitero ivory and the one in the Don Juan Valencia Institute, all dated in 966, as well as the one in the Hispanic Society (ca. 968), among others, also display decoration limited to a vegetable band and Kufic inscriptions.

52

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

axes, which suggest trees of life, and include double and single palms, single or multiple foliate leaves, as well as peppers, lettuce hearts, vegetable sprouts and flowers. Among the foliage, pacific looking animals are interspersed: eight pairs of birds facing each other on the lid and, on the jar, four pairs of peacocks, fawns and four pairs of birds.

This kind of idealized garden or paradise, the vegetable shapes, axial lines and floral motifs, which can also be found on some of the palatine mural panels, is filled with precise royal and masculine iconographic designs in other more complex ivories, such as the alMughira jar (Louvre Museum) (Illustration 4) and the Leyre casket (Navarre Museum). The al-Mughira jar has a cylindrical, almost architectural structure similar to the Zamora one and it is comprised of eight medallions with eight lobes, all joined together by a continuum of small leaves, like a braid, which flows dynamically over the entire piece and even extends over the perimeters of the body and the lid.

Illustration 4. al-Mughira Jar (968 d. C.). Louvre Museum (Islamic Section), Paris.

Source: Photograph by Agustín Núñez.

Viewing the medallions from right to left, as the attractive Kufic inscription on the base of the lid is read, we see an initial scene with dynastic content: over a throne supported by lions, inveterate image of sovereignty, there is a representation of the possible stereotypes of al-Hakam II’s two brothers: ‘Abd al-Rahman, with rod and chalice, both symbols of renewal of life and the new year in Antiquity, which indicate that he is the heir to the throne, and al-Mughira, holding a fan, which can be linked to the Byzantine liturgical fans. Both are seated «Turkish style» on each side of a standing laud player, one of the most commonly found musical depictions on these ivories and on many other Andalusi and Islamic works of art (textiles, capitals, ceramics, etc.) allusive to the importance, solemnity and festive ambience provided by aulic music. One foot of each of the two prince figures protrudes in front of the throne, subtly breaking the stateliness of the image. With all the figures beardless and, therefore, lacking Caliphate dignity, the

53

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

scene seems to allude to the future stability of the line of succession. This is confirmed in the parallel medallion, on the other side of the pyxis, which shows two lions devouring two bulls on each side of a vegetable axis, a classic representation of the sovereignty and the violence that sustain power and which has been carried out here with foreshortened figures that fill with life and plastic vigor a scene that, on its own merit, appears in all the manuals on Islamic Art. The simple Kufic inscription on the lid: «God’s blessings, wellbeing, happiness and joy for al-Mughira, son of the Commander of the Faithful; May God have mercy on him. Made in 357 [968]», unusually omits the name of the reigning Caliph, al-Hakam II, whilst it does refer to ‘Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir, father of al-Mughira. ‘Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir was 18 years old when he received this pyxis and, given that al-Hakam II still had no descendents, both brothers were seen as heirs, although when ‘Abd al-Rahman died around 970 al-Mughira became the most likely candidate.

However, the aforementioned Subh quickly gave him the two children referred to above, ‘Abd al-Rahman and Hisham, whilst al-Mughira was murdered by order of Almanzor on the same day that al-Hakam II died (1 October 976), and hours after Hisham II, still a child and malleable by the Amiri leader, was proclaimed sovereign. These historical circumstances led Renata Holod to perceive an ironic meaning in this ivory, which PradoVilar later specifies, suggesting that its iconography could have taken shape in the circle of Princess Subh and the hayib al-Mustafi who, in 967, had just supported Almanzor, a cruel, erudite person who favored luxury objects and gifts, according to al-Maqqari, with which the pyxis would have been given to al-Mughira as part of a veiled threat or, more likely, in my opinion, as a pedagogical reminder of his place.46 The other medallions show, in this respect, images depicting the interruption of life cycles, probably allegorical of the danger of rupture in the Caliphate line of succession, as one of them contains the curious scene of a tangle of vines with three eagle’s nests (the central one with four eaglets and the lateral ones with eagles incubating eggs) whilst the two young men, bitten by dogs (punishment for traitors of Al-Andalus) are trying to steal the eggs. In the parallel medallion, two horse riders carrying eagles are collecting dates on each side of a large palm tree, whilst being attacked by quadrupeds. Other secondary scenes are inserted amongst the vegetable decoration on the pyxis depicting violence and confrontation: below there are two dogs biting the tails of two gryphons, two wrestlers, two rams and two deer, all of them confronting one another; in the top part there are two eagles, a peacock flanked by two peahens, two animals, perhaps wolves, attacking an onager and two falconers. On the lid, four medallions surround the disappeared fruit-shaped knop, with opposing gazelles, 46

See Renata Holod (1992). Bote de al-Mughira, in Jerrilynn D. Dodds (coord.). Al-Andalus: las artes islámicas en España [exposición La Alhambra, 18 marzo-19 junio 1992]. New York, Madrid: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, El Viso, 192200; and particularly, Francisco Prado-Vilar (1997). «Circular Visions of Fertility and Punishment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from Al-Andalus», Muqarnas, 14, pp. 19-41; and (2005). «Enclosed in Ivory. The Miseducation of al-Mughira», Journal of the David Collection, 2.1, pp. 138-163, with a detailed and suggestive analysis and historical, poetic, literary and iconographic references.

54

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

two lions and two peacocks, a falconer on horseback, partridges or peahens, two doves, two birds, two lions and two jackals or dogs, all facing each other. The narrative structure of the pyxis and its design, established based on axial lines, symmetries and circularity, as well as on independent but complementary units, correspond to a compositional system similar to that of Arabian poetry. Let us not forget that some poetic pyxides were made, such as the one in the Hispanic Society, which has a carved Kufic poem that feminizes and idealizes it aesthetically, whilst at the same giving it its identification as a container for perfumes and precious stones.47 Other well-known ivories express mainly messages praising and exalting the sovereign or a member of the court, such as the Ziyad jar (Victoria and Albert Museum), made in 359 (969/970) for Ziyad ibn Aflah, police chief with al-Hakam II, who was an ambitious figure involved in a number of Caliphate succession intrigues. The surface of this pyxis, which is also decorated with medallions linked together in a continuous band, shows the carved stereotype of a figure administering justice whilst seated on a throne (for some the Caliph, for others Ziyad himself who, after changing sides, in fact requested severe punishment for the responsible of a plot against al-Hakam II), following this the figure appears traveling on an elephant, and finally, hunting;48 whilst in the first medallion, the throne’s crossbars end in lion’s feet paws, of Byzantine and Roman origin, the two confronting birds with their heads turned that appear below link them to Sassanid models, in the medallion above the elephant, the chair-throne is different and the two courtesans with sword and flask in the previous medallion are now two servants driving the elephant; inserted in the undergrowth there are also confronted gryphons, pairs of birds, heraldic eagles, deer, bulls, hunting animals, etc. as a symbol of elevation and power. Another of the more elaborate and valuable jewels of Cordovan ivories, the aforementioned Leyre casket (Navarre Museum, Pamplona) also displays a laudatory and victorious significance, in honor on this occasion of Almanzor’s son, perhaps commemorating his victory in Leon, which gained him 47

«Mi aspecto es de gran belleza / seno de joven que conserva toda su turgencia. // Mi traje de gala es la belleza. / Tengo vestido adornado de brillantes piedras. // Y soy así envase / para almizcle, alcanfor y ámbar», say the verses —translated by Juan Zozaya (1999) [‘My look is of great beauty / a young breast still firm. // My gala robe is my beauty / I have a dress adorned with brilliant stones. // And I am thus a container / for musk, camphor and amber’]. Los marfiles de Cuenca, in Mil años de arte en Cuenca. Cuenca: Asociación de Amigos del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cuenca. This feminizing and complacent language applied to the artistic object reappears in later Andalusian objects and architectures, such as some vases and mural qasidas in the Alhambra. In this context, Prado-Vilar has compared the messages of the Cordovan ivories with the Arabian poetic genres, linking some of them, such as the one on Subh to the descriptive and naturalistic idealising poetry, others, such as the ones on the Ziyad jar and the Leyre casket to the panegyric and finally, the one on al-Mughira to satirical poetry, although perhaps it would be better to link it to the pedagogical and poetry. Let us not forget that the same author detected notable similarities between its scenes and the images and content of Kalila wa-Dimna.

48

There are other ivories with this kind of enthroned representations, such as the Davillier jar (Louvre Museum), which has aulic scenes similar to those on the Leyre casket, or the casket dating from the beginning of the 11th century in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (Inv. No.: 10-1866), on which the dais of the throne is shown raised above vegetable motifs.

55

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

the nickname of Sayf al-Dawla (‘State Saber’). Its main inscription, in magnificent florid Kufic script with pearled letters, decorates the front of the lid, beseeching good wishes and long life for the hayib Sayf al-Dawla ‘Abd al-Malik ibn al-Mansur, adding that it was made under the orders of the great server Zuhayr ibn Muhammad al-‘Amiri, and that it was «the work of Faray and his disciples», who names are, in fact, displayed on different parts of the piece (Misbah, Faray, Jayr, Sa‘ada, Rashid), as well as that it was made in 395 (1004/1005); this could indicate that it was made in Madinat al-Zahira, although its shapes are closer to those of the workshop at al-Zahra.49 The decorative area comprises 23 eight-lobed medallions (13 on the lid and 10 on the box), linked by a braided band that, as on the al-Mughira jar, forms a dynamic continuum between the borders and the fields of the main scenes; of these, the most outstanding are the three aulic scenes, the visual narration of which begins parallel to the start of the inscription, with a larger bearded figure, with the Caliphate attributes (ring, branch and chalice). This figure, thought be that of Hisham II (976-1009 and 1010-1013) is sitting on a throne supported by lions and flanked by two lesser sized standing servants, who are looking at him; in his honor, the one on the left is holding a staff of office with a curved apex and the one on the right, a standard and a flask.50 These attributes of sovereignty were incorporated in the Islamic rituals and iconography, attributing to the Prophet the use of the ring-seal with his name, on one hand and, on the other, the staff of office (on other occasions the Prophet’s famous burda or mantle). Some Arabian texts also mentioned «the Chalice of the Worlds», clearly alluding to the expression of the Caliph’s power, symbolism inherited from the ancient Iranian traditions («Chalice of Immortality» or «Chalice of Salvation»). During his proclamation in 961, al-Hakam II blandished a long bamboo cane with a curved end, and during his renewal of oath, the former’s successor, Hisham II, proceeded to Qurtuba’s Great Mosque with «the Caliph’s Scepter» accompanied by Almanzor and, following the prayers, he retired to Madinat al-Zahra, handing over the actual government to the Almari leader. On some ivories and textiles, the chalice is replaced by a flask, with the same meaning, which one can imagine full of wine, as it is also found in bacchanalian court scenes.51 The central medallion of the Leyre casket con49

The fact that that the names of Faray and Sa‘ada also appear on capitals and carvings in Almanzor’s extension of the Grand Mosque begs the question, difficult to answer, of whether they were general purpose artists or different specialist who applied similar aesthetic parameters.

50

María Teresa Pérez Higuera appropriately cites this panegyric dedicated to ‘Abd al-Rahman III to mark the birth of his son al-Hakam II: «Y por cuya generosidad hay lluvia cuando falta la lluvia, / tú en cuya mano apenas aparece la caña de bambú / cuando ya brotan en sus puntas las hojas verdes», and this other in the ‘Abd al-Rahman III Hall in al-Zahra during the Sacrifice Festivities in 971: «Nuestros días admiran el esplendor del imperio, y son como bodas y festines, / pues la justicia reina, la religión islámica brilla y el ramo del imperio verdea y da sus frutos», translated by García Gómez [‘And for whose generosity there is rain when there is no rain, / you, whose hands have barely touched the bamboo cane / when already from its top spring green leaves’ and ‘Our days admire the splendour of the empire, and they are like weddings and feasts, /as justice reigns, the Islamic religion shines and the empire’s staff turns green and gives fruit’]. Cited by María Teresa Pérez Higuera (1994). Objetos e imágenes de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., p. 54.

51

Ibidem, p. 55.

56

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

tains three musicians (two with flutes and the one in the middle playing a laud) and to the left there are two beardless figures sitting, Turkish style, one on each side of a central tree and looking at each other, on a throne supported by lions. Given the political situation, the content of the inscription and the aforementioned attributes of sovereignty, it is likely that one of the figures is ‘Abd al-Malik himself, true holder of the power since the death of his father, Almanzor, in 1002, as he appears with the chalice and staff of office; the figure carrying a branch and chalice to his right could represent his progenitor, from whom he would have received the command, although this is quite conjectural. On the symmetrical medallions on the other side, a hero stands out in the centre, perhaps ‘Abd al-Malik, fighting with two lions, and in the accompanying medallions, there are pairs of horse riders with spears and swords, separated by an axial tree; they are static in the right-hand medallion and fighting each other in the left-hand one. These medallions are, in short, heroic scenes of fighting, triumph and power, which have been diversified in the other bas-relief ivory decorations, with confronting gryphons and unicorns, deer, lions attacking gazelles and a person climbing a tree, eagles hunting quadrupeds, images of hunting with falcons, lions and an elephant, as well as some peacocks and other animals and people mixed in with the undergrowth. On the other hand, the different quality of the composition and manufacture can be seen, particularly in the figures on the lid, due to their energetic naturalism and the precision with which they were carved.

Another later piece, the Braga Cathedral flask, the inscription of which pleads for «alhayib Sayf al-Dawla» —once again Almanzor’s son, ‘Abd al-Malik— prosperity, happiness and increased glory from God, recording that it was made under the orders of Zuhayr ibn Muhammad al-‘Amiri, though without giving a date, notwithstanding which it can be situated in 1004, year in which ‘Abd al-Malik took on the title of Sayf al-Dawla, and before 1007, when he adopted the title of al-Muzaffar (‘the Victorious’) following his victory against Sancho García. The flask displays the most architectural shape of these ivories, as it is decorated with six horseshoe arches, supported by small columns with capitals, over which, above a loop derived from the projection of each arch, the lid forms a dome topped with a knop in the shape of an amalak fruit. The arches are filled with pairs of animals and birds and two people who are collecting and eating fruit; the loops, making up medallions, contain two deer, two peacocks and two quails, whilst the lid is covered with five eightlobed medallions, each containing an animal (two lions, a peacock and two deer). Due to the pacific nature of its decoration it is thought that it was created to mark some nuptials or seasonal festivity, although it can also be interpreted in a diplomatic, or even Eucharistic light, due to which it has been suggested, on the other hand, that it could have been a gift from Asbab ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Nabil, Kadhi of the Qurtuba Mozarabs, to Mendo Gonçalvez of Portugal when he visited Portugal in representation of ‘Abd al-Malik to support Don Mendo in his disputes with Sancho García for the guardianship of the young Alfonso V, which would also explain the fact that its iconography shares characteristics with that

57

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

of the Visigoth images in the Gothic chalice conserved together with this pyxis in the Portuguese cathedral.52 The royal workshops also produced pieces with an official stamp, although with more general semantics such as the renowned «green and manganese» ceramics, which were made in the cities of al-Zahra and Ilbira during the Caliphate. Vegetable, geometric, calligraphic, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic decoration was applied on a white glazed background (slip glaze) using copper (green) and manganese (black) oxides, whilst honey glaze was applied to the outside. Glazed ceramics, a contribution of Islam, attained a high level of refinement in Qurtuba, where oriental and Andalusi techniques and motifs were combined in an unmistakable synthesis. Such pieces include the ataifors with the words al-Mulk (‘the Sovereign, Regal and Divine’) repeated a simple Kufic band (National Archaeological Museum, Madrid) and again in a single central word painted in a more elaborate florid Kufic script (Cordoba Archaeological Museum). In the first case, the Kufic border is surrounded by a perimeter of plant motifs with palm leaves, whilst in the second the vegetable component forms a five-point star with curved lines, in the manner of an encasing cosmos. One of the Madinat al-Zahra jars also carries a border with al-Mulk in simple Kufic script, whilst another only has geometric borders and vegetable decoration with palm leaves and petals with evident creativity. Also belonging to the genre of «green and manganese» ceramics is a glazed jar with rear handles and vegetable bands without any calligraphy (Cordoba Archaeological Museum) and other works with figures of people and animals, such as the beautiful musicians’ bottle (in the same Cordoba museum), the theme of which matches the «Musicians’ Capital» (laud players), the only capital with human figures in Caliphate art (Cordoba Archaeological Museum),53 as well as the fragment of a dish with a warrior wearing a helmet and coat of mail and carrying a spear and shield, the bowl with gazelle in the Valencia National Ceramics Museum and several fragments of dishes with peacocks and doves painted with a plant in their beaks (theme well-known in Byzantine art), all of these found in Madinat al-Zahra, plus the flask with hares from Madinat Ilbira (Granada Archaeological Museum). Other examples include certain singular pieces, such as the vessel in the shape of

52

Hypothesis offered by Serafín Moralejo contained in Francisco Prado-Vilar (1997). «Circular Visions of Fertility and Punishment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from Al-Andalus», Op. Cit., p. 34. A little after the fall of the Caliphate, ivories continued to be made at the Cuenca workshop, where Muhammad ibn Zayyan, author of the Silos casket in 1026, worked together with ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayyan, perhaps the brother of the former, who signed the Palencia casket in 1049, which is dedicated to Isma’il, son of the King of Toledo, al-Ma’mun.

However, these pieces are carved on ivory plaques that were subsequently attached to the wooden box and their decoration is less refined.

53

Also unusual are the capitals with zoomorphic themes, of which we can mention the one conserved in the Alhambra Museum, from the times of Almanzor, which shows two confronted aquatic birds with worms in their beaks.

58

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

a giraffe (Louvre Museum),54 deemed to have belonged to a palace in Madinat al-Zahra and which is also made with a white glaze and decoration in green and manganese, and the dish known as the Madinat Ilbira horse bowl, in which a bird is riding a splendidly harnessed oriental-looking horse and holding the reins in its beak, unusual and enigmatic symbolism, though ancestral, given that it was known by the ancient Indo-Europeans and perhaps it should be linked to the idea of a spiritual guide (bird) showing the way to Paradise (one of the many meanings attributed to the horse in Arabian mythology and culture). Following the rupture of the Caliphate, local ceramic workshops sprang up throughout the 11th century in Toledo, Balaguer, Valencia and Mallorca, and prosperous new techniques, such as the lost wax technique of which there are examples from Madinat al-Zahra where, additionally, fragments of golden earthenware were found, although it is thought that they were oriental importations as all the signs indicate that these sophisticated ceramics were not developed in Al-Andalus until the middle of the 11th century and, in a regular manner, as from the 12th century in Qurtuba.55 Obviously, a very special place of importance in the dissemination of the symbols of Cordovan Umayyad sovereignty is reserved for the tiraz or state weaving; the dar al-tiraz or weaving workshop was located next to the Caliphate palace-fortress and was run by a sahib al-tiraz or weaving workshop manager, who was a high vizier or chamberlain. Its first manager, in the 9th century, was Harith ibn Bazi, followed by Rayhan (910-911), Jalaf the Elder (925) and the famous Ya‘far, who was given the post in 961 when al-Hakam II succeeded to the Caliphate. Regarding this Caliph we know, specifically, that he visited the dar al-tiraz in 972, where he was received by the workshop supervisors, and where he asked about the work and gave them guidelines. This official artistic-formal institution had direct Sassanid and Byzantine precedents, and it was adapted to the Islam to manufacture luxury textiles, on which the royal marsam (‘hallmark’) was placed, quite often together with the name of the sovereign. They were made for the use of the monarch and his family, for civil servants and members of the court, to be worn in celebrations, to adorn aulic and private buildings, or to be given as gifts and even to be stored as valuable treasures.

Although it seems that silk was only beginning to be produced in Al-Andalus in the 9th century in Jaen, it is possible that with ‘Abd al-Rahman I production of this material had already begun in Qurtuba. Ibn ‘Idari does record, however, that it was ‘Abd al-Rahman II (821-852) who was «the first person to establish the tiraz factories and extend their production in Qurtuba». It should be noted that this Emir was particularly interested in emulat54

It is well-known that in festivities celebrating Nayruz (Spring) were held Al-Andalus, in which clay toys, especially in the shape of a giraffe, were given as presents.

55

For all this, apart from the aforementioned Al-Andalus. Las artes islámicas en España and El esplendor de los omeyas de al-Andalus, see the studies by Basilio Pavón Maldonado (1972). «La loza doméstica de Madinat al-Zahra», Al-Andalus, xxxvii, pp. 191-227; and the books by Balvina Martínez Caviró (1991). Cerámica hispanomusulmana.

Madrid: El Viso; and by Carlos Cano Piedra (1996). La cerámica verde-manganeso de Madinat Al-Zahra’. Granada: Fundación El Legado Andalusí.

59

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

ing the Abbasid court and that, under his government, Ziryab (ca. 788/789-ca. 857/858) arrived in Qurtuba. It was this factotum or cultural hero, almost mythical, poet, singer, musician and artist in general who, fleeing from the court of Harun al-Rashid, brought to Al-Andalus not only musical novelties (laud melodies and improvements for laud and its playing with a new plectrum), but also new gastronomic customs and table etiquette, such as the use of leather table cloths and crystal glasses, for which he is linked to the growth of Cordovan glass art.56 It is also said that textiles with his name on the borders were secretly woven for Emir Muhammad I in Baghdad, and that in times of Emir ‘Abd Allah, the governor of Seville, Ibrahim ibn Hayyay, manufactured them with his name on «copying the Qurtuba custom».57 During his trip to Qurtuba in 948, Ibn Hawqal would mention the quality of the Andalusi brocades, wools and silks, their magnificent colors and the weightlessness and beauty of the garments, which were exported and competed with those of Orient. From the Cordovan tiraz, in any case, there are some examples of calligraphies and decorations in tapestry stitch with silk threads in different colors with and abundant gold from Cyprus or gilt, such as the considerable almaizar (turban-like veil) belonging to Hisham II, which, originating from the reliquary of San Esteban de Gormaz (St. Stephen of Gormaz, Soria) and conserved in the Royal Academy of History (Madrid), is decorated with a large border on the ends worn over the shoulder, with the inscription, repeated in two lines and in reverse: «In the name of God the indulgent, the merciful, prosperity and long reign to the Caliph, Imam and God’s servant, Hisham, the object of God’s benevolence and Commander of the Faithful» in a florid Kufic script similar to that of Madinat al-Zahra. Between both lines of calligraphy there is a succession of octagons (like in the Coptic textiles) with birds, lions and gazelles, whilst the two octagons at one end contain two human figures, one masculine, probably the Caliph mentioned in the inscription, Hisham II, who is sitting Turkish style and holds a flask in one hand and is pointing deferentially with the other to his right, where there is a female figure, presumably his mother, Subh, with which the iconography influences the political and aulic nature of the piece. The vegetable elements interspersed between the «vignettes», joined in turn by eight-point stars, coincide with some of the Caliphate ivories and mural decorations commented on previously. Possibly with a similar composition, the 10th century embroidered textile, called Yuba de Oña and which was found in San Salvador Monastery 56

The Arabian source that records with the greatest details the artistic-cultural adventure of Ziryab, based on previous texts, is Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi (2003). Al-Muqtabis II-1 [ed. by Mahmud ‘Ali Makki]. Riad: Markaz al-Malik Faysal li-l-Buhut wa-l-Dirasat al-Islamiya, pp. 307-335; and Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi (2001). Crónica de los emires Alhakam I y Abdarrahman II entre los años 796 y 847 [Almuqtabis II-1] [translated by Mahmud Ali Makki and Federico Corriente]. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo, pp. 193-215. It is known that in Al-Andalus several Iraqi glass objects were imported, but that with Emir Muhammad I they were also manufactured here, for which the factories of Murcia and Almeria became renowned during the Caliphate; later they were produced in Seville under al-Mu‘tamid (11th C.), in Malaga, Murcia and Almeria (13th C.), together with golden earthenware, as well as in other cities.

57

María Teresa Pérez Higuera (1994). Objetos e imágenes de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., pp. 86-88.

60

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

at Oña (Burgos), shows a figure sitting on a dais, supported by branches that sprout from a vessel, in profile and pointing with the right hand, probably towards a main figure situated on the lost part of the textile. Also from the Cordovan tiraz are the fragment of embroidery dedicated to ‘Abd al-Rahman III and carried out under the orders of Durri in 941-942 (Cleveland Museum) and the piece of the famous Pyrenees tapestry (Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid), on which a series of linked circles are embroidered with aulic animals inside (similar to the al-Mughira jar and the Garrucha treasury), of which only one of the circles with a peacock has been conserved, all accompanied by Caliphate vegetable and floral motifs. Likewise, there is the San Lázaro Shroud (St. Lazarus Shroud), from Autun Cathedral (France), which shows a turbaned horse rider and a falconer with a belt, with a mention, in simple Kufic script, of ‘Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar, for which the textile appears to be an exaltation of the aforementioned triumph of Almanzor’s son in 1007.58 In the era of the Taifas, other workshops came to the fore, such as the one in Almeria, place that ‘Abd al-Rahman III had turned into a city in 955 after crushing a Mozarab uprising and fending off a Fatimid attack against Pechina. Almeria replaced Qurtuba in the manufacture of textiles, which reached the Orient and, according to al-Idrisi, the port city had as many as 800 silk looms, weaving dresses, cloth and brocades with beautiful designs, flowers and eye-shaped motifs. It was there, in «al-Mariya», where the Cape of Fermo (Italy) was made, as is recorded in its inscription dated 510 (1116/1117), with a rich figurative aulic pattern organized within linked circles: elephant with rider, falcon hunting, galloping horse rider, sovereign sitting Turkish style on a throne and flanked by a musician and a servant with a fan, as well as aulic animals, such a eagles with their wings spread hunting a gazelle, a panther, a gryphon, a winged lion, a sphinx, also with wings and a branch in its mouth, together with fawns, gazelles, parrots, peacocks and even aquatic birds; all of this is interspersed with vegetable motifs, trees of life and lotus flowers, and geometric elements (circles, spirals and eight-point stars). This textile, probably made for an Almoravid leader, perhaps ‘Ali ibn Yusuf, who reigned at the time and favored the arts in Almeria, constitutes the survival of the visual language of Umayyad Qurtuba and, at the same time, in the golden Kufic inscription on a background of blue, it tells us of its disappearance.59

Scribes and Book Arts in Qurtuba Throughout this synthesis of the artistic production in Qurtuba, calligraphy has occupied a central place in providing significance, from the hard marbles, mosaics and monumental spaces of the architecture to the more malleable materials of ivory, ceramics, textiles 58

Cristina Partearroyo Lacaba (2007). «Tejidos andalusíes», Artigrama, 22, pp. 371-419.

59

Ibidem, pp. 383-386; and Laura Ciampini (2009). La capa de Fermo: un bordado de al-Andalus, in Antonio Fernández-Puertas and Purificación Marinetto Sánchez (eds.). Arte y cultura. Patrimonio Hispanomusulmán en al-Andalus. Op. Cit., pp. 141-177.

61

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

and, naturally and to conclude, parchments. If, with Islam, book arts obtained remarkable development, Qurtuba was one of its main hubs, thanks to state and private patronage, as well as the devotional, scientific and literary activity of the Andalusi Umayyads and their followers, who created a flourishing book industry in contact, always, with the Arabian Orient. We have examples of Arabian texts in Al-Andalus, from the first Andalusi coins known, the bilingual dinar of 94 (716), bilingual, the one from the year 102 (720), now with two faces with Kufic script following Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik’s numismatic reform, or the dirham coined by ‘Abd al-Rahman I in 146 (763). Soon the calligraphy was put to monumental and artistic use, which would have a magnificent evolution from simple incised texts to the extremely refined simple and florid Kufic Caliphate scripts, the fame of which reached the Orient, where, in the 10th and 11th centuries «Andalusi Kufic» was celebrated as one of the most important Arabian calligraphies.60 From ‘Abd al-Rahman I (r. 788-796), considered a man of letters and a poet, the Andalusi Umayyad family also encouraged the importation, copying and production of books, and the creation of libraries. Emir Muhammad I (r. 852886) gathered together a large royal library that exceeded all others in existence in Qurtuba; likewise, ‘Abd al-Rahman III was also renowned for his passion for books, which led the Byzantine Emperor to present him with a copy of Dioscorides’ medical works, written in Greek on parchment with letters of gold and silver and marvelously bound and illustrated with drawings of medicinal plants;61 a freed slave (‘mawlà’) of this first Caliph, the Cordovan traditionalist Sa‘id ibn Nasr Abi l-Fath (927/928-1004/1005), also worked as proof reader.

Nevertheless, the book activity would reach its maximum heights with al-Hakam II (r. 961976), based on which Andalusi sources cite tens and even hundreds of people dedicated to this art. In the Umayyad capital there was even a district called ‘of the al-raqqaqin’, that is «parchment makers» and book makers. According to Julian Ribera’s calculations, in Qurtuba’s age of maximum splendor as many as sixty to eighty thousand books could have been produced annually, taking into account the number of master technicians with hundreds of students who copied the lessons in the Great Mosque and other mosques, the teams of women scribes mentioned in the texts and the many librarians, bibliophiles, sovereigns 60

For example, the foundation stone of Ibn ‘Adabbas’s mosque in Seville, built during the Emirate of ‘Abd alRahman II, contained a still a roughly incised Kufic inscription, mentioning the Emir, the project manager, the Moslem scholar Ibn ‘Adabbas, the calligraphic carver, ‘Abd al-Barr ibn Harun, and the construction date, 214 (829/830). Another example is the inscription on the main door of Merida Alcazabar, with the names of two project managers, the governor ‘Abd Allah ibn Kullayb ibn Ta’laba and the freed slave Hayqar ibn Mukabbis, also from the era of ‘Abd al-Rahman II, and with the date rabi‘ ii 220 (4 April-2 May 835); the epigraphy here is much more regular and calligraphic, whilst in the following decades, with the foundation stone of Tolosa arsenal, with calligraphy by Ibn Kulayb in 333 (944/945) and, in particular, the epigraphs mentioned from al-Zahra, al-Hakam’s Great Mosque and the two Caliphate sumptuary objects, as already mentioned, the Cordovan Kufic script reached its zenith. See Manuel Ocaña Jiménez (1970). El cúfico hispano y su evolución. Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura.

61

See Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 367; and Julián Ribera Tarragó (1928). Bibliófilos y bibliotecas en la España musulmana, in Disertaciones y opúsculos, I. Madrid: Imprenta de Estanislao Maestre, p. 191.

62

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

and courtesans who had salaried copyists.62 Furthermore, al-Hakam II compiled the largest library known in Al-Andalus, starting with the collections inherited from his ancestors, to which he added that of his brother Muhammad and the volumes he himself ordered and which were manufactured in his scribe workshops. His proverbial Library of Knowledge (‘jizanatu-hu al-‘ilmiya’) had 400,000 volumes, registered in 44 volumes of indexes each with 20 folios, according to the author of The Dove’s Necklace, Ibn Hazm of Qurtuba (9941063).63 The best binders in Al-Andalus worked in the palace-fortresses of the Cordovan Umayyads, together with illustrators, decorators and expert copyists, grammar supervisors and scholars,64 from Sicily and even from Baghdad. Among the scribes and calligraphers who worked for al-Hakam II we will mention the Cordoban man of letters and lexicologist Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Fihri who was copyist (‘warraq’), corrector and finisher of the works of Abu ‘Ali al-Qali al-Bagdadi (893-967), and an important eastern lexicologist who, after spending some time training in Baghdad, went to Qurtuba, where he would die after training a number of Andalusis. The aforementioned and erudite Ibn al-Husayn al-Fihri, together with Muhammad ibn Mu’ammar from Jaen, took charge of copying (‘nasj’) and refining the works of Abu ‘Ali al-Qali called the al-Bari’ fi l-luga (‘Language Expert’), as well as another two of his lexicons, the Kitab al-hamza and the Kitab al-‘ayn. When he finished the book and al-Fihri presented it to al-Hakam II, who —according to the sources— wanted to know what had been added to the copy (‘nusja’) of Jalil’s Kitab al-‘ayn, the first Arabic dictionary, the copyist informed him that no less than 5,683 words. From this lexicon-scribe cooperation between al-Qali of Baghdad and the aforementioned Andalusis, of note is the extremely high esteem that al-Qali had of the wholly oriental work Adab al-kuttab (‘Educating Scribes’) by Ibn Qutayba (828-889), who cited his Andalusi students as models. Later 62

Ibidem, p. 204.

63

Ibn Hazm (1962). Yamharat ansab al-‘arab. Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif, p. 100; according to Ibn Hazm in the same work frequently cited and which would be mentioned by Al-Maqqari (1988) (Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, pp. 385-386) al-Hakam II’s interest for knowledge and passion for books was such that, according to the eunuch Talid, head of the Umayyads’ library, al-Hakam acquired works from all over, as well as ordering scholars to come from Baghdad and sending traders everywhere and sending them funds to buy books (it is said that he sent 10,000 dinars of pure gold to buy the Kitab al-agani from Abu l-Faray al-Isfahani, who sent him a copy of this magna literary encyclopaedia even before it saw the light in his native Iraq); al-Hakam, in short, «gathered in his house [according to the eunuch] the most skilful artisans in the art of copying (fi sina’at al-nasj) and the most dextrous in vocalisation (fi l-dabt) and in good binding (iyadat al-taylid)», until compiling in Al-Andalus the best library ever seen, and which could only be matched, in the opinion of al-Maqqari, by the one gathered together by the last generation of Abbasid Caliphs, specifically Caliph al-Mustadi’ (d. 1170). Al-Hakam’s library was sacked during the Berber uprising and part of the collection was sold; finally, a client of Almanzor cleared the rest. Ibidem.

64

As regards the art of binding, the famous Cordovan leather, called ‘cordobán’, was used for this purpose, tanned goat’s skin, used for gloves, cushions, saddles or sword sheaths or guadameci, a variety of more flexible embossed leather made from ram’s hide, decorated with gold and colored designs, manufactured in a factory in Axerquia in Qurtuba. The treatise on binding drawn up by Ibn Ibrahim from Seville (d. ca. 1230-1232) Kitab al-taysir fi sina‘at al-tasfir (‘Simplification of the Art of Binding’) has been conserved; its detailed content describing the manufacture, decoration and restoration of books can be consulted in the work by Hossam Mujtar al-Abbady (2005). Las artes del libro en el Magreb y al-Andalus (siglos iv H./x d. C.-viii H./xv d. C.). Madrid: El Viso.

63

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

this same work by Ibn Qutayba, in which specific attention is paid to the calligraphy, would be commented on by the lexicologist and philosopher Ibn al-Sid of Badajoz (1052-1127), resulting in one of the scarce theoretical reflections on the art of oriental-style calligraphy produced in Al-Andalus. Additionally, the Malik Faqui Abu ‘Amr al-Dani, who was born in Qurtuba, studied in Cairauan, Cairo, Medina and Mecca, returned to Qurtuba and then resided in Denia, where he died in 1053, compared, in one of his multiple treatises on the reading of the Koran, entitled al-Muhkam fi naqt al-masahif (‘Perfection Regarding the Koran Punctuation’), the letter alif to the human body, as a canon of beauty and harmony.

Another of the figures that contributed to the introduction of calligraphic knowledge and forms in Al-Andalus, this time from Cairauan, was Abu l-Fadl ibn Harun (907/908989) of Sicily, who, after a stay in the aforementioned Tunisian city, an important hub of calligraphic dissemination, joined the group of copyists (‘warraqin’) working for the crown prince at the time al-Hakam II, attaining a prestigious reputation in this activity.65 Ibn Harun, the Sicilian, also worked under the orders of Ya‘far al-Bagdadi, who «set up in Qurtuba and was one of the head copyists renowned for his exact vocalization and excellent calligraphy, as was ‘Abbas ibn ‘Amru, also from Sicily, Yusuf al-Balluti, Andalusi, and others».66 All of these were employed by al-Hakam II in al-wiraqa (‘book factory’), joining his famous teams of scribes, which also included women, such as Lubna al-Katiba, Fatima bint alSabullari and others. Indeed, we know that many of the «Al-Andalus female scholars» held the status of katibas (‘scribes and calligraphers’); they were generally slaves who worked for their lords or ladies and were in charge of writing the correspondence and other official documents; some were copyists, with the actual office of court scribes due to their good calligraphy, although no works signed by them have been found. Calligraphy is, in any case, one of the arts, together with poetry and singing, on which there are the most reports of women artists found in classic Arabian Islam, given that copying the Koran and books of erudition was considered a devotional activity suited to them. In the Emirate and Caliphate Qurtuba, at least as from ‘Abd al-Rahman II, female slaves and literary freed slaves and scribes were incorporated to work directly for the sovereign and the royal house, as their ancestors in Damascus and the Abbasids in Baghdad had done. The slave called precisely Qalam (‘Flute’) served Abd al-Rahman II as a singing, literary and scribe slave; she was of Basque origin and after training and learning to sing in Medina, she was acquired by this Emir and shone in Qurtuba thanks to her literary knowledge, her compositions and poetic reviews and beautiful calligraphy. Even ‘Abd al-Rahman II’s daughter, called Baha’ 65

The following data on Qurtuba calligraphers and calligraphies have been extracted, in the main, from the repertoires and works of Ibn al-Abbar, Ibn Bashkwal, Ibn al-Faradi, Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik and al-Maqqari; many have already been cited by Julián Ribera and María Luisa Ávila, and I have also provided details on them in «Caligrafía y calígrafos andalusíes» and «Calígrafas del islam árabe clásico»; See José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2007). La aventura del cálamo: historia, formas y artistas de la caligrafía árabe. Granada: Edilux, pp. 139-202.

66

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Op. Cit., vol. i, p. 111.

64

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

(‘Splendor’), lived an ascetic life dedicated to making copies of the Koran, which she donated as devotional objects, as the Tunisian Fadl had done, from whom signed copies of the Koran have been found. An example of the piousness of this royal family scribe is the fact that the mosque in the suburb of al-Rusafa, to the north of the Qurtuba medina, carries her name: «al-Baha’ Mosque». Baha’ died in the month of rayab 304 (December 917), at the beginning of the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman III, for whom several slaves with calligraphic skills worked, such as the freed slave Radiya, copyist in the official installations; Kitman, from Cordoba, who was also Caliph’s katib in the palace-fortress of Qurtuba, and Muzna (d. 358 [986]), another excellent female scribe and person of letters (‘adiba’). Also of this period is Zumurrud, female slave katiba who died in 336 (947). Apart from people of letters, bibliophiles and calligraphers, Abbasid Baghdad also exported some female scribes, such as Sitt Nasim al-Bagdadiya, who Abd al-Rahman III employed due to her skill, to imitate his writing and draw up official documents when, in his old age, he had lost his sight.

His son and successor, al-Hakam II, also had a number of female slaves at his service who were trained in music, letters and calligraphy: Lubnà (d. 984-986), successor of her father al-Nasir, was expert in grammar, metrics and accounting, as well as a poet and magnificent calligrapher (‘katiba’, ‘jattata’); the Cordovan Fatima bint Zakariya ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Katib (d. 1036), daughter of a client and scribe at the service of al-Hakam II and of his hayib Ya‘far, was scribe (‘katiba’) with excellent calligraphy as well as a polygraph expert; she died at the age of 94 and was buried, ceremoniously and multitudinously, in the cemetery of Umm Salama in Qurtuba. Al-Hakam’s successor, Hisham II, was served by another of these slave calligraphers, called Nizam al-Katiba, who worked in the Cordovan palacefortress (qasr al-jilafa bi-Qurtuba); extremely eloquent, she specialized in copying and drafting epistles (‘rasa’il’) and was the author of the letter (‘jitab’) offering condolences to ‘Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar for the death of his father Almanzor and naming him the latter’s successor in shawwal 392 (August-September 1002). However, the calligraphic activity of women in Qurtuba was not limited only to the court environment, but its intensity was such that it is frequently observed that in the eastern suburb, during the Caliphate, 127 women worked making copies of the Koran with Kufic calligraphy, reason for which Julián Ribera opines that the massive use of female labor in the production of copies of the Koran was due to the fact that they were paid less than the men, apart from their abilities and the probity of their skill.

Following the decline of the Caliphate, the Andalusi sources continue to mention Qurtuba calligraphies. The series of biographies incorporated by al-Maqqari in Nafh al-tib taken from Ibn Hayyan, who, it should be noted, said that no slave in Al-Andalus could be matched in wisdom, education and poetic skills, mention literary freed female slaves and poets, such as ‘A’isha bint Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Qadim of Qurtuba (d. 400 [1009/1010]), perhaps the daughter of Muhammad ibn Qadim ibn Ziyad, who was subsequently a freed slave. ‘A’isha composed panegyrics for several Andalusi sovereigns and she

65

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez

is remembered for her excellent calligraphy, with which she made copies of the Koran, wrote journals and compiled books; she amassed a great fortune and a good library and, although she remained single, she attained a position of influence in government circles.

From the same city there are also references of Tuna bint ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Musà ibn Tahir ibn Saba’ (11th C., beginning of the 12th C.), married to the Koran reader Abu l-Qasim Ibn Mudir, preacher in Qurtuba Great Mosque; mother of Abu Bakr and nicknamed Habiba, she trained under Abu ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, taking down his works in writing, as well as under Abu l-‘Abbas al-‘Udri. Later, she taught her husband the skills acquired from these two great masters and was appreciated for her excellent calligraphy and the precision with which she made the copies.

Though, unfortunately, few examples of this book art have reached the present day, there are some with significant artistic and historical value, such as a square (18 × 18.8 cm) copy of the Koran, made in vellum during the Almoravid domination, which is conserved in Istanbul University Library (A6755);67 its flyleaf (3rd page) comprises a refined pattern with a weave of curved and straight lines in a wide pale band the same color as the parchment, which immediately evokes the Umayyad trellises and geometric designs. This band expands to form an exterior square, by way of eight intermediate interlinked circles, initiated at a central eight-point star, which contains an octagon with a golden band containing a braid, stylized as a pale eight-point star on a dark blue background, which gives the impression of rotation and immediately reminds one of the mosaic dome located in front of al-Hakam II’s mihrab, even including the contrast of the gold and blue aulic colors. The rest of the surface, of course, is a garden filled with «Cordovan» golden plant motifs on a dark blue background and with green and red shades in certain areas. In the colophon (pages 145b and 146a), written in blue oriental Kufic script, outlined in gold, and inserted within a wide square latticed frame, also full of golden vegetable scrolls and with an eightpoint star in each corner, one can read, before the tasliya (formula in honor of the Prophet) and the date of completion, that is, 548 (1143/1144), the text: «The entire Koran was completed with divine aid and providence in the city of Qurtuba; may God protect it».

67

Sabiha Khemir (1992). Hand-written Koran in Jerrilynn D. Dodds (coord.). Al-Andalus: las artes islámicas en España [exposición La Alhambra, 18 marzo-19 junio, 1992]. Op. Cit., pp. 304-305.

66

Qurtuba’s Monumentality and Artistic Significance

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (Durcal, Granada, 1959), holds a degree in History of Art and a doctorate in Arab Philology; he is a lecturer at Granada University and author of the books: Los códigos de utopía de la Alhambra de Granada (Granada, 1990), Historia del pensamiento estético árabe. Al-Andalus y la estética árabe clásica (Madrid, 1997), La aventura del cálamo. Historia, formas y artistas de la caligrafía árabe (Granada, 2007), Leer la Alhambra. Guía visual del Monumento a través de sus inscripciones (Granada, 2010) and La poética del agua en el islam / The Poetics of Water in Islam (Gijon, 2011). He has been commissioner of exhibitions such as Doce candiles para Granada, by the Palestinian artist Kamal Bullata and the Syrian poet Adonis (Granada, Alhambra Board of Trustees, 1998), and Libertad e innovación. Caligrafía árabe contemporánea (Casa Arabe, Madrid-Cordoba, 2010-2011). He also directed, together with Jorge Lirola Delgado, the edition and publication of Biblioteca de Al-Andalus (7 vols.) (Almeria, Ibn Tufayl Foundation, 2003-2012).

ABSTRACT This article offers a new appraisal of the historical, artistic and significant values of Qurtuba’s architecture and arts from the perspective of the recent contributions of research and taking into account the Andalusi Arab sources. To do this the essential aesthetic and constituent components of Cordoba Mosque and Madinat al-Zahra have been reviewed, as well as those of the most important Qurtuba bronzes, ivories, ceramics, textiles and book arts, placing special emphasis on the formal and semantic links between them all and on those responsible for the works and the artisans and calligraphers who produced them.

KEYWORDS Qurtuba, Cordoba, constituent and artistic components.

67

CALIPHAL QURTUBA: ORIGEN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE UMAYYAD CAPITAL OF AL-ANDALUS Juan F. Murillo Redondo

I

n 1929, when Rafael Castejón, one of the pioneer archeologists in Cordoba, took on the task of creating an urban image of tenth-century Cordoba to mark the celebration of the thousand-year anniversary of the proclamation of the Caliphate, he explained the limitations and difficulties of his attempt by recalling the pessimism with which Amador de los Ríos undertook the same challenge thirty years before, a task he would find impossible.1 Almost simultaneously Évariste Lévi-Provençal, the chief Arab scholar of his time, would begin his great work on Muslim Spain in which the pervasive role of the city of Cordoba would lead him to say that in many ways the history of 8th to 11th centuries Muslim Spain was the history of its capital.2 These are the pioneers who laid the groundwork for understanding the «Caliphate of Cordoba» and their work, the basis for all 20th century research, changed the way caliphal Cordoba was understood as different phases of the city’s Muslim history took shape.

Thus, the stage was dominated by scholars and researchers until the last quarter of the 20th century who delved individually into different aspects of the city’s Islamic past.

This phase is characterized by attempts to interpret the messages taken from Arab texts as scholars and researchers tried to place the scarce archeological findings that they managed to control in a city experiencing increased urban development and a growing population.

The last decades of the 20th century marked a time of transition in which the creation of the University of Cordoba (1972), the transfer of authority over cultural heritage material to the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (1984) and a new General Plan for Urban Management (1986) coincide with the reactivation of urban activity that would once again 1

Rafael Castejón (1929). «Córdoba califal», Boletín de la Real Academia de Córdoba, 25, pp. 254-339; Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos (1895). «Apuntes para la historia monumental de Córdoba durante la dominación musulmana», Revista de España, 10, June, p. 402.

2

Évariste Lévi-Provençal (1944). Histoire de l’Espagne musulmane. I. De la conquête a la chute du califat de Cordoue (710-1031).

El Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.

69

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

have a strong impact on the remains of the city’s past, especially on its Islamic remains as a result of their vulnerability, if state Cultural Heritage (1985) and regional (1991) laws failed to create effective mechanisms for management and protection.

We must wait until the approval of a new General Plan for Urban Management in 2001 and the implementation of global research programs, such as the current program developed by Urban Municipal Management (Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, gmu) and the University of Cordoba between 2002 and 2011, to begin improving urban archeological management in Cordoba, which translated into a substantial increase in the amount and quality of available archeological information. This stage presents a number of contrasts. Many advances have been made in establishing preventative protection measures and the management of archeological processes linked to urban activity. Many vestiges of the city’s past were also preserved but they are of yet inaccessible and, judging by the pace followed with the Roman temple, the caliphal baths or the Alcázar, we are still years away from these sites’ musealization and promotion. In short, we have had two decades of feverish activity, in which much research was conducted on sites, especially on the sites that were in danger of disappearing, but it will still take decades just to begin to process all the information.

As the capital of one of the richest and most highly-romanized provinces, Corduba Colonia Patricia reached considerable development after the Augustan refounding3 (Map 1), adapting its urban features to the profound political, economic, social and ideological changes at work from the 4th century onward. This city with classical roots, which passed through the filter of Christianity from the 4th to 7th centuries, became the capital of AlAndalus in 717. With the arrival of ‘Abd al-Rahman I and the restoration of the «Umayyad legitimacy» in the western part of the Islamic world in 756, Qurtuba would embark upon a new and transcendental urban development founded on three pillars. First, the continuity of certain «constants» inherited from Roman and Christian predecessors, upon which the implementation of certain Eastern urban models and architectural would be imposed.

These two factors of continuity and change, complex and evolving over the centuries, would be surpassed by the third essential and definitive factor: the unstoppable process of Islamization in all areas, including urban topography, the specific subject of our analysis.

3

For more information on Roman Cordoba, see Xavier Dupré i Raventós (ed.) (2004). Las capitales provinciales de Hispania. 1. Colonia Patricia Corduba. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider; Juan F. Murillo (2008). Colonia Patricia Corduba hasta la dinastía flavia. Imagen urbana de una capital provincial, in Ricardo González Villaescusa (ed.). Simulacra Romae II: Rome, les capitales de province (capita prouinciarum) et la création d’un espace commun européen: une approche archéologique. Reims: Société archéologique champenoise, pp. 71-94; and Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil and Juan F. Murillo Redondo (2010). Ciudad y suburbia en Corduba. Una visión diacrónica (siglos ii a. C.-vii d. C.), in Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil (ed.). Las áreas suburbanas en la ciudad histórica: topografía, usos, función. Cordoba: Universidad de Córdoba, pp. 455-522.

70

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

Map 1. Reconstruction of the Corduba Colonia Patricia forma urbis in the late first century BC.

Source: Collaboration agreement between Urban Municipal Management (GMU) and the University of Cordoba (gmu-uco).

As a result of this dialectical interaction we find an urban reality in the second half of the tenth century completely different from that which preceded it. The «Caliphate of Cordoba» surpassed all contemporary European and most Islamic urban centers in scale, constituting a megalopolis comparable only to Baghdad’s Abbasid Caliphate. The splendor of the Caliphate of Cordoba, celebrated in song and dreamt of by Andalusian poets, was not just the work of a generation (that of ‘Abd al-Rahman III) but the result of a highly complex historical process in which a number of factors came into play: a millenniumold urban trajectory, the strength of Islam in shaping the urban landscape and sociability, the Umayyad conception of power implemented by the first independent emir and transformed, under parameters taken from the Abbasid enemy, by ‘Abd al-Rahman II to later be «revolutionized» by the first caliph who, aware of the system’s limitations and pressed by the social-economic changes taking place in al-Andalus, by the weakening of the more theoretic than real figure of the Abbasid Caliphate and by the Christian pressure on borders and the Fatamid threat in north Africa, to strengthen his power through an ideological legitimization based on the caliphate dignity to overcome traditional Umayyad tools: military strength and the subsequent ability to collect taxes.4

From the Roman Colonia Patricia to Christian Corduba The Corduba conquered by Mughith in 711 was characterized by a physical space delimited by the walled perimeter of the old Roman city with a vibrant and transforming urban fabric as a result of a secular historical dynamic that led to the dissolution of the 4

For the activities of Umayyad Cordovans, in addition to the classic works of Évariste Lévi-Provençal, the review made by Eduardo Manzano (2006) is essential. Conquistadores, emires y califas: los omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus.

Barcelona: Crítica. A very thought-provoking reinterpretation of the «revolution» caused by ‘Abd al-Rahman III in 929 was developed by María Isabel Fierro Bello (2010). Abderramán III y el califato omeya de Córdoba. DonostiaSan Sebastián: Nerea.

71

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

roads network, the abandonment and/or transformation of public spaces and buildings including the cemetery inside the old pomerium, all in line with the classical city’s process of evolution that dated to the 3rd century. Recent archaeological research has also been able to compare suburban areas, especially the western suburbium, with the abandonment and dismantling of the amphitheater and construction of the Cercadilla architectural complex in the early 4th century.5 This suburbium occidentali would already be under the process of Christianization in the mid-4th century, as evidenced by the transformation of the Cercadilla complex into the residence of Bishop Osio, the construction of a cultural center, most likely martial, in the area of the dismantled amphitheater and in the progressive Christianization of the funerary spaces. However, within the walled city this process would barely be archaeologically noticeable until the end of the 5th century, basing the transition on a new model of urban space that reveals the dismantling of the road network to create a new urban reality.

On the one hand, the northern half of the city would become sparsely populated (the same area where the main monuments and centers of power were located), with large undeveloped areas owing to a lack of cohesive planning, possibly intended for orchards or landfills and even sporadically used for burials. We also find, within the scope of this vetus urbs, the phenomena of unstable occupation of old buildings, both public and private, evidence of changes in the social and economic relationships of the urban population. On the other end of the spectrum is what happened in the southern region of the city; here new buildings and public spaces, power centers and homes of the local aristocracy were concentrated in a clear move toward emerging strategic factors: the river, its port, and the bridge.

Although documentation is still scarce and fragmented, archaeological research over the last decade begins to sketch the basic lines of what would be the new center of political and religious power for a millennium. The oldest item found to date is the castellum, a fortified complex with versatile uses that would personify the city’s governmental civil authority, as evidenced by its dimensions, its size and the inevitable use and annulment of the old wall, which would be projected as a fortified stronghold towards the river, flanking the approach to the bridge at its most unguarded point.6 On the other hand, the excavations made at the Visitor Reception Center site have unearthed a large building that adjoins the southern wall of the city, with a large atrium open to the street at the plaza in front of the bridge’s gate and connected by a courtyard that opened onto large areas paved with opus signinum floors. This monumental building dates from the late 5th or early 6th century, and has been historically proven to have been linked 5

See Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil and Juan F. Murillo Redondo (eds.) (2010). El Anfiteatro romano de Córdoba y su entorno urbano (ss. i-xiii d. C.). Cordoba: Universidad de Córdoba.

6

See Alberto León and Juan F. Murillo (2009). «El complejo civil tardoantiguo de Córdoba y su continuidad en el Alcázar Omeya», Madrider Mitteilungen, 50, pp. 399-432.

72

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

to the Corduba bishop’s complex at its San Vicente headquarters. We still have yet to determine whether the bishop’s complex necessitated the use of the kardo maximus of the nova urbs, although it most likely did, establishing traffic from the upper part of the city to the bridge gate across the two lateral kardines that crossed the enclosure and formed the western and eastern fronts of the subsequent Umayyad Great Mosque, leading to the old and already much transformed Roman square, with porticos dismantled in the 5th century, the western span of the original triple-arched door walled over from approximately the 6th century and the façade of the Late Antiquity building dominating its eastern side.7 The entire complex would define an urban image reflected in the power of the bishop, the true master of the city during the almost two centuries between the fall of Rome’s provincial government in Baetica and the definitive conquest of Corduba by Liuvigild in 585.

The Arab Conquest and the Beginning of Islamization We have established Cordoba’s gradual transformation between the fourth and seventh centuries within parameters from which some deterioration and even crisis could be understood; however, they are merely the reflection of profound economic, social and political transformations from which emerged a different city that maintained similar functions as its predecessor in a world that was more rural and much less interconnected than in previous centuries. This process would be cut short by the defeat and collapse of the Visigoth state in 711 and the subsequent Muslim conquest.8 Just six years later, in 717, governor al-Hurr arrives with detailed instructions from the caliph for establishing Cordoba as the capital of al-Andalus and laying the foundations for the administrative management of new territories incorporated into Islam. Eduardo Manzano has attempted to justify this choice of Cordoba over Seville for the administrative capital as a result of differences surrounding the conquest of both cities (covenant against conquest) and the resulting availability of spoils to be had in Cordoba,9 responds more to 7

See Juan F. Murillo, Alberto León Muñoz, Elena Castro, M.ª Teresa Casal, Raimundo Ortiz and Antonio J. González (2010). La transición de la civitas clásica a la madina islámica a través de las transformaciones operadas en las áreas suburbiales, in Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil and Juan F. Murillo Redondo (eds.). El Anfiteatro romano de Córdoba y su entorno urbano (ss. i-xiii d. C.). Op. Cit., note 5, pp. 503-547 (see pp. 521-524 and figure 247).

8

The Arab conquest of 711 has been the subject of fierce historiographical controversy that has not always been limited to the field of science, as evidenced by Eduardo Manzano and M.ª Antonia Martínez Núñez, so the interested reader should be very critical when faced with the extensive literature on the subject; see Eduardo Manzano (2011). «Algunas reflexiones sobre el 711», Awraq, 3, pp. 3-20; and M.ª Antonia Martínez Núñez (2011). «¿Por qué llegaron los árabes a la Península Ibérica?: las causas de la conquista musulmana del 711», Awraq, 3, pp. 21-36.

As an introduction, we again direct readers to the work of Eduardo Manzano (2006). Conquistadores, emires y califas: los omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., note 4, pp. 29-186, that can be completed, in certain aspects, with the work of Pedro Chalmeta (1994). Invasión e islamización: la sumisión de Hispania y la formación de al-Andalus. Madrid: Mapfre.

9

This interpretation is too simplistic, as they could have chosen one of the other two significant mainland cities (Toledo and Merida) for the same reason, and failed to mention that clear Artobás «collaborators» who held great riches were in Cordoba, who years later granted the Syrian al-Sumayl the rich ‘Uqdat al-Zaytun estate. See Eduardo Manzano (2006). Conquistadores, emires y califas: los omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus. Op. Cit., note 4, pp. 71-72 and 112.

73

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

a successful geostrategic vision that expresses the clear will of Damascus to consolidate the conquest and ensure the collection of taxes and communications from Cordoba, where the bridge, repaired in 720 by the express command of ‘Umar II, will be key.

Urban life in Cordoba will continue without pause after the conquest, as any pause beyond the logical readapting to new needs would have been documented by archaeological research. A perfect example is the urban morphology within the inherited walled town that was adapted into Qurtuba’s medina, where in 711 we would find ourselves in the middle of a transformation process that would start with the road layout of the Augustan Roman city10 and would end with the layout reflected in Cordoba’s first map in 1811, the Plano de los franceses (French map), so we have enough information not only to determine Cordoba’s transformations over the 19th and early-20th centuries but also enough information to determine most of the transformations that occurred from the 14th century onward.

The Plano de los franceses (Map 2) shows that most of the gates of the Roman colony were still used in the Cordoba medina even into the early 19th century, gates that Manuel Ocaña has demonstrated were also in use during the Islamic period.11 From these gates, the Plano de los franceses allows for a hierarchical analysis of the road and a process of deconstruction based on the diachronic approach provided by the recent archaeological research. As an example, we can verify how the latest road hierarchy,12 the parapet walkways, which establish a process of saturation and densification of the area,13 were particularly frequent in the southern sector, in the vicinity of the mosque, where more than thirty can be counted today. By contrast, their scarcity in the northernmost sector is significant, precisely in an area that would be sparsely populated after the Christian conquest, with gardens, yards and other rural spaces which were not developed until much later, defining a privileged area for installing nobles and, later, monasteries. This peculiarity could indicate some special features in the occupation of this sector, precisely the farthest from the center of power based in the southern part of the city, sparsely population and with the consequent lack of quality housing that would make it an unattractive place to settle to the first Muslims who arrived with Mughith, who would initially obtain suitable homes in other, more populous sectors.

10

See Juan F. Murillo (2008). Colonia Patricia Corduba hasta la dinastía flavia. Imagen urbana de una capital provincial. Op. Cit., note 3, figure 4.

11

Manuel Ocaña (1935). «Las puertas de la medina de Córdoba», Al-Andalus, iii, pp. 143-151.

12

See Juan F. Murillo, María Dolores Ruiz, Silvia Carmona and Maudilio Moreno-Almenara (2009). La manzana de San Pablo-Orive en el contexto de la evolución histórico-urbanística de la ciudad de Córdoba, in Francisco Gómez Díaz, Antonio Luis Ampliato Briones, Maudilio Moreno Almenara, Juan Francisco Murillo, Dolores Ruiz Lara, Silvia Carmona and Rafael García Castejón. Orive. La clave del espacio público en el centro histórico de Córdoba. Cordoba: Ediciones de La Posada, pp. 45-135 (see figure 48 and pp. 101-103).

13

The formulation of this concept, applied to the Andalusian cities, has been developed by Julio Navarro Palazón and Pedro Jiménez Castillo (2003). On the Islamic city and its evolution see Sebastián F. Ramallo Asensio and Ana María Muñoz Amilibia. Estudios de arqueología dedicados a la profesora Ana María Muñoz Amilibia. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, pp. 319-381.

74

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

Map 2. Location of the Qurtuba’s medina gates and the hierarchy of the road system based on the 1811 map, digitally corrected and adjusted to current maps.

Source: gmu-uco Agreement.

Soon after, the troubled ups and downs that marked the first decades of Islamic establishment in Cordoba, together with the displacement of the majority of the Christian population to outside the medina wall, would lead to the possible installation in this northern area of agnatic groups whose impact we can trace in urban toponymy, in line with a similar process that is widely known in Muslim cities.14 This is clear from giving the names of two Arab figures from the first third of the eighth century, ‘Abd al-Yabbar b. Al Jattab and ‘Amir b. Umar alQurasi, to a cemetery (maqbara ‘Amir al-Qurasi) and the two northern-most gates of the western and eastern medina borders, known as bab Ibn ‘Abd al-Yabbar and bab ‘Amir, in addition to the fact that the neighborhood between this last gate and the bab al-Yahud was named after the Berber group known as the banu Zayyali. Along these lines we should also mention the location of large urban homes in this upper part of the medina, far from the busy bab al-Qantara and the Great Mosque, which belonged to the Cordovan elite later in the 9th century.

14

Hypothesis already posed by Manuel Acién Almansa and Antonio Vallejo Triano (1998). Urbanismo y Estado islámico. De Córdoba a Qurtuba-Madinat al-Zahra, in Patrice Cressier, Mercedes García-Arenal and Mohamed Méouak.

Genèse de la ville islamique en al-Andalus et au Maghreb occidental. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (csic), pp. 107-136.

75

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

Qurtuba, Head of the neo-Umayyad State of al-Andalus After the period of caliph-dependent governors, characterized by the absence of urban planning and lack of clear guidelines on the linking of Cordoba and its territory, a substantial change in the configuration of the new Muslim city will be marked by the accession to power of ‘Abd al-Rahman I in 756. ‘Abd al-Rahman I would leave a permanent mark on the future of Qurtuba with a building program that would be developed through a three-pronged approach that could be qualified as dynastic, given the project’s longevity and the involvement of his heirs. The first of these Umayyad stone symbols would be the Great Mosque, constructed on part of the ancient San Vicente church complex and prototype for all buildings constructed in al-Andalus after the model of the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus.

The prestige of the founder and the Maliki code of not permitting more than one mosque in each city contributed to its conversion into a dynastic building (Map 3), to which successive emirs and caliphs will add (minaret, ablution rooms with corresponding water supply, sabat, al-mimbar...) and expand to quadruple its surface, but without ever losing the typological characteristics imposed in 786.15 Map 3. Hypothesis on the evolution of the southwestern angle of the Qurtuba medina between ‘Abd al-Rahman I and al-Hakam II.

Source: gmu-uco Agreement.

15

For the different aspects related to Cordoba’s Great Mosque see the still-valuable studies on the subject by Félix Hernández, Manuel Ocaña, Leopoldo Torres-Balbás and Christian Ewert, complemented by the more recent works of P. Ivory. For the refashioning and further growth of the former Cordovan church into the Mosque and its relationships with civil affairs represented by the Alcázar, see Alberto Leon and Juan F. Murillo (2009). «El complejo civil tardoantiguo de Córdoba y su continuidad en el Alcázar Omeya», Op. Cit., note 6, pp. 416-419 and fig. 5.

76

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

As a counterpoint to this sacred center, ‘Abd al-Rahman I would undertake the creation of the basic administrative infrastructure, centralized at the Alcázar. Located in the southwestern corner of the medina and in the immediate vicinity of the Great Mosque, it would integrate the Late Antiquity castellum and, if we trust in Arabic tradition itself, the Visigoth royal residence. The parallel with Damascus again becomes evident16 and the subsequent involvement of al-Hakam I, who reinforced the Alcázar’s outer defenses, and ‘Abd al-Rahman II, who would undertake a thorough reform of the Qasr al-Umara framed within the broader context of his administrative reform and mainly within the increase in representation needs, which would lead to the physical segregation of certain state agencies, such as the Dar al-Sikka or Dar al-Tiraz, which would then settle in suburban areas outside the city. The role of the Cordoba Alcázar as representation and image of Umayyad political power would be bolstered by the repair of the rasif or paved road along the river in 827, works absolutely necessary as a complement to the in-depth restoration of the bridge undertaken decades ago by Hisham I. With both initiatives, in the final years of his reign the «Emigrant» would give Qurtuba an urban image that would be a feature of subsequent developments, establishing a set «center» in which, according to explicit Umayyad ideology, politics and religion, the figure of the emir is embodied. In parallel, the emerging apparatus of the state and the role reserved for the Friday prayer in the Great Mosque will serve as a counterpoint, as factors of integration, to the by then patent urban segmentation derived from the permanence and new determination of suburban areas. Precisely in the planning of that space would ‘Abd al-Rahman I develop the third part of his plan outside the walls with the founding of the al-Rusafa almunia, or farm estate, transplanting to Cordoba an agricultural model that, although based on local Roman infrastructures, reproduces a Syrian model with clear Umayyad connotations, as we shall see.

In the articulation of this periurban space in Qurtuba, where the Umayyad emirs developed their critical Islamization work (Map 4), the suburbs, especially suburban areas intended for residential use, originally occupied by Mozarabs and later the growing mass of Muslim converts, played a major role alongside almunias and cemeteries. These suburbs first developed spontaneously, localized near the main gates of the city and which would create the Saqunda, Sabular and balat Mughith suburbs from populated areas before the conquest and where the first Muslims received homes and property, initiating urban de16

See Thierry Bianquis (2000). Damas, in Jean-Claude Garcin, Jean-Luc Arnaud and Sylvie Denoix. Grandes villes méditerranéennes du monde musulman médiéval. Roma: École française de Rome, pp. 37-55. For the Cordoba Alcázar the synthesis of Leopoldo Torres-Balbás (1990) continues to be essential reading. Arte hispano-musulmán hasta la caída del Califato de Córdoba, in Ramón Menéndez Pidal. Historia de España, vol. v. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, pp. 331-788, updated by Alberto J. Montejo, José Antonio Garriguet Mata and Ana María Zamorano Arenas (1999). El Alcázar Andalusí de Córdoba y su entorno urbano, in Córdoba en la Historia. La construcción de la urbe. Cordoba, Barcelona: Ayuntamiento de Córdoba, Fundación «la Caixa», pp. 163-172; and by Alberto León and Juan F. Murillo (2009).

«El complejo civil tardoantiguo de Córdoba y su continuidad en el Alcázar Omeya», Op. Cit., note 6.

77

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

velopment alongside those strictly Mozarab areas built around the suburban Christian basilicas of Three Saints, Saint Acisclus or Saint Zoilus.

Map 4. Qurtuba in the 9th century.

Source: gmu-uco Agreement.

The destruction of Saqunda as a result of the rebellion of its people against al-Hakam I in 818 cut short the formation of what was Qurtuba’s main suburb, and other suburban focal points emerged that would become receptors for the city’s growing population and clear examples of Islamization throughout the ninth century.

During the initial approach to the configuration and developmental process of the Madinat Qurtuba suburbs in 1997 attention was called to the certain prior existence of a «center of attraction» at the origin of every suburb, as was clear in the case of the rabad al-Rusafa in relation to ‘Abd al-Rahman I’s almunia or the case of the balat Mughith in relation to the property of the same name.17 In further revision and development of the approach presented in that text, published in 2004, we demonstrated how ‘Abd al-Rahman I launched a process in Qurtuba by founding al-Rusafa on an existing site that from that moment forward would be characteristic of the Umayyad period: an almunia, located at 17

Juan F. Murillo, M.ª del Camino Fuertes and Dolores Luna (1999). Aproximación al análisis de los espacios domésticos en la Córdoba andalusí, in Córdoba en la Historia. La construcción de la urbe. Op. Cit., pp. 129-154.

78

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

some distance from the medina, would act as a focus for the formation of a suburb and its associated cemetery in the vicinity of the almunia and along the road that connects it to the city.18 The same pattern was repeated with heir Hisham I when he founded the Dar al-Mulk almunia on land near Saqunda, with his grandson al-Hakam I and his concubine Ayab, who founded another almunia on the left bank of the river downstream from Cordoba, and with the emir ‘Abd Allah when he founded the al-Na‘ura almunia west of Cordoba on the right bank of the Guadalquivir, well connected to the city via a number of roads.

During a second stage that spans the first quarter of 9th century people within or close to the emir’s family added mosques, cemeteries, baths and other health centers to these early focal points that served as catalysts for the emergence of new suburbs. They are all invariably located in the wide area that extends west of the medina and highlight two phenomena that are two sides of the same coin: urban progress and the Islamization of Cordoba. The list starts with the Mut’a mosque and cemetery and the ‘Ayab mosque, named after wives of al-Hakam I. The resources for building an almunia that bore her name were also attributed to ‘Ayab. This almunia was established as a waqf or pious foundation to maintain the nearby rabad al-Marda leprosarium. During the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman II the Mu’ammara cemetery and mosque were constructed in addition to the Tarub, al-Sifa’ and Fajr mosques, all named after wives of the emir. ‘Abd al-Rahman II also constructed the masyid Masrur, built at the request of this important court figure.

Finally, we must mention the Umm Salama cemetery, founded by one of the wives of Muhammad Amir north of the capital.

Productive agricultural function was essential and integral to the very definition of Cordoba’s almunia, losing ground against the residential and strictly leisure and recreational uses developed in the almunia’s gardens, palaces, halls or pavilions as the land on which they were located was swallowed by the frantic urban development which Qurtuba experienced in the second half of the 10th century. However, the model would continue into this third stage with only a change in scale, so that, the suburbs occupying much of the periurban space between Qurtuba and Madinat al-Zahra, another urban ring of similar characteristics will be developed in which foundations from the early 10th century will endure, for example al-Na’ura and other newly established suburbs like al-Rumaniyya to the west of Madinat al-Zahra.

This process that we have summarized is clearly defined in the northwestern periurban quadrant by al-Rusafa, founded by and favorite residence of ‘Abd al-Rahman I, set on a large Roman-Visigoth property that already had a refined water system in the mid-1st century A.D. This system, comprising at least two catchments in the area now known as El Patriarca, small aqueducts, cisterns and a secondary pipeline network stretching to 18

Juan F. Murillo, Elena Castro del Río and M.ª Teresa Casal (2004). «Madinat Qurtuba. Aproximación al proceso de formación de la ciudad emiral y califal a partir de la información arqueológica», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, 5, pp. 257-290.

79

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

the neighboring area of El Tablero Alto, remained in use until the present, with logical modifications and renovations made to some of its elements.19 It would be the pre-existence of this water system, undoubtedly one of the most complex of any other known around Qurtuba before that time, which would explain the choice of the first Umayyad emir. Without the system it would have been impossible to meet the needs of both the gardens and orchards and the estates, pleasure pavilions and the documented hammam (bath) that existed at time of ‘Abd al-Rahman I. The system’s «line of rigidity», located in the upper part of what is today the Huerta de la Arruzafa, at an elevation of about 170 m, permitted the irrigation of a large, close to 50 hectares area, without ruling out that this system was complemented by another existing system immediately to the east, in the Tablero area, where structures that date to the 9th and 10th centuries have recently been documented.

This large property, the munyat al-Rusafa, was well-connected to Quturba via several Roman roads that ran to the city’s open gates on the north and west sides of the medina.

Flanked by cemeteries, villae and built alongside two aqueducts, the Roman origin of these roads is unquestionable. Villages that sprung up along these roads in the 9th century would eventually form in the 10th century what Arab sources refer to as the rabad al-Rusafa. We are beginning to discover the topographical extent and diachronic evolution as well as the urban characteristics of this suburb as a result of excavations made in the area since the early nineties.

Existing archaeological research suggests that the area of this suburb with an earlier occupation was located next to Arroyo del Moro road, at the eastern end of al-Rusafa.

Here, emirate artifacts from the second half of the 9th century and early 10th century have been found on land where a large Roman fundus survived until the Islamic era, when it was transformed into another production unit like an almunia of which several rooms have been excavated at the intersection of Calle Teruel and Avenida Brillante. A suburban area developed across this entire area up to the nearby road linking the northern part of al-Rusafah with the bab al-Yahud, opened in the northern part of the medina border.

At certain points the existence of a pre-emirate phase prior to the area’s peak reached in the mid-10th century is evidenced, when the aforementioned rooms of the almunia would be absorbed by the suburban area, from which time the various suburbs begin to coalesce and the strict boundaries between them became largely blurred. An extensive cemetery that dates to the Islamic period, most likely associated with al-Rusafa, would also be established on this site.

Another area with a potentially pre-caliphate occupation is in the southwestern part of al-Rusafa. However, unlike that observed in the eastern end, here we have no evidence of Late Antique Roman or prior presence, and the first Islamic occupation is linked to an 19

Regarding what is expressed here in relation to al-Rufasa, see Juan F. Murillo (2009). «La almunia de al-Rusafa en Córdoba», Madrider Mitteilungen, 50, pp. 449-482.

80

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

industrial area dedicated to pottery production, with many furnaces and other facilities, which were in use from the end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century. Another almunia located immediately east of the pottery area, next to the fork in the road that connected the western part of al-Rusafa with Madinat Qurtuba’s western gates, would show a similar timeline. This almunia underwent a major renovation in the mid-10th century, coinciding here with the area’s development and involving the construction of a new building or, more likely, in the restoration of an existing one, as evidenced by the study of many decorative architectural artifacts that have been recovered. Around the same time, or shortly thereafter, the intensification in the development experienced in the western sector of al-Rusafa took place next to the almunia and on both sides of the old road, which was still being paved in the late-10th and early-11th centuries.

A final stage of urbanization we find to the west of the industrial area, at the point of maximum expansion of the suburb of al-Rusafa and opposite the eastern flank of Turruñuelos. This is a residential neighborhood that emerged completely ex novo and with a careful plan that contrasts with that observed in the rest of the suburb.20 Its advanced date is supported both by the evolved character of the ceramic artifacts uncovered and the fact that the Aqua Augusta was used for the removal of wastewater, very uncommon at the time and explicable only by the loss of its earlier use after it was converted to supply water to Madinat al-Zahra.

Both its position on the western edge of al-Rusafa, at a point beyond which there has been no evidence of urbanized areas, such as its late date, clearly amiri, and the characteristics of the urban route and the residential typology itself could point to its identification with those houses inhabited by Berber troops serving the amiries whose attack and looting in 1009 by Cordovan followers of Muhammad ibn Hisham ‘Abd al-Yabbar al-Mahdi gave rise to the bloody confrontation that ended the Umayyad Caliphate. The verification of this hypothesis is subject to continuing archaeological research in this sector of the suburb and its direct connection with Turruñuelos via the Puente de los Nogales road remains essential. This immense and enigmatic archaeological site that, although its interpretation at present remains open, should perhaps be placed in relation to the military needs of the Al-Andalus state, if not as the site of Fahs al-Suradiq, as has been suggested,21 perhaps as arsenals, weapons factories or other compounds that served a military purpose.

Evidence from ongoing excavations at the Huerta de Santa Isabel, three kilometers west of the city walls and immediately south of Turruñuelos, may point to a conclusion 20

See Juan F. Murillo, F. Castillo, Elena Castro del Río, M.ª Teresa Casal and Teresa Dortez (2010). La almunia y el arrabal de al-Rusafa en el Yanib al-Garbi de Madinat Qurtuba, in Desiderio Vaquerizo Gil and Juan F. Murillo (eds.).

El Anfiteatro romano de Córdoba y su entorno urbano (ss. i-xiii d. C.). Op. Cit., note 5, pp. 565-614.

21

Manuel Acién Almansa and Antonio Vallejo Triano (1998). Urbanismo y Estado islámico. De Córdoba a Qurtuba-Madinat al-Zahra, Op. Cit., note 14, p. 126.

81

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

along these lines. Here we have documented an Early Imperial Roman villa that has been linked to a necropolis that includes graves for incinerated remains dating from the second century and other burial sites with obvious late-antiquity grave goods. A hydraulic system forms part of the fundus from which two small aqueducts and a number of large hydraulic deposits have been located, of which the largest, at least 70 × 10 m, underwent several repairs that kept it in use until the Caliphate period. The fact that most of this site has not yet been excavated makes these extremely tentative conclusions, especially with regard to the large Roman property.

Four large buildings have been excavated that provide clearer evidence of the area’s Islamic past. Two of these buildings, identified as buildings 3 and 4, date to the Emirate period, while the other two are dated as early-Caliphate, particularly building 1, located next to the road that links it to Turruñuelos, just 600 m to the north. A great qanat, whose catchment is located in the grounds of the estate, could have been used for its water supply. The exceptional characteristics of the building’s large rectangular courtyard, paved in a detailed cobblestone design, and the narrowness and evenness of the gallery that open to the courtyard suggest a stable and auxiliary quarters, while the obvious relationship with Turruñuelos recalls the certainly problematic text by al-Maqqari about horse breeding and weapons factories set up by al-Mansur at his alAmiriyya almunia.

Once the developed area near al-Rusafa was defined, we are left with a large space that archaeological evidence can only place as an undeveloped area, although it was clearly in use and enclosed by a fence with outer buttresses,22 in which the vast almunia of ‘Abd alRahman I may have been located. Its center could have possibly been in the vicinity of the present Huerta de la Arruzafa, where the important hydraulic system constructed during the Roman Imperial era is still in use. Gardens and orchards that would have needed to be irrigated would have been placed below this system’s «line of rigidity» along with most of the estate’s residences and services, including a hammam that was already in use during the last third of the 8th century.

Worth noting is the building documented by geophysical research conducted in 2005, which shows the presence of an isolated, roughly 50 m square building with a large wall equipped with outer buttresses that encloses a residential area with several rooms arranged in galleries around a large courtyard. Yet to be excavated, there is little we can add to this first appreciation, as we’ve yet to discover evidence of its building, details of its floor plan and its general age. However, typological characteristics like those revealed through magnetograms are surprising and highly suggestive, given the obvious 22

This fence, with a characteristic 9th-century construction, has been located in a couple of points of its path.

Unlike other almunias located on the western outskirts of Qurtuba, al-Rusafa would not disappear due to 10th -century urban development, another piece of evidence of the almunias’ special consideration among the Umayyad Cordovans.

82

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

similarity it has with the series of Umayyad buildings in Syria and Jordan, generically known under the name of the desert castles, a vague and at the same time misleading term because it conceals these building’s true purposes: they served as the main residence on an extensive property that was used for both pleasure and as a get-away by the owners, caliphs and other members of the Umayyad family, as well as the operation of an irrigated agricultural area.

Although the comparison with well-know buildings in the east like Kirbat Miniah, Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi or Qasr Jarana is clear, perhaps the greatest similarity, both in layout and size, is with az-Zaytuna, a building located a short distance from ancient Sergiopolis, the city that changed its name to Resafa Hisham when the caliph Hisham (724-743) set up residence here; his grandson, the future ‘Abd al-Rahman I, spent long periods in Resafa Hisham. Years later ‘Abd al-Rahman I established his main residence in the vicinity of his new capital, the old Corduba, on a large existing Roman-Visigoth property, which he named al-Rusafa, a powerful name charged with new Western Umayyad symbolism and a clear nod to the Syrian Rusafa and his grandfather with which he establishes the legitimate dynastic line. It is possible that within this dynastic discourse transferring an architectural typology purely identified with his native Syria, and more specifically with the Resafa Hisham with which he grew up, to al-Andalus makes perfect sense.

Returning to Qurtuba suburban topography, we should note how this sector, straddling the glacis of the mountains and the quaternary plain, would much like the right bank of the Guadalquivir be particularly appreciated by the Cordovan aristocracy as a place to establish recreational homes, benefiting from the water supply which provided river water and groundwater through springs and catchments. Thus, the example set by the «Emigrant» with his al-Rusafa residence was followed by a long list of prominent figures. Ja‘far alMushafi or Muhammad Ibn ‘Abi Amir, when he served al-Hakam II, chose to locate to this suburb, and the proliferation of palaces and almunias gave a peculiar aspect to this sprawling suburb, where cemeteries and homes concentrated along the roads alternated with extensive gardens and orchards irrigated by numerous water wells and mountain streams, in some cases channeled to cross these properties.

From Madinat Qurtuba to the Urban Agglomeration of Madinat Qurtuba-Madinat al-Zahra-Madinat al-Zahira When ‘Abd al-Rahman II died in 852, Qurtuba had already taken a decisive step in its configuration as a Muslim metropolis as a result of the Emir completing many of the processes began by his great grandfather a century before, designed to strengthen the dynasty’s power, organize an effective administrative apparatus and transform the capital into a fully Islamized space. However, contradictions within Andalusian society lead to revolts known as the first fitna, revolts that questioned the reforms that were being implemented as well as demonstrating the weaknesses of the neo-Umayyad state. It

83

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

required the efforts of two generations to recover and establish a unified state, possible only when a change in the traditional system of succession within the ruling Umayyad family enabled the young ‘Abd al-Rahman III to succeed his grandfather ‘Abd Allah and develop a policy that sought a symbolic direct link with the dynasty’s founder to rally his supporters, subdue the rebels and recreate the entire Umayyad political superstructure from a new approach, adapting it both to the new situation within al-Andalus and the growing hostility of the Christian kingdoms and the changes taking place in the rest of Islam, especially in the North Africa, with the new Fatimid Caliphate’s expansive policy.

Qurtuba’s large urban shift corresponds to the 10th century, principally during the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman III, the first caliph of al-Andalus. At this time, most of Cordoba’s immediate vicinity would become densely urbanized space in a way that breaks entirely from the concept of a city that had prevailed during Antiquity (Map 5). The medina, while preserving its religious and political functions, ends up becoming another part of an agglomeration in line with the great cities of the Islamic East despite the symbolism of the conserved walls. The transformation is complete from the first decades of the 10th century, and we can now speak of an urban development that, planned and promoted in part by the Andalusian State, radically changes the face of Qurtuba. Thus, the excavations in the areas known as Naranjal de Almagro and Fontanar de Cabanos, together with the roads that connected Qurtuba first with al-Na’ura and later with Madinat al-Zahra, allow us to follow their gradual conversion into large almunias that were already in use in the ninth century.23 This transformation goes hand in hand with the gradual conversion to Islam of the majority of Cordoba’s population, initially attached to large agricultural properties of Visigoth origin and now transformed into a salaried proletariat that demanded neighborhood mosques, baths and cemeteries to meet the needs of their new faith.24 Several generations later these suburbs, with polynuclear and to some extent autonomous development, definitively convert the land originally occupied by orchards and farmland into an essentially urbanized area.

23

The al-Na‘ura almunia, founded by the Emir ‘Abd Allah at the end of 9th century and linked by Felix Hernandez to the findings uncovered at Cortijo de El Alcaide, became the semi-official residence of ‘Abd al-Rahman III before his definitive installation at Madinat al-Zahra, until then playing a similar role that al-Rusafa had with ‘Abd al-Rahman I.

24

See Juan F. Murillo, Elena Castro del Río and M.ª Teresa Casal (2004). «Madinat Qurtuba. Aproximación al proceso de formación de la ciudad emiral y califal a partir de la información arqueológica», Op. Cit., note 18. In the tenth century another «external» demographic development would join his «internal» process as a result of short and medium-distance migrations around the capital.

84

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

Map 5. The urban agglomeration of Cordoba in the late 10th century.

Source: gmu-uco.

The final catalyst for this process and for Qurtuba’s westward expansion would be the foundation of Madinat al-Zahra as the embodiment of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 936.

Thus, and as Ibn Hawqal will prove, it developed almost continually as a residential neighborhood between the capital and the Caliph’s new home. Roads, both those of Roman origin and those created for the purpose of communicating with the old capital, would play an important role in this agglomeration with the palatial city of al-Nasir. It is in the creation and maintenance of the road network where the Caliph’s influence is most clearly demonstrated and, consequently, the Andalusian state in the city’s urban «planning». This main road, which served both as a focal point of growth and as a structural element of the suburbs, would be the main referent of Umayyad power, by concentrating major public buildings and community facilities along the road, channeling the increased traffic and ultimately capitalizing on the large-scale official preparations made for processions and corteges between Qurtuba and al-Zahra.

Although we are not currently able to assess the pace and specific phases of this process, one of the key challenges for research in the coming decades, we can envision the end result, which is none other than the formation of a partly urban and partly suburban fabric in which extensive domestic areas alternate with community facilities, large cemeteries,

85

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

state buildings, etc. Current archaeological work permits an idea on a macro-spatial scale to understand the image that could previously only be drawn from written sources, as well as a meso and micro-spatial analysis of the suburbs that presents a refined urban organization with a hierarchical layout of regular streets which in some cases have a sewage disposal system, large and paved open spaces that could be understood to be suburban souks or markets, multi-storied houses that were always organized around a central courtyard, as well as mosques and cemeteries.

Beyond these suburbs, and in some cases enclosed within their boundaries as a result of urban growth, we continue to find an increasing number of almunias, in some cases, like al-Rusafa and al-Na’ura, authentic periurban «alcázares» belonging to the ruler and used for generations. Others, like al-Rumaniyya, came about through the initiative of a high official at court, such as the case with the treasurer Durri, although in this case the almunia also ended up in the hands of the Caliph.25 The genesis of many of these new Caliphal suburbs must have been very different to that seen before. First, this massive urbanization affects former large periurban estates, so that far from finding multiple individual acts carried out over a more or less long period of time and area, as seen in the previous stages, we are now facing a process led by what, in current terms and assuming the risk of the obvious anachronism, we call «promoters», responsible for land division, road opening, provision of community infrastructure and even building construction. Although literary sources do not explicitly mention this issue, we can interpret some references. Of these, the most significant is that by Ibn Hayyan in relation to Hisham II’s opposition in the attempt of his hajib, Ja‘far al-Mushafi, to build a new neighborhood on the site of the destroyed suburb of Saqunda.

Though unsuccessful, this attempt illustrates the participation of Cordovan elites, including members of the royal family, in the flourishing real estate business in a capital city where housing demand seems to have been intense during the second half of the 10th century. Consequently, it is possible that subdivisions and housing construction by senior dignitaries were translated into more urban uniformity and certain buildings standardization, many of which would be for rent.

The Amiri Epilogue. Madinat al-Zahira and the new Expansion Towards the East A later stage of the urban growth experimented by Cordoba’s urban agglomeration would be determined, after Ibn Abi Amir (better known by al-Mansur)26 usurped power after the death of Caliph al-Hakam II and the minority support for his son Hisham II, by the 25

Ibn Hayyan provides a detailed description and the best definition possible of these almunias. See Juan F. Murillo (2009). «La almunia de al-Rusafa en Córdoba», Op. Cit., note 19, p. 455.

26

For more on the figure of al-Mansur and his historic significance within Andalusian history, see Laura Bariani (2003). Almanzor. Donostia-San Sebastián: Nerea; and Xavier Ballestín (2004). Al-Mansur y la dawla ‘amiriya: una dinámica de poder y legitimidad en el occidente musulmán medieval. Barcelona: Edicions Universitat de Barcelona.

86

Caliphal Qurtuba: Origen and Development of the Umayyad Capital of al-Andalus

construction of the new city of Madinat al-Zahira to the east of Qurtuba.27 This new court residence would stimulate the urbanization of the vacant land located between Cordoba’s eastern-most suburbs and the Amiri city, generating a fleeting focal point in whose shadow the elite residences connected to al-Mansur’s regime would develop.

Al-Zahira would play a similar role as ‘Abd al-Rahman III’s palatial city in the process of affirming the aspirations to power of the Amiri dictator and his descendants against the legitimacy of the Umayyad Caliph still represented by Hisham II, confined first in the Madinat al-Zahra and then in the Alcázar of Cordoba (palace). While the first would weaken in the final years of the 10th century until being looting and destroyed during the fitna in the first third of the next century, al-Mansur would develop an intense building activity in old Qurtuba that would have an impact on principal Umayyad symbols with the twofold purpose of emulating them as well as establishing measures of control over a potentially hostile population. We must understand the Great Mosque’s expansion within these parameters, which almost doubles in size compared to the Umayyad period, keeping its essence but at the same time introducing a new ideological discourse. Continuing along these lines the refortification of the Alcázar, the second Umayyad dynasty icon, can be understood, which served to isolate the young Caliph, possibly accompanied by a restoration of different sectors of the medina wall and by the control of the head of the bridge through a fortified gate.

After the death of Almanzor in 1002, Qurtuba was a huge urban agglomeration that extended along a ten-kilometer long northeast-southwest axis parallel to the right bank of the Guadalquivir that occupied an over 5,000 ha area. Its comparison with the main cities of the time, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, can only be compared with Baghdad, the still flourishing capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, the rest, including Fatimid Cairo, came nowhere close.28 This city, with its impressive physical presence even in the twenty-first century and its growing strength as a cultural landmark of a global but diverse humanity, must be kept alive, and for that to be possible we need to redouble our efforts to conserve Cordoba’s legacy, preserving the Cordoba today in perfect harmony with «other Cordobas», those that came before and those that will come after. We also must discover a little more about Cordoba each day through historical research in which archeology is called upon to continue playing an essential role.

27

Unlike Madinat al-Zahra, the location of al-Zahira remains open to debate, although all historical and archaeological evidence point to Arenal meander area, where a recent fluvial geomorphology study conducted by the csic (Spanish National Research Cancel) for the City of Cordoba has allowed for the reconstruction of the Guadalquivir’s back to the year 1000 and the delimitation of the land on which the Amiri city was most likely located.

28

See the corresponding sections in Jean-Claude Garcin, Jean-Luc Arnaud and Sylvie Denoix (2000). Grandes villes méditerranéennes du monde musulman médiéval. Op. Cit., note 16.

87

Juan F. Murillo Redondo

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Juan F. Murillo Redondo has served as head of the Office of Archaeology of Cordoba’s Planning Department since 1993. With ties to the Archaeology Department at the University of Cordoba since 1988, he has worked as a teacher in various doctoral and graduate programs and, as a researcher, in numerous projects funded by public institutions. He has contributed to the introduction of a stratigraphic excavation system in Cordoba and has implemented al-Mulk’s recording system. Member of the University of Cordoba’s PAIHUM-236 Research Group (Archaeology as a documental basis of historical interpretation), he has developed several research projects on the transition from a Late Antiquity to Early Medieval city, and on the analysis of the exploitation strategies of Cordoba’s periurban surroundings. He is also the author of a dozen papers and articles in specialized national and international journals.

ABSTRACT The splendor of the Caliphate of Cordoba, celebrated in song and dreamt of by Andalusian poets, was not just the work of a generation (that of ‘Abd al-Rahman III) but the result of a highly complex historical process in which a number of factors came into play: a millennium-old urban trajectory, the strength of Islam in shaping the urban landscape and sociability, the Umayyad conception of power implemented by the first independent emir and transformed, under parameters taken from the Abbasid enemy, by ‘Abd al-Rahman II to later be «revolutionized» by the first caliph who, aware of the system’s limitations and pressed by the social-economic changes taking place in al-Andalus, by the weakening of the more theoretic than real figure of the Abbasid Caliphate and by the Christian pressure on borders and the Fatamid threat in north Africa, to strengthen his power through an ideological legitimization based on the caliphate dignity to overcome traditional Umayyad tools: military strength and the subsequent ability to collect taxes.

KEYWORDS Cordoba, al-Andalus, Islamization, urban planning, architecture, archeology.

88

MADINAT AL-ZAHRA: HISTORICAL REALITY AND PRESENT-DAY HERITAGE Antonio Vallejo Triano

M

adinat al-Zahra is undoubtedly one of the mythical cities in Islam, present in the collective imagination as a place associated with beauty, wealth, magnificence and ostentation and in political terms with the greatness of the Caliphate of Cordoba.

The city blended together all the ingredients in this idealization: its swift and sudden construction, a decision made by the Caliph and possibly motivated by love; wealth and the origins of its structural and decorative materials; the high number of workers that took part in its construction and the involvement of skilled labor from the diverse corners of the Islamic world; the quality of its infrastructures and architecture and the brilliance of its working life. All of these are the characteristics described, often in hyperbole or with great embellishment, in the sources we possess on the city, some of which were written when it was nothing more than a field of ruins.1 This is also in addition to the ephemeral nature of its existence —little more that seventy years, from the year 936 to 1013— and its destruction, associated with the fall of the Caliphate and viewed by its contemporaries with tremendous desperation and a feeling of loss, that remained faithfully reflected in historical sources and, most of all, in poetry.2 Finally, the ferocious way its structures were plundered, which began after it was abandoned, played a part in this process of idealization; not only the disappearance of the remaining materials over a short period of time, but also the memory of the place where the city was built.3

1

For these sources please refer to José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Ensoñación y construcción del lugar en Madinat al-Zahra, in Fátima Roldán Castro (coord.). Paisaje y naturaleza en al-Andalus. Fundación El Legado Andalusí: Granada, pp. 318-324.

2

Emilio García Gómez (1947). «Algunas precisiones sobre la ruina de la Córdoba omeya», Al-Andalus, xii, pp.

267-293; Henri Pérès (1937). La poésie andalouse en arabe classique au XIª siècle, pp. 124-126; Leopoldo Torres Balbás (1982). Arte califal, in Ramón Menéndez Pidal (dir.). España musulmana hasta la caída del Califato de Córdoba (711-1031 de J. C.). Historia de España, vol. iv. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, pp. 427-429.

3

Manuel Ocaña Jiménez (1986). Madinat al-Zahra, in International Union of Academies. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. v. Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 1008-1010.

Antonio Vallejo Triano

This exaltation was not only constructed a posteriori after the destruction of the city, the metropolis also bred profound admiration among its contemporaries, as the historian alMaqqari related in the 17th century when, upon referring to previous authors, he indicated that: [...] there was nobody, absolutely nobody, that entered that Alcázar from the furthest lands, from the most diverse faiths, be it a king, an emissary or trader, that did not wholeheartedly conclude that they had never seen the like, and further still, they had never heard of anybody speak of something similar, nor had it ever even occurred to them.4

Conception and Planning The building of Madinat al-Zahra following the self-proclamation of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir (‘Abd al-Rahman III) as Caliph gave rise to one of the most brilliant periods in the history of al-Andalus. Its conception took place within the context of the construction of large capital cities by different Islamic States at the time, and, therefore, represented the height of urban expression in the Umayyad Caliphate, in direct competition with its rival, the Fatimid Caliphate; the name (Madinat al-Zahra, ‘the Brilliant City’) can be interpreted within the framework of this permanent political-religious rivalry. Moreover, on one side, a possible relationship with Venus (‘Zuhara’) has been noted, as opposed to the allusion to Mars (‘al-Qahir’) used by the Fatimids for their new capital in Egypt,5 while on the other, it has been suggested that it has some relationship with Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, with the title al-Zahra (‘the Shining One’).6 This author believes that this last name could contain religious references alluding to the consideration that it was probably the «staging» of paradise on earth, one of the most important characteristics being its «brightness». This same allusion to Madinat al-Zahra as a «symbolic representation» of paradise has been put forward through the analysis of the palatial epigraphy since the inscriptions on certain buildings reflect landscapes alluding to the Koran paradise, with its gardens and palaces causing this association to be established.7 The construction of an urban center with these characteristics represented truly monumental efforts in planning as it covered numerous aspects. For the provision of different 4

Al-Maqqari (1988). Nafh al-Tib. Beirut: Ed. de I. ‘Abbas, 8 vols., p. 566. Quoted in José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Ensoñación y construcción del lugar en Madinat al-Zahra. Op. Cit., p. 324.

5

Manuel Acién Almansa (1995). Materiales e hipótesis para una interpretación del Salón de Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir, in Madinat al-Zahra. El Salón de Abd al-Rahman III. Córdoba: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura, pp. 189-190.

6

Maribel Fierro (2004). «Madinat al-Zahra, el Paraíso y los fatimíes», Al-Qantara, xxv, 2, pp. 316-325.

7

As expressed by María Antonia Martínez Núñez and Manuel Acién Almansa (2004). «La epigrafía de Madinat al-Zahra», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, v, pp. 123-126.

90

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

building materials it was necessary to locate its supply source and have quick access to it and other supplies such as water. Furthermore, mobilizing a large labor force to carry out different structural functions was vital, from the most basic jobs to the most specialized requiring experts, and similarly there were significant efforts that went into systematizing and normalizing all the structural processes and procedures along with the implementation of a complex organizational structure to manage and control these processes, supervising not only the work and installation of materials, but also the conception and the cutting of different elements comprising the variety of adornments. The simultaneous set-up of such heterogeneous tasks meant that a huge amount of economic resources had to be provided, annually, throughout the prolonged period of time written sources set at 40 years —25 during the Caliphate of ‘Abd al-Rahman III and 15 during his the Caliphate of his son, al-Hakam II.8 These were all characteristics that Madinat al-Zahra shared with other large, imperial urban projects from the Abbasid and Fatimid worlds, such as Baghdad and the diverse cities of Samarra, Sabra-Mansuriyya and Cairo. These cities also shared one main characteristic: being caliphal-founded cities that were meticulously planned in every aspect to become the capitals of their respective States —from the decision on their location and the management of the works to the last stage in the whole structural and decorative process.

The concept of the city is unequivocally eastern in the sheer size of its dimensions —a rectangle of 1,545 by 745 m that encloses a surface of 112 ha— as well as the perfection of its geometric form —a double square— the enormity of the Alcázar, where the power resides —calculated at 19 h and located at the highest point of the urban center— the rigid separation between this and the rest of the medina and the relationship of hierarchy and command of one over the other (Illustration 1).

Illustration 1. General floor plan of Madinat al-Zahra. Scale model.

Source: Conjunto Arqueológico Madinat al-Zahra (The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra).

8

On the information provided by written sources, see Ana Labarta and Carmen Barceló (1987). «Las fuentes árabes sobre al-Zahra: estado de la cuestión», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, i, pp. 96-98; Mohamed Meouak (2004). «Madinat al-Zahra en las fuentes árabes del Occidente islámico», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, v, pp. 70-73; and José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (2004). Ensoñación y construcción del lugar en Madinat al-Zahra. Op. Cit., pp. 320-322.

91

Antonio Vallejo Triano

That said, in the initial urban creation of the Alcázar the adaptation to the topography, the environment and the mountain predominates over rigid planning without any kind of previous topographical determinants. This circumstance shaped the city’s planning and brought about the construction of a system of stepped levels that allowed each building to be placed in the exact position that was desired in relation to the rest and in accordance with a rigorous hierarchy: the Caliph on the upper level, the crown prince and Administration offices on the lowest step and, at the base of the hierarchical structure, the general population and servants (Image 1). The whole city is designed to be viewed from the south, from the Guadalquivir valley, the place the buildings faces towards and from which the main road comes from, built to connect the new city with the old Cordoba and the rest of al-Andalus.9 The success of a construction program of this magnitude and the extraordinary speed lays in the easy access of the basic building materials; the nearby land was used as the main source of supply for these materials, particularly the calcarenite stone extracted from the strip (from miocene limestone found in the area) connecting the valley and the mountains. Apart from marble, the other rocks used in the building process, for instance the voilet-coloured limestone, the black and reddish shafts, and the white limestone also used on the carving of plant motifs, also reveal a local origin, with the main supply area of stone resources located in a radius of 50 km around the city. The proximity of these resources to Madinat al-Zahra and the straightforwardness of the extraction explain the extraordinary speed of the work that the archaeological research validates.10 Image 1. Terraced structure of Madinat al-Zahra.

Source: The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra.

9

The landscaping principles of the site have been studied by Florencio Zoido Naranjo (2005). Dimensión paisajística de Madinat al-Zahra. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, Grupo de Investigación Consejería de Cultura; and José Ramón Menéndez de Luarca Navia-Osorio (2000). El Plan Especial de Madinat al-Zahra: una nueva estrategia de protección territorial, in Antonio Vallejo (coord.). Madinat al-Zahra, 1985-2000: 15 años de recuperación. Cordoba: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura, pp. 57-83.

10

The aspects related to the supply of rocks have been looked at by Antonio Vallejo Triano (2009). Madinat alZahra: la construcción de una ciudad califal, in AA. VV. Construir la ciudad en la Edad Media. VI Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo: del 28 al 31 de julio, Nájera 2009. Nájera (La Rioja): Ayuntamiento de Nájera, pp. 506-511.

92

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

The supply of water was guaranteed by the restoration of an old aqueduct from Roman times that flowed around the nearby area and the construction of new elements that replaced those that had disappeared in the pre-existing system, for instance the Valdepuentes caliphal aqueduct bridge, a true gem in Islamic engineering. Equally, an important road network was also planned, guaranteeing communication with the city of Cordoba through three main roads; from this road infrastructure at least two complete caliphal bridges and the foundations of others have been conserved, thus attesting to the magnitude of the network.

The Organization of the City: The Medina and Alcázar The urban image of the city acquired from recent investigations verifies the absence of large symmetries and the large central axes, which characterize the palaces and urban centers of the East, particularly from the Abbasid structures. Therefore, this has lead to Madinat al-Zahra being considered an indigenous and locally implemented project, carried out by an exclusively Andalusi labor force, that shared no similarities with the architectural principles around at the time.11 This statement can be accepted to explain the beginnings of its construction, although, as we will see below, the models of this architecture were introduced and became generalized after the urban reform of the city and the palace in the middle of the 10th century, just 15 years after its initial establishment.

The area of the medina was built gradually, particularly the urban hamlets, the housing of the populace, but not the manufacturing infrastructures of the State, which we know, via the sources we possess, moved from Cordoba together with the mint in 947.12 There is also clear evidence that the medina underwent urban planning, with the noteworthy presence of a wide non-urbanized area in the center and the existence of large «official» buildings on the far west side, together with two mosques. Equally, research gives rise to the conclusion that, in contrast to the Alcázar, around which there was a wall from the beginning, the rest of the medina was open and unfenced for a considerable number of years, at least until the latter stages of the Caliphate of ‘Abd al-Rahman III or the beginning of the reign of al-Hakam II. This is demonstrated by the recently excavated southern wall, which had to be modified and aligned abruptly in order to not block or bring about the destruction of a small neighborhood mosque, also excavated, with a chronology corresponding to the first constructions in Madinat al-Zahra, around 940, implying that the fence came later. Therefore, contrary to appearances, the wall was not the first part of the city’s structural process.

11

Christian Ewert (1991). «Precursores de Madinat al-Zahra. Los palacios omeyas y abbasíes de Oriente y su ceremonial áulico», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, iii, p. 125.

12

The date the mint was moved is corroborated by the numismatic registry. Please see Alberto Canto García (1991). «De la ceca Al-Andalus a la de Madinat al-Zahra», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, 3, particularly pp.

114-116.

93

Antonio Vallejo Triano

The extensive area designated to the AlcĂĄzar, of which 11 ha have been excavated from a total hypothetical land surface of 19 ha, also provides evidence of precise urban planning, particularly apparent in the water supply and sanitation infrastructures.

The palace, not the medina, had a constant supply of water for consumption and hygiene as well as other productive functions from the Valdepuentes aqueduct, which, lacking underground cisterns or wells to store the rainwater, evacuated it directly to the drainage system. From the main duct of the aqueduct the water flowed to the different buildings through lead pipes, and, to a lesser extent, clay pipes. In the majority of the dwellings, supplies for consumption were located in the center of the courtyard, thus generating a wealth of fixtures that featured a considerable number of marble basins with diverse morphologies, including a significant collection of reused Roman sarcophagi, and water dispensers, such as the well-known bronze fawn.13 Besides this circuit designed for consumption and domestic activity, there is also another that differed from the previous inasmuch as its main aim was the supply of water to the latrines. It is possible to affirm that these were some of the key pieces of the palace’s hygiene system, as much through its advanced design, with a permanent water system that guaranteed cleanliness and hygiene for the user, as the sheer quantity that were found in all of the Alcåzar buildings. All of these things have a highly characteristic morphology and layouts, prototypical in Andalusi architecture and particularly unique associated fixtures that include marble basins in the form of an inverted trough.

Together with the water supply, the sanitation infrastructure is among the best in the palace in terms of planning. It is integrated by a network of underground channels, out of which 1,800 m have been recognized, with diverse typologies and sizes that run into different areas of depth beneath the palace buildings. The larger ones longitudinally cover the different terraces and building nuclei, traversing the center of the dwellings to collect rain water and waste from the courtyards, while the smaller ones transport water from service ducts, latrines and other elements of drainage that are emptied into the bigger ones.

This infrastructure is incomparable to others we know of in other large coeval urban centers since it spread around the whole of the palace and provided sanitation to every building, guaranteeing the removal of wastewater to nearby streams or those outside the city. Another, secondary, function was its use as a dumping site for domestic waste and in this piping system a large part of the material record we are able to identify as broken ceramics and foodstuffs is found.

This sanitation infrastructure also had one pre-existing element: the piping system from the old Roman aqueduct. This ran below the central part of the upper platform of the palace, where we have been able to recognize its layout in a rectilinear route of over 200 m. In this section, and after losing its original supply function, the aqueduct was reused in 13

As is well known, one of the two bronze fawns from Madinat al-Zahra can be found in the museum of the caliphal city and the other in the Doha museum (Qatar).

94

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

the palace as a large sewer, shown by the large volume of waste material concentrated in its basin.14 The stepped layout of the palace also has conditioned its interior communications, based on a series of roads, streets and passages with uneven slopes that in some cases reach gradients of 20%. By and large these streets were covered and marked by doors and terraced ledges. Some of them were paved with materials that were appropriate for the transit of the cavalry, and, equally, the terraced structure contributed to the construction of multiple and diverse types of stairways linking the adjacent steps.

From an urban planning perspective, the Alcázar demonstrates a conglomerate of diverse types of buildings: residential, religious, administrative, work and service, and reception, and also has community spaces (large squares) and extensive gardens, some of the most well conserved in the early Islamic world. Functionally, they all make up a well-articulated and coherent whole, despite being built and/or reformed at different times, from the beginnings of their foundations —around 940— to the second decade of the Caliphate of al-Hakam II —around 972— the period in which the last reforms are documented.15 Among the buildings designed for residency, three stand out for their caliphal uses: in the texts what is called Dar al-Mulk (‘the Royal House’), which was the residency of ‘Abd al-Rahman III; what was known as the Dwellings of the Pool, which we have identified as the residence of the Caliph al-Hakam II, built when he was still the crown prince,16 and what was referred to as the Rooms Adjacent to the Drawing Room of ‘Abd al-Rahman III (Illustration 2). These are three of the most important and unique residences in the Alcázar, in terms of both their size and architectural design, which included an individual bathroom in each of them, a large garden in the one belonging to al-Hakam and the plant motifs adornment. These must also be joined by the dwelling of the all-powerful hayib (‘prime minister’) of the Caliph State, Ya‘far al-Siqlabi, an architectural structure that contains reception and workspaces, private bedrooms and servants quarters (Image 2).

14

The aspects related to supplies and sanitation can be consulted in Antonio Vallejo Triano (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra. Arqueología de su arquitectura. Córdoba: Almuzara, pp. 228-260.

15

The first reliable mention of the building work in Madinat al-Zahra refers to the construction of the Alcázar in 940-941 and the paving of the road to al-Zahra from almunia al-Naura: Ibn Hayyan (1981). Crónica del califa Abdarrahman III an-Nasir entre los años 912 y 942 (al-Muqtabis V) [translation, notes and index by María Jesús Viguera Molins and Federico Corriente]. Zaragoza: Anubar, Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, p. 359. More recent reports allude to restorations in Dar al-Mulk in 972 to adapt the residence to a place of study for prince Hisham: Ibn Hayyan (1967). Anales palatinos del califa de Córdoba al-Hakam II, por Isa ibn Ahmad al-Razi (360-364 H. = 971-975 J. C.) [translated by Emilio García Gómez]. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, pp. 99-100.

16

Antonio Vallejo Triano (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra. Arqueología de su arquitectura. Op. Cit., p. 468.

95

Antonio Vallejo Triano

Illustration 2. General view of the Alcázar indicating the most representative buildings and spaces. Scale model.

Source: The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra.

Image 2. The House of Ya‘far. Main façade with plant motif adornments.

Source: The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra.

96

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

The Transformation Processes of the Alcázar Madinat al-Zahra grew and developed at the same pace as the evolution of the caliphal institutions and the State; therefore, this explains how, together with these dwellings, the most important buildings in the palace are administrative and, more importantly, were used as the Caliph’s political reception hall. It is exactly these constructions that reflect the profound changes that came about in the urban planning and architecture of the Alcázar halfway through the decade of 950, changes that appeared to have a double aim: on one side the centralization of the administrative institutions of the State, and, on the other, the adaptation of the palace for new representational forms of caliphal power.

A large number of the buildings we can identify as administrative were built at this time and were located in the center of the palace, which was set up as the headquarters of caliphal office following the demolition of the pre-existent buildings (Illustration 2). Among these new and unusually sized buildings, never seen in Madinat al-Zahra until this point, the ones that stand out are the Basilica Room on the upper terrace, which we have identified, hypothetically, with what is referred to as Dar al-Yund (the ‘Military House’) in our sources, and a large building with a quadrangular floor built around a courtyard with a series of pillars on only two sides, conventionally known as the ‘Courtyard of the Clocks’ and which we have identified, hypothetically, with the so-called Dar al-Wusara (the ‘House of the Viziers’).

The first is located at the front of a large square and was accessible for the cavalry and was adapted to the wide range of processional movements around which the palace’s other administrative spaces are congregated. This building played an important role in the development of the caliph ceremonies, and, if it has been correctly identified, was the place where certain groups waited, in hierarchical order, to be received by the Caliph in the political reception hall; specifically the ambassadors that were going to be granted a hearing and the Quraish, members of the tribe the governing Umayyad family originated from.17 Located nearby, the House of the Viziers, where the State offices were situated: inside credentials are issued that certify property or the possession of determined land or strongholds, and services rendered to the obedience of the caliph and for the security of the State are rewarded with diverse types of gifts or money; therefore, this is an eminently administrative place, with rostrums for the viziers and archives for political documentation.

The group of houses that materialized in this terrace demonstrates the strong administrative centralization that must be linked to the reorganization of the services of the State, set in motion by ‘Abd al-Rahman III in the year 955.18 This reform must also be related to the naming of the figure of hayib in the first year of the Caliphate of al-Hakam, who is to 17

Ibidem, p. 494.

18

This reform involved dividing the whole caliphal administration into four large offices, each one remaining under the control of a vizier. The information provided by Ibn Idari has been acknowledged by a range of authors, including Mohamed Meouak (1999). Pouvoir souverain, administration centrale et élites politiques dans l’Espagne umayyade (IIe-IVe/VIIIe-Xe siècles). Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, pp. 36-47 and 55-56.

97

Antonio Vallejo Triano

take responsibility of the highest caliphal administrative system, resulting in the construction of a residence that is worthy of his status. This extensive residence, belonging to hayib Ya‘far al-Siqlabi, has three different architectural areas and was established on a space previously occupied by three houses that were demolished.19 If the transformation of the upper terrace with the installation of the State’s administrative center was an important one, then the implementation of the lower platform of the palace was monumental. Before there were diverse structures —a garden with its network of irrigation ditches and at least one pool— that were completely modified to form the extraordinary court terrace, still conserved in the present day. It comprised the Drawing Room of ‘Abd al-Rahman III at the front, a building in the central axis that completely disappeared through plundering and was surrounded by four pools, and the Central Pavilion, a wing of living quarters adjoining the drawing room on the north-east side that was completely immersed in a huge, quadrangular-shaped and flat garden (Illustration 2).

The key piece of this terrace was the political reception hall, built by the Caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III between the years 953 and 957, as accredited by his extensive epigraph (Image 3). Sources identify this building with maylis al-sarqi (‘the Eastern Room’), the setting where the majority of embassy hearings were held as well as the two big annual religious festivals in Islam —id al-fitr (‘the Feast of Breaking the Fast’) and id al-adha (‘the Feast of Sacrifice’)— during the final years of the reign of ‘Abd al-Rahman III and during the government of the Caliph al-Hakam II.20 It was here that some of the most important dignitaries of the time passed through: not only from the Mediterranean world but also the Germanic Empire and Christian Kingdoms from the peninsular, which included, among others, the Kingdom of Toda of Navarre, Sancho el Craso, The King of León Ordoño IV, the ambassadors of Borrell the Count of Barcelona, the ambassadors of the Count of Castilla, the ambassador of the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes, and, on repeated occasions, different representatives of the Idrisid Banu Hassan, who passed to the obedience of the Caliph.

19

Antonio Vallejo Triano, Alberto J. Montejo Córdoba y Andrés García Cortés (2004). «Resultados preliminares de la intervención arqueológica en la llamada ‘Casa de Ya‘far’ y en el edificio de ‘Patio de los Pilares’ en Madinat al-Zahra», Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, v, pp. 199-239.

20

Antonio Vallejo Triano (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra. Arqueología de su arquitectura. Op. Cit., p.496.

98

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

Image 3. Inside the Drawing Room of Abd al-Rahman III.

Source: The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra.

The most unique part of the building is undoubtedly the extraordinary adornment spanning the wall surfaces, including the façade, which are structured in three registers. The most important innovations were condensed in the lower area, between the marble plinth and the beginning of the arches, where more than seventy large stone panels with arborescent compositions clearly inspired by nature with the ubiquitous root, a central stem that becomes and axis of symmetry crowned with a cup and a framework of stalks providing the structure of the foliage. These panels, often identified as trees of life, comprise one of the most important collections of Islamic art throughout the ages; they were associated with a new and extraordinarily rich and varied vegetation art, whereby practically no two identical motifs are repeated and in which clear Abbasid influences can be discerned along with the way it was rendered, clearly not from al-Andalus, but more likely originating from an art center with strong links to the East. This adornment, which also includes an upper frieze with a motif of stars symbolizing the universe, has been interpreted in astrological code as the scene that legitimizes the Caliph as the first governor that orders and directs the natural world and power structure through an hierarchical order that emanates from rest of the State.21 21

See Manuel Acién Almansa (1995). Materiales e hipótesis para una interpretación del Salón de Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir. Op. Cit., pp. 188-191; Manuel Acién Almansa (1998). «Sobre el papel de la ideología en la caracterización de las formaciones sociales. La formación social islámica», Hispania, lviii (200), pp. 949-968; and Antonio Vallejo Triano (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra. Arqueología de su arquitectura. Op. Cit., p. 464.

99

Antonio Vallejo Triano

The ceremonies in the caliphal maylis adher to a rigid protocol of positions and movements that reflect the Abbasid and Fatimid ceremonies and are aimed to magnify the figure of the Caliph.22 Nevertheless, it was not only limited to the inside of the room, where only the hearing was held, it also affected the whole terrace, particularly the Central Pavilion, which played an important role in the whole ceremony process. Beyond it, the rest of the city was involved in these celebrations by virtue of the organized processions that passed through as they accompanied the embassies. The general setting for these performances, the palace and the city as a whole, were also modified in the decade of 950 to magnify its spectacular nature and propaganda effect.

On one hand the Alcázar was expanded significantly towards the east, lengthening with it the procession route that mobilized a huge amount of men, from the different units of the Army to the Caliph Administration and the populace, equipped especially for the entourage.23 Inside the Alcázar the route culminated in the political reception hall (‘maylis al-sarqi’) and before it arrived had three intermediary stages: one of which was the Bab al-Sudda (‘the Threshold Gate’), identified as the great 14-arch portico, four of which have been reconstructed. The ceremonial gate also emerged from this restoration.

Decline and Abandonment We do not have any proof of the construction of new buildings or modifications to the previous ones after the death of al-Hakam II and the naming of his son, Hisham II, as Caliph in the year 976; nor do we know about the celebration of new receptions in the palace, meaning that all political and ceremonial activity disappeared from Madinat al-Zahra.

This would indicate that the city remained fossilized and, from this moment on, began the decadence, first symbolic and subsequently effective, when in 978 Ibn Abi Amir, known as Almanzor and named hayib, held royal control of the State and began the construction of a new palatine city to the east of Cordoba, Madinat al-Zahira, to which the caliphal Administration was transferred. The information that followed, outlining that the city once again acquired prominence, refer to the fitna between 1010-1013, with the partial occupation of the medina by troops from one of the Caliphate’s contenders, Sulayman al-Mustain, and the successive assaults and sackings that occurred until the eventual abandonment by the people that still lived within its walls. From this moment onwards a new phase begins, the subject of poetic yearnings and the plundering that, to differing degrees and depending 22

For the protocol inside the Drawing Room, see Miquel Barceló Perelló (1995). «El Califa patente: el ceremonial omeya de Córdoba o la escenificación del poder», in Madinat al-Zahra. El Salón de Abd al-Rahman III. Córdoba: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura, pp. 155-175.

23

See, for instance, the military ‘albaruz’ (parade) in September 971 to celebrate the arrival of the Banu Jazar in Cordoba and Madinat al-Zahra. Ibn Hayyan (1967). Anales palatinos del califa de Córdoba al-Hakam II, por Isa ibn Ahmad al-Razi (360-364 H. = 971-975 J. C.). Op. Cit., pp. 64-74.

100

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

on the nature of the materials, would remain until at least the 17th century. During this lengthy period the ruins of the abandoned city were attributed to the Roman period and were thus known as ‘Córdoba la vieja’ (the old Cordoba) up until their definitive identification, in 1832, as Madinat al-Zahra, the city built by the Caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III.

The Restoration of Heritage The image of Madinat al-Zahra put forward above, or more to the point, what we know of the caliphal city, does not hinge on information obtained from Arab sources but rather on the meticulous research carried out from the beginning of the excavations in 1911 by various generations of researchers.

Contrary to other monumental ensembles, which have reached the present day pretty much intact, Madinat al-Zahra can only be understood as the result of archaeological research that was put into practice one century ago on the site of the ancient Umayyad palatine city. What can be seen at Madinat al-Zahra today is the outcome of prolonged archaeological work performed by various generations of experts carrying out their research at the heart of the heritage institution itself, which manages the archaeological site, and in other academic spheres. This irrefutable fact, which breathes life into the Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra and enables it to attract thousands of visitors every year to congregate there, is the interpretation that historical and archaeological research has been able to provide on the ancient Umayyad palatine metropolis. Without this interpretation Madinat al-Zahra would simply not exist.

The Beginnings Since Ricardo Velázquez Bosco began working there, the labors carried out throughout the 20th century have been huge. Basically, the excavations have taken place in the central part of the palace and have been onerous due to the high levels of rubble burying the structures (in some places between 5 and 6 m) and the intensity of the plundering of archaeological structures, causing only the foundations of some of the buildings to be conserved, or worse still, the ditches supporting them. From the 1930s onwards, this situation forced a project of systematic screeding to be set up for the structures by using broken ashlar fragments that appeared in the excavation. It started with the north wall of the city and the retaining walls from the different terraces and then subsequently moved on to all of the constructions. Consequently, the outlines of the Alcázar’s urban planning and its different structures became more defined and gained volume until an image of the stepped structure of the palace and the different constructions we know today were obtained. The efforts of these early years both in terms of the site and the identification of some of the elements of the area associated with Madinat al-Zahra were reflected in the protection granted as a National Historic Site, in 1923, and the caliphal Valdepuentes aqueduct and Almunia of Alamiriya, in 1931.

101

Antonio Vallejo Triano

In parallel with these works, others were carried out to recompose the materials, particularly the architectural adornments —the plant motifs. The main buildings in Madinat al-Zahra, particularly the caliphal reception halls and the dwellings, feature adornments that were carved from a stone that was different from the one used for construction and have come into our hands incomplete and fragmentary, broken into thousands of fragments that emerged from the levels of destruction of these buildings. The restoration of the Drawing Room of ‘Abd al-Rahman III, the great throne room of the Umayyad Caliphate excavated in 1944, was a huge research and work project in Madinat al-Zahra in the second half of the 20th century and still continues, inconclusive, to this day. After the excavation a complex process of study, identification and recomposition of the different materials began, ending in the definition of different structural elements: panels, keystones, spandrels, alfiz structures, borders, friezes... allowing the architecture to be reconstructed and considered before proceeding with returning the material to its original, safe or hypothetical location. This highly complex and skilled task, got underway and developed by Félix Hernández and then subsequently continued by Rafael Manzano and ourselves (in recent years), has been supported by the work of other professionals, including distinguished names such as the Arabist Manuel Ocaña and restorer Salvador Escobar. Both continued to advance in the research started by Hernández until the beginning of the new regional phase in which their collaboration was continued, establishing an authentic bridge and channel for transmitting the knowledge acquired throughout this process of restoration.

Institutional Consolidation From 1985 onwards a new phase of work began under the regional Administration, the Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia), and its corresponding office, which was characterized by: • The institutionalization of the site’s management with the creation of a heritage institution called the Archaeological Ensemble that guarantees continued protected administrative action on the site.

• The interest placed in the knowledge and conservation of the territory, and, as a result, the instruments of protection by means of the declaration of an archaeological site and the drafting of a Special Protection Plan in compliance with the Spanish Heritage Act 16/85. The site is a protected area of around 1500 ha, which along with the remains of the city, includes the surrounding area, with a highly important landscape and heritage, and the location of the historical and territorial planning of Madinat al-Zahra, made up of bridges, aqueducts and fragments of roads and other archaeological sites.

• The emphasis placed on research as the driving force behind an extraordinarily complex site that is little more than a collection of meaningless structures without it.

102

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

Thus research is considered as a process to guide the development of the interventions to be carried out.

• The conviction that heritage management must be sustainable24 and must strike the right balance between different responsibilities: the administration, protection, investigation, conservation and promotion. Any imbalance in this equilibrium implying the greater development of one to the detriment of the rest will involve necessary changes in the guardianship of the site.

• The consideration that promotion must be based on the transfer of knowledge from the research area and must contribute to transferring and expanding the multiple values of every kind that concur in the city, as well as the elimination of platitudes that cast a shadow on the various meanings.

This drive towards research has brought about notable advances on three working levels. On a territorial level with the uniqueness and characteristics of the site and the implementation conditions of the urban center, assessing the aspects of topography and landscape as a key part of the urban project of Madinat al-Zahra. Equally, in this area there have been advances in the recognition of the basic infrastructures created by the city for its development. On an urban level, from the city as a whole a complete image has been created with functional zoning, unknown until now (Illustration 1). What is noteworthy is the hierarchical relationship between the Alcázar and the medina and the verification of rigid interior planning that explains, among other things, the existence of large, non-urban areas in the center of the medina, areas that were never built and correspond to the meridional façade of the palace.

In recent years, research into the Alcázar on a micro-spacial level has enabled the formulation of a global and coherent explanation of the structures it is composed of, stressing the organic articulation of its different buildings, the coherence in its planning, its different stages of construction —from the foundation to its abandonment— and, above all, the importance and magnitude of the restoration processes and change, which deeply modified the palatial physiognomy.

In terms of conservation, in the last two decades Madinat al-Zahra has developed a restoration strategy that aims to order and sequence the intervention of the different spaces, previously closed to visitors, that make up the palace’s residential area in order to facilitate public access. In these buildings a comprehensive intervention model was drawn up that dealt with all of the construction elements, from the structures and walls to the furniture and fixtures, epidermal art and adornments. Ultimately, the aim is to improve conservation and provide an interpretation of the buildings that demonstrates the ensemble of unique characteristics and specifications they are distinguished by, thus providing an aesthetic, 24

This implies that it must be governed by three basic principles: each action must be based on rigorous research, must be reversible and must take into account future generations.

103

Antonio Vallejo Triano

intellectual and sensory experience that brings about contact with their original capacity and the perception of space and materials on this site in their original functions.

This kind of intervention has been recognized internationally through the Europa Nostra in 2004 award given to the restoration of the House of Ya‘far.

This method of holistic intervention has evolved in recent years, reflected in a new intervention in the Drawing Room of ‘Abd al-Rahman III, which is now part of the first stage of restoration designed solve the problems with damp affecting the building, and, as a result, its decoration. The excavation carried out has enabled us to gain an idea of the rocky substratum the room sits upon as well as the total number of lines cut in the marble slabs.

The intervention also included the placement of a new flooring made from this material that originated from the Estremoz quarries (Portugal), where this marble comes from, that combines the original pieces still conserved from the building.

One of the most important milestones in recent years has been the exhibition El esplendor de los Omeyas cordobeses (‘The Splendour of the Umayyads of Cordoba’), held in 2001.

In spite of it being preceded by a similar exhibition Paris, a set of landmark pieces were assembled for the first time, enabling a more in-depth look into the different aspects of the dynasty and its artistic, scientific and literary output, which were represented in two publications.25 One of the most important outcomes of the exhibition was the acknowledgement and exposure of Madinat al-Zahra on a national and international level, seen in the high number of visitors from different countries.

The New Museum The future development strategy of Madinat al-Zahra is represented by its new museum;26 the need for this infrastructure had been considered since the beginning of the excavations, started at the turn of the 20th century by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, and had been subsequently reiterated by different figures in charge of the site —the commission that continued up to the death of the aforementioned architect to Félix Hernández, and more recently Rafael Manzano. The first ones provided a provisional answer to this necessity with the construction of a small building located next the entrance of the site, while Rafael Manzano attempted to utilize the actual archaeological structure as a container for collection material and also started the reconstruction of the Upper Basilica Room for the museum; work that eventually ended inconclusive.

25

Please refer to Volume I of María Jesús Viguera Molins and Concepción Castillo Castillo (coords.) (2001). «El esplendor de los omeyas cordobeses: la civilización musulmana de Europa occidental. Exposición en Madinat al-Zahra, 3 de mayo a 30 de septiembre de 2001: estudios». Granada: Consejería de Cultura, through the Fundación El Legado Andalusí; and Volume II of the same work, by Rafael López Guzmán and Antonio Vallejo Triano (coords.) (2001). Catálogo de piezas. Barcelona: Juan Carlos Luna Briñardeli.

26

The different aspects related to the museum can be consulted in Antonio Vallejo Triano (2011). Un Museo para Madinat al-Zahra, in Consejo Internacional de Museos. 6º Encuentro Internacional. Actualidad en Museografía: Bilbao del 17 al 20 de junio de 2010. Madrid: ICOM-España. Consejo Internacional de Museos, pp. 105-123.

104

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

To this imperative end, in the 1990s a Building Use Program was devised with the formulation of three main objectives: • To explain the history of Madinat al-Zahra and its multiple values through the transfer of knowledge produced by new research that will also allow the constant updating and renovation of promotion activities.

• To house the whole collection of archaeological materials unearthed from the excavation work through the safekeeping and presentation in both the exhibition rooms and storage spaces as well as the reservation areas.

• To have spaces and resources available that are suitable for developing the diverse potential of the site as well as the laboratories, restoration workshops, library...

To write the project a global ideas forum was held and subsequently won by the architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano with their concept of a building shaped in a rectangle, with minimalist architecture and a surface area of 7,000 m². Work began in 2005 and it was unveiled in October 2009.

The museum is located on the outside of the wall that encloses the caliphal city and alongside the route of one of the main access roads, now completely disappeared, in such a way that it does not condition or compromise future excavations (Image 4).27 One of its most salient, and obvious, assets is the way it has been installed in the area: if the place that was previously chosen gave some indications as to the precautions that had to be adopted regarding the site’s landscape resources, the project intelligently delved deeper into this assessment by making a reading of the landscape. It is a ‘silent’ museum that does not strive to be the center of attention or compete with the city or the land it has been incorporated into; an ‘introverted’ museum, distinguished by its relationship to the environment and its own interior architecture, characterized by order, purity, and the clarity of its volumes.

Image 4. External view of the Madinat al-Zahra Museum.

Source: The Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra.

27

The location was decided upon in the Madinat al-Zahra Special Protection Plan, written by the urban planner José Ramón Menéndez de Luarca Navia-Osorio.

105

Antonio Vallejo Triano

The innovation of its museum program lies in the concept of the museum as a unitary ensemble that serves to provide greater and better knowledge of the archaeological site.

The whole building can be visited through a circular route that shows and comprises its divergent functional areas, each one providing its own specific meaning to the discourse on the caliphal city —its history, values and restoration.

In the auditorium an audiovisual piece entitled Madinat al-Zahra: la ciudad brillante (‘Madinat al-Zahra: the Brilliant City’), which explains what Madinat al-Zahra is with the help of virtual reality technical support. Meanwhile, the permanent exhibition is arranged into four inter-related blocks and equipped with extensive technical resources to gain a better understanding of the city’s history and its importance in the Mediterranean of the 10th century (Image 5). It is made up of 166 original pieces and, via a distinctly educational discourse, explains the general aspects of the historical and cultural context Madinat al-Zahra emerged from in addition to specific information on its construction, the relationship with Cordoba, who the inhabitants were and how they lived in the different areas and how the caliphal city was destroyed.28 Image 5. Madinat al-Zahra Museum. Permanent exhibition room.

Source: Roland Halbe’s photograph.

Inside the museum some of the best pieces from Islamic culture in the 10th century are displayed, and one of its overriding qualities is its conception as an open museum, 28

The museum’s program in the exhibition hall was written by professor Manuel Acién Almansa and represents a clear transfer of knowledge from the field of research to the field of promotion. The museum project is the result of work by the designing architects and the museographer Juan P. Rodríguez Frade.

106

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

with a tour through the permanent exhibition complementing the view of the two main warehouses in the interior that house the collection, one made up of stone and marble architectural materials and the other plant motifs. Not only does this set-up enable a large part of the pieces not exhibited to be viewed, it also makes it possible to view the work that goes on inside the institution —the cataloguing of pieces, cleaning, etc.— and developed inside these spaces.

Furthermore, the Madinat al-Zahra Museum has won significant international awards: the architectural excellence of the building, along with the ideas of museum and heritage, have provided the basis for the conceptualization and the museum project itself and were deservedly awarded the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2010. On top of that, more recently, the European Museum Forum, an organization that operates under the auspices of the Council of Europe, gave recognition to its ability to transmit the content and values of the history of Madinat al-Zahra through the quality of its museum and exhibition program by naming it winner of the European Museum of the Year Awards 2012.

The Future The museum has opened up new perspectives on the future of Madinat al-Zahra; on the one hand it has massively improved the understanding of the site and, in the process, has produced a significant appreciation of Madinat al-Zahra on every level (social, educational, scientific...) as, among other things, it has begun to make its historical, urban, architectural and technical relevance known, along with its complexity and potential.

And on the other, the varied nature of the museum’s explanatory resources has raised the need to rethink the interpretive and explanatory resources of the actual site so that that they are complementary and not surplus to requirements. Certain aspects can be better explained in the museum through the furniture materials and adequate resources as well as others that require an in situ explanation with specific instruments and supports; this means that the site must be the subject of museological conservation in the coming years.

The museum’s location also has to be used as an intervention and restoration strategy for the city area and meridional zone of Madinat al-Zahra; its position as the gateway to the city from the south by making use of one of the original entrance gates means that over the coming years part of the excavations and intervention must be considered in this area in order to obtain a walkway between the museum and the city via the southern wall and the medina area.

The establishment of this connection, which must be considered as one of the Archaeological Ensemble’s strategic objectives, began in 2007 with the excavation of one section of the south wall and its adjacent structures. This must also give rise to one of the biggest and most ambitious projects in Spain in the coming years, the exhibition of the area of the medina not yet excavated; namely, we have to bring about the connection between the excavated palace and the museum through a route around a city which, although has still not

107

Antonio Vallejo Triano

been excavated, should at least indicate the most important aspects in its urban planning (roads, buildings, urban grid elements, vacant constructions, farming spaces...) in such a way that we will be able to recognize the topological location and, generally speaking, its morphology in order that this pathway allows the sensory and aesthetic experience to be relived as well as an awareness of what the gradual approach from the south to the main seat of power meant.

Today Madinat al-Zahra is a site with enormous potential, not just because of the exceptional nature of the buildings that have seen the light of day, but also due to the expansive area yet to be excavated, approximately 90%.

There is also the need in the future for consistent and comprehensive conservation and restoration programs and the enhancement of the site and its archaeological collection, which has now been preserved for a number of years. Furthermore, there is the need to develop Madinat al-Zahra and its Museum as a research and training center through the direct collaboration with benchmark institutions and universities in the field of archaeology, the study of the medieval world, and the extensive field of intervention and heritage restoration.

108

Madinat al-Zahra: Historical Reality and Present-Day Heritage

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Antonio Vallejo Triano, with a Bachelor’s degree in Medieval History from the University of Málaga and a PhD from the University of Jaén, has been Director of the Archaeological Ensemble of Madinat al-Zahra from 1985 to 2013 and is member of honor of the German Archaeological Institute. He is also editor of the magazine Cuadernos de Madinat al-Zahra, and the author of numerous general and monographic publications on Madinat al-Zahra and the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, notably the book: La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra.

Arqueología de su arquitectura.

ABSTRACT This article analyses Madinat al-Zahra from two perspectives: historical/archaeological and heritage. One side, the city is conceptualized as the great urban creation of the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus within the context of its competition with two other rival Caliphates, Abbasid and Fatimid, and the construction of large urban centers in their respective states. In light of archaeological research, there is an analysis of the processes of urban planning and construction that highlights the political objectives manifested in the different urban and architectural transformations the palace underwent from the time it was founded. While on the other, there is an explanation of the restoration process of Madinat al-Zahra from the beginning of the excavations, demonstrating that both the material reality that can be seen at the site today and also the knowledge we possess on the caliphal city are fundamentally the result of archaeological research. There is also an explanation of the most recent landmarks in this restoration process, particularly the construction of the Madinat al-Zahra Museum, and the future that has opened up for the Archaeological Ensemble based on two considerations: firstly, the need to connect the museum to the site and secondly, with 90% of the land surface yet to be excavated, research as the driving force behind Madinat al-Zahra, without which the site would remain fossilized as little more than a tourist center.

KEYWORDS Qurtuba, Cordoba, Madinat al-Zahra.

109

QURTUBA: SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOBA AND THE MYTH OF CONVIVENCIA Eduardo Manzano Moreno

L

a Convivencia («the Coexistence») is the period of Spanish history from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early eighth century until the completion of the Christian Reconquista in the late fifteenth century, when Muslims, Christians and Jews in Moorish Iberia lived in relative peace together within the different kingdoms (during the same time, however, the Christian reclaiming of land conquered by the Moors was ongoing). The phrase often refers to the interplay of cultural ideas between the three groups, and ideas of religious tolerance. James Carroll invokes this concept and indicates that it played an important role in bringing the classics of Greek philosophy to Europe, with translations from Greek to Arabic to Hebrew and Latin.1 As the Internet becomes a source of globally accessible knowledge, notions encapsulated within it, which appear in a search result almost as instantly as the era we live in, give us a good idea of the perceptions that are generally upheld and deemed universal. The paragraph cited above is particularly revealing. The entry on the English version of Wikipedia is often the first point of contact for many readers with an interest in the Hispanicism Convivencia, which in recent years has been fully accepted not only in English but also in other languages such as French and German. Note that the article puts forward a vision of the history of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, whereby «la convivencia» [sic!] refers to a whole «period» that spans from the 8th to the 15th centuries, in which time Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in «relative peace» within each of the Kingdoms.

Another aspect it addresses is the intercultural contact between these three groups as this convivencia favoured translations from Greek to Arabic and from Arabic to Hebrew or Latin.

Given the nature of this renowned online encyclopedia, in all likelihood the content of this entry will be modified in such a way that a future search will result in a notably different, possibly even improved, article. Yet beyond its scant exactitude the entry dem1

«La Convivencia», Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Convivencia [consulted on 9 April 2013].

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

onstrates that the Middle Ages in Spain have become a historical reference for illustrating ideas related to coexistence in the three main monotheistic religions; many more examples could be cited. Thus the popular decision to build an Islamic centre in central Manhattan, New York, a stone’s throw away from Ground Zero, the area destroyed in the September 11 attacks, was originally going to be called Cordoba House, named after the Spanish city «where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims», according to the person behind initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.2 During his acclaimed speech at Cairo University in June of 2009, us President, Barack Obama, referred to the tradition of tolerance within Islam, making a specific reference to Andalusia and Cordoba.3 In fact, diverse documentaries made in recent years by British and American producers have, in turn, also focused on very similar ideas.4 Throughout the pages that follow I aim to demonstrate that elevating Medieval Spain to the category of a historical and multicultural reference point in recent decades has, generally speaking, been with little or no input from Spanish historians. They have been caught unawares and reluctantly view the emergence of a concept based more on generic perceptions —the supposed existence of tolerance, pacific coexistence and the broad and free circulation of ideas— than clearly defined historical circumstances. Moreover, given that the tendency to compare these perceptions with current situations, convivencia has become an easy diversion for a present that gives rise to extremely tense multicultural relationships, particularly between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Therefore, a model has been assembled that, despite attempts for it to provide inspiration for the present, is used instead to legitimise a set of alternatives that do not always respond to identical, or even compatible, motivations. This will be explored further below. As a result, although certain authors have provided significant contributions to ideas that are implicit in convivencia, the term has ultimately become a «political concept»; branding it in this way does not mean I am transmitting a judgement value, but more a description of its very nature that enables the terms of its discussion to be clarified. As a tool that can enable us to acquire a more fullbodied vision of the past, conviviencia has very obvious limitations, as demonstrated below in 2

Feisal Abdul Rauf (2010). «Building on Faith», The New York Times, 7 September 2010.

3

In every version of the speech I have read, including the official version released by the White House, there is one glaring error. The transcript says: «Islam has a long tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition». But this doesn’t make much sense and it’s possible that something has been lost somewhere. The speech can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarkspresident-cairo-university-6-04-09 [consulted on 10 March 2013].

4

For instance, the documentary After Rome: Holy War and Conquest, directed by the current Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and shown on bbc 2 in December of 2008, or When the Moors Ruled in Europe, directed

by Bettany Hughes and broadcast on Channel 4 in November of 2006. There is also The Ornament of the World, currently being produced by Karim Media, based on the homonymous book by the sadly deceased María Rosa Menocal.

112

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

an attempt to apply it to a specific example, the Caliphate of Cordoba. At the same time, this contraposition between political and historical concepts gives rise to a broader and more complex debate on the role of historical knowledge and its relevance in contemporary societies. This will be referred to in the last part of the essay.

Convivencia: The Genesis of a Concept Despite its huge popularity, convivencia is a concept that has never really evolved. After its associations with the three monotheistic religions, its formulation corresponds to the ideas of the great philologist Américo Castro (1885-1972). Whilst exiled in the USA during the Spanish Civil War, Castro conceived a unique interpretation of the history of Spain that, along with other notions, encompassed the idea that during the Middle Ages a special kind of Muslim-inspired tolerance had enabled convivencia among what the author called the three castes: Christian, Jewish and Muslim. This tolerance, one of many decisive influences brought by Islam, played a part in shaping Spain’s unique history. The supremacy of the Christian caste during the Late Middle Ages paved the way to a «conflictive age» in the 15th and 16th centuries that was characterised by intolerance, persecution and the exclusion of the other two subjugated castes.

In devising his thesis, Américo Castro was never particularly systematic; in fact, his ideas were constantly shaped and honed from 1948, when the first edition of what was then titled España y su historia surfaced, to 1966, when the same work underwent significant modifications to become La realidad histórica de españa.5 Moreover, the idea of convivencia never formed a core part of his thinking, which was more aimed at finding out the origins of the Spanish people, or as Castro himself put it, «Hispanically constructed man».6 His long digressions on the people, understood as the main agent of history, on the inextricable link between «Spanishness» and religion, on the «dwelling place of life» and «the living context» as the ideal and lived experience of every community, and so many other elements, were part of a vision that Américo Castro formed during his years exile and which ultimately aimed to explain the «essence of the Spanish people».

Thus it is not surprising that Américo Castro never adapted to the historiographical patterns in use. The scant interest in the series of historical events, the mix of information from diverse time periods, the tireless search for singularity and the most implausible parallels, the little relevance granted to economic aspects and even the outlandish idea —based on Wilhelm Dilthey’s hermeneutic hypotheses— on the predominance of native historians as opposed to foreigners in terms of understanding one’s own history, were numerous ways of rejecting any type of allegedly «scientificist» knowledge regarding an understanding of the 5

Guillermo Araya (1983). El pensamiento de Américo Castro: estructura intercastiza de la historia de España. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, pp. 41-47.

6

Américo Castro (1949). «El enfoque histórico y la no-hispanidad de los visigodos», Nueva Revista de Filología Hispana, 3, pp. 234-235.

113

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

past based on lived experience. For Américo Castro the aim of historical interpretation was to find the components of the «dwelling place of life» shaped by the Spanish people; one of these components was the «convivencia» of the three castes, which, somewhat imprecisely, Castro appeared to identify with two points in history: one being the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba in the 10th century, and the other the 13th century Christian Kingdoms. The characteristics that were eventually imposed themselves in the «conflictive age» not only repudiated this component of the Spanish «dwelling place of life», but they also represented a hindrance to Spain’s progress.7 If this is examined strictly from the perspective of the history of Spanish thought, the work of Américo Castro is discernibly linked to the tradition that the so-called Generation of ‘98 had been reflecting upon «existence» and the «history of Spain» characterized by a past of imperial glory and a present of decadence and international marginalization. The Spanish Civil War, from 1936-1939, did little more than deepen, even to the furthest extremes, this consideration. It is no coincidence that the first edition of España en su historia coincided exactly with the appearance of texts and publications such as Los españoles en la historia, by Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1947), España como problema by the then Falangist Pedro Laín Entralgo (1949), España sin problema by the then Francoist and Opus Dei member, Rafael Calvo Serer (1949), and España: un enigma histórico that Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, also in exile, published in Buenos Aires in 1957 in what was a direct response to the work of Américo Castro —the work gave rise to bitter controversy between both others. There were also countless reviews, commentaries and articles published in the wake of these works by supporters and detractors of the diverse ideas of Spain.

This is not the place for a detailed analysis of these authors and works that clearly do not adhere to the frameworks that are occasionally portrayed from a present-minded perspective. A deeply anti-Franco author such as Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz brought to light a vision of the Middle Ages that eventually became a canonical reference for those historians most in favour of the regime, following the arguments laid out by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, who also harboured doubts about the regime.8 By contrast, the deeply conservative Arabist, Miguel Asín Palacios, sided with the victors of the Spanish Civil War, alluded to the ideas and motives shared, harmoniously, by Christianity and Islam during the Middle Ages as a parallel that justified the unwonted presence of the important contingents of Moroccan troops in the ranks of Franco’s army during the Civil War.9 The same resource in Spain’s history pervaded many aspects of the political discourse around the time, and 7

Américo Castro (1984). España en su historia: cristianos, moros y judíos. Barcelona: Crítica, pp. 47-61.

8

See the indispensable prologue by Diego Catalán in 1982 on Menéndez Pidal, in Ramón Menéndez Pidal. Los españoles en la historia. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.

9

Eduardo Manzano (2000). El arabismo español en el siglo xx: la construcción de un esencialismo, in Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla, Manuel C. Feria García and Eduardo Manzano Moreno. Orientalismo, exotismo y traducción. Cuenca: Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, pp. 23-28.

114

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

General Franco, besides proclaiming in 1938 his intention to establish «a University of Advanced Eastern Studies where Muslim students will have the chance to research the ancient splendors of their civilization by using comprehensive documents preserved by Spain», did not hold back from giving his own view of the situation between religious communities during the Middle Ages in a speech given in 1937 that outlined his government’s program: The fierce persecution by Marxists and Communists in everything representing the existence of spirituality, faith or worship, we oppose with the sense of a Catholic Spain with its Saints and Martyrs, secular institutions, social justice and Christian charity; a huge spirit of understanding that was formed in the Golden Age of our History, when strong Catholicism and sense were the weapons in the reconstruction of our historical unity, where the mosques and synagogues were under the tolerant tutelage of the Catholic State, within the spirit of understanding in Catholic Spain.10 In this intersection of historical perspectives, Américo Castro’s was always characterised by the response to a genuinely liberal and progressive ideology.11 His commitment to integrating al-Andalus history into the history of Spain was a far cry from General Franco’s unprecedented idea of granting access to Spain’s Muslim past to Muslims themselves; in fact, as P. Martínez Montávez pointed out, the great merit with Castro lies in giving prominence to an Islamic past in which Spanish Arabists had agreed to attribute a subordinate role.12 That said, this did not then become a specifically and well-defined consideration of al-Andalus, quite possibly because in the Arabist bibliography Castro never came across materials open to being incorporated into his interpretation, possibly due to the disappointment caused by «broad critical reservation, in many cases blatantly sceptical, that the most renowned and illustrious representatives of this Arabism expounded in their innovative ideas».13 Obviously, when Américo Castro pointed to the importance of the Arab conquest in the formation of the «Spanish people» and «convivencia» inspired by a supposed Islamic 10

For the interview see Declaraciones de S. E. a Manuel Aznar, 31 December 1938, in Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1939). Palabras del Caudillo: 19 de abril de 1937-31 de diciembre de 1938. Barcelona: Seix y Barral Hnos. Edit. F. E., p. 314.

For the original version of the speech (in Spanish) by Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1937). Habla el Caudillo [textos seleccionados de discursos y escritos del Caudillo]. Gijón: Luz, page. 33.

11

As appropriately demonstrated by Américo Castro, Juan Goytisolo and Javier Escudero Rodríguez (1997). El epistolario: cartas de Américo Castro a Juan Goytisolo, 1968-1972. Valencia: Pre-Textos.

12

Pedro Martínez Montávez (1983). «Lectura de Américo Castro por un arabista», Revista del Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islámicos, xxii, pp. 21-42.

13

Pedro Martínez Montávez (2010). Américo Castro y los moriscos, in Julio Rodríguez Puértolas. El pensamiento de Américo Castro. La tradición corregida por la razón, published online in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com [consulted 15 March 2013].

115

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

root system, he did so based more on his own perceptions and developments than on the resource of profound and meticulous documentation on al-Andalus.14 The lack of a solid foundation of documents and the prominence acquired by the «Spanish people» resulted in the work taking on a marked political character, without doubt much to his disappointment, the value of which depended on his ability to offer relevant keys to the present. This purely political characteristic defined how it was subsequently received and thus lead to something unexpected: while its core —the considerations of the essence of the «Spanish people», the «dwelling place of life» and the «living context»— lost validity in the new political frameworks that emerged after the end of the Franco regime, his brilliant perceptions of medieval multiculturalism began to fuel a growing interest in societies that had to deal with new challenges, unimaginable in previous decades, during the last quarter of the 20th century.

Convivencia: the development of a concept The fact that Américo Castro lived in exile in the United States and worked at many universities was particularly important in the dissemination of a work that was already worthy of interest in its own right. In 1954, La realidad histórica de España was translated by Princeton, with an Italian version also surfacing one year later. In 1963 the work was also translated into French, and further still in 1971 Berkeley published a new translation titled The Spaniards.

An Introduction to their History, which was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, The Economist and the Times Literary Supplement.15 Therefore, it is safe to say that Castro was one of the Spanish humanists with the widest international exposure throughout the 20th century.16 This resulted in numerous foreign studies that came into contact with Spain’s Middle Ages by means of the unique vision set forth by Castro’s theses, which had a far-reaching impact on departments of Spanish, Medieval Studies, Jewish studies, Islamic Studies and, more recently, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Naturally, the interpretation of these theses in academic circles had little or nothing to do with concerns about the being or essence of Spain, but instead opted for a defined analysis of multiculturalism, issues linked to identities and processes of mixed races —aspects already believed to have been approached, virtually in their infancy, by the work of the Spanish philologist, and which, for instance, in a society like the American one was of the utmost importance due to strong multicultural pressures.

14

Bernabé López García (2000). «Enigmas de al-Andalus: una polémica», Revista de Occidente, 224, January 2000, pp. 49-50.

15

Guillermo Araya (1983). El pensamiento de Américo Castro: estructura intercastiza de la historia de España. Op. Cit., p. 313.

16

By contrast, the book by Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, España: un enigma histórico, was only translated in 1976 by the Fundación Universitaria Española, although the real impetus came from the Instituto de Cultura Hispana, as noted by Bartolomé Clavero (2013). El árbol y la raíz. Memoria histórica familiar. Barcelona: Crítica, p. 100.

Therefore, this constituted a pro-government publication given that outside of Spain nobody was particularly interested in the digressions of a historian from the town of Ávila and the vicissitudes of the homo hispanicus.

116

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

These interpretations resulted in a more developed formulation of certain ideas encapsulated in the concept of convivencia that have now taken on a very different character.17 In 1969, Th Glick and O. Pi-Sunyer published an article that looked at the unwillingness of Spanish historians to pay heed to the potential in their discipline by assimilating certain concepts from social sciences, whilst also advocating the need for a theory that explains the process of acculturation developed in the Iberian Peninsula in medieval times, casting aside «the agonizingly obscurantist neologisms» Américo Castro had employed to describe the phenomena recognized by others through cultural anthropology. The limits defined by religious identity were not always as rigid in the Middle Ages in Spain given that they highlighted the phenomena of the conversion or transfer of knowledge and techniques; what Castro had called convivencia came to be defined as «stabilized pluralism», what was «a stage of arrested fusion or incomplete assimilation».18 Th F. Glick subsequently developed these ideas in later works. Despite the lack of any discernible connection to the idea of convivencia, his book on irrigation in Valencia (1970) was a pioneering study on the creation of irrigated areas for cultivation in the south west of the Peninsula, explained as the result of a process of spreading techniques and farming that were lead by peoples from the Middle East and North Africa that had settled in the area after the Arab conquest and who experienced profound changes that moved towards very different social conditions centuries later following the Christian occupation in the region.19 In a later publication Glick tried to give these ideas a more generalized character, emphasizing the fact that these processes of change and cultural dissemination in the Iberian Peninsula during the medieval period did not necessarily require pacific contact.

Furthermore, the coexistence of the three monotheistic religions was never the result of a politics of tolerance in the modern sense of the word, but rather ethnocentric absorption in which the social exclusion of the communities involved (Christian and Jewish, in the case of al-Andalus and Muslim and Jewish in the Christian Kingdoms) was implicit. Concepts such as integration, assimilation and ethnic or religious ascription proved that they had a more dynamic character with what was understood as a castiza (pure-blood Castilian) idea of convivencia.20 17

Kenneth Baxter Wolf (2009). «Convivencia in Medieval Spain: a Brief History of an Idea», Religion Compass, 3/1, pp. 72-85.

18

Thomas F. Glick and Oriol Pi-Sunyer (1969). «Acculturation as an Explanatory Concept in Spanish History», Comparative Studies in Society and History, 11 (2), pp. 136-154.

19

Thomas F. Glick (1970). Irrigation and Society in Medieval Valencia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. There is also a Spanish translation (1988). Regadío y sociedad en la Valencia medieval: del Cenia al Segura. Valencia: Del Cenia al Segura.

20

Thomas F. Glick (1979). Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

There is also a Spanish translation (1991). Cristianos y musulmanes en la España medieval (711-1259). Madrid: Alianza, D. L. Tand (1992). Convivencia: an Introductory Note, in Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn Denise Dodds.

Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain. New York: G. Braziller, in collaboration with the Jewish Museum, pp. 1-9.

117

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

Years later, Castro’s ideas were picked up again by David Nirenberg in order to develop a brilliant interpretation of how the «violent communities» were shaped and identifiable in the 14th century. These communities, fuelled by structural conflict that responded to recognizable patterns in diverse contexts, were always prone to violence due to individuals’ capacity to manipulate them at particular times and in particular places. Thus the concept of conviviencia moved away from simply meaning pacific coexistence towards harboring confrontation and persecution. In all cases it involved sides of the same coin generated by tensions within a society marked by religious identity.21 Quite significantly, while these considerations were produced in an American setting, Spanish historiography followed a very different path: the exhausted discussion on the essence of Spain coincided, as already mentioned, with the end of Franco’s regime and the search for new horizons far away from the essentialist premises that had dominated the scene up to that point. These old moulds came to be seen as obsolete very early on by such influential authors as Jaume Vicens Vives (1910-1960), who argued: [...] In one way this period is characterized by the liquidation of a series of anachronistic positions (in general, those of the scholarly and philological school of Castilian nationalism), and in another way by the birth of a new concept of writing history, responsive to real life and pulsating with human blood, and incompatible with great abstract themes and with those political and ideological drugs that have poisoned Hispanic historiography.22 Initially this «new concept of writing history» looked for references in the Annales School before becoming influenced by trends in historical materialism, very much in vogue in the Europe of the seventies and eighties. Although these movements were never dominant (Spanish historiography has traditionally been predominantly conservative), they were very dynamic and shared work methods and even positivist traditions that had always, in one way or another, been upheld in Spain. In another highly influential book, Abilio Barbero (1931-1990) and Marcelo Vigil (1930-1987) in 1978 referred to the ideas of both Américo Castro and Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz in highly critical terms, considering them «a masking of the historical reality of Spain, which would become something transcendent joined to metaphysical and racial constants», given that «instead of considering the real 21

David Nirenberg (1996). Communities of Violence. Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press. There is also a Spanish translation (2001). Comunidades de violencia: la persecución de las minorías en la Edad Media. Barcelona: Península.

22

Jaume Vicens Vives (1970). Approach to the History of Spain, 2nd revised edition [prologue]. California: University of California Press. Please see also the previous edition in Spanish, Jaume Vicens Vives (1960). Aproximación a la Historia de España, 2nd edition [prologue]. Barcelona: Teide.

118

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

determinants in the history of Spain, it converts them into an essence with knowledge that goes beyond scientific investigation». Both authors showed very little interest in gaining knowledge of the essence of Spanishness: «our aims are more modest and are reduced to the study of the changes experienced by the social organizations that existed in the Iberian Peninsula at a particular time».23 In this work, more closely attached to the documents or specific themes linked to social and economic change, the intercultural relations that, as I have already pointed out, can be considered encapsulated in Castro’s idea of conviviencia, did not hold a dominant position. It was not about a plot driven by an apparent general antagonism towards the great Spanish philologist, as is sometimes upheld by his supporters, but rather a shift in attitudes represented by the influence of European historiography and its most dynamic movements, which, during those years, did not show a great deal of interest in either cultural studies or the origins of peoples. These two themes would often go hand in hand with the terrible consequences widely recognized in post-war Europe. This must also be added to the unusual academic planning in Spain, inherited from the last university reforms under the Franco regime, in which, significantly, the departments of Medieval History and Arab or Hebrew Studies operated separately, and sometimes divergently, thus not generally «coexisting».24 This explanation of the reasons outlining how Américo Castro’s ideas were perceived would be incomplete without mentioning the appearance of a completely unexpected element that progressively gained importance throughout the last quarter of the 20th century.

The increasing predominance of the Arab world, in particular, and the global reach of Islam as a political ideology was generally in parallel to the increased tensions not only in the Middle East —as stressed by the three wars in the Persian Gulf and the flare-up of the Palestine conflict— but also in other regions. Influential works such as Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) set out the theory that the ideological struggle that had defined the Cold War led to a time marked by clashes between cultures, thus giving rise to an understanding of multicultural realities and their struggle. The September 11 attacks in 2001, and those that followed in Madrid, London and other parts of the world, further accentuated this viewpoint, which forced a reconsideration and re-examination of the existing ideas of Islam and its historical tradition at a time of extreme reactions and mixed emotions.

It is within this context that the appearance of diverse works, aimed at the public at large, that focus on al-Andalus must be understood. Added to the American academic 23

Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil (1978). La formación del feudalismo en la Península Ibérica. Barcelona: Crítica, pp.

18-19.

24

I have alluded to this problem in Eduardo Manzano (2009). Desde el Sinaí de su arábiga erudición. Una reflexión sobre el medievalismo y el arabismo recientes, in Manuela Marín (ed.). Al-Andalus/España. Historiografías en contraste: siglos xvii-xxi. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, pp. 213-230.

119

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

tradition, which has been asserting the interest encapsulated within the study of multiculturalism in Andalusi society, was the need to find a discourse that articulated responses to such a traumatic situation. María Rosa Menocal (1953-2012), a professor of Spanish and Portuguese literature at Yale University, was writing a book on multiculturalism in Cordoba of the Umayyads when she witnessed the September 11 attacks with her work already finished and considered the impossibility of «understanding the history of what was in another epoch certainly an ornament of the world without seeing the reflections of this history just on our doorstep».25 Therefore, she decided not to change her already written work, which offered a vision of the Umayyad Caliphate as a culture of tolerance and was inevitably compared with the barbaric scenes of the present.

Other authors followed a similar path. For instance, Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit and ex-director of J.P. Morgan, published A Vanished World: Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Spain (2005) just after. This work looked at the glory of the three communities’ joint achievements and the tragedy of not having known how to preserve them, arguing that «medieval Spain could have shown the way» to recover this spirit of collaboration. In God's Crucible. Islam and the Making of Europe (2008), David Levering Lewis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of an American civil rights leader, compared the tolerance of the Andalusi society with a Western Europe that extolled war values, religious fanaticism and slavery.

It is certainly significant that while all of these works were translated into Spanish, in Spain the celebrations of tolerance and the splendor of al-Andalus were of a much more dispersed and generic nature.26 Of course, there have been countless mentions of the tolerance or splendor of the al-Andalus civilization in reports, literary pieces and official speeches —as highlighted by authors such as Serafín Fanjul— but, generally speaking, there have not been other works comparable to those already referred to with a palpable and specific agenda of the acceptance of the al-Andalus culture.27 By contrast, the Spanish authors that have addressed these themes have done so frequently from highly critical stances of the idealization of al-Andalus as a model of tolerance, expounding, incidentally, open hostility towards the historical presence of Islam in Spain and developing the devastating idea that Spain has been permanently confronting Islam, from the spring of the year 711 up

25

María Rosa Menocal (2002). The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Boston, London: Little, Brown, Postscript, p. 283. There is also a Spanish translation (2003). La joya del mundo: musulmanes, judíos y cristianos, y la cultura de la tolerancia en «al-Andalus». Barcelona: Plaza & Janés.

26

Chris Lowney (2006). A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Spain. Oxford: Oxford University Press; and Levering Lewis (2008). God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215. London: W. W. Norton.

27

The only exception is possibly Juan Vernet (1999). Lo que Europa debe al islam de España. Barcelona: El Acantilado. However, it is worth noting that this book is by one of Spain’s finest Arabists and reveals his extraordinary contribution to the field of the history of Arab science and technology. Despite a more indirect relationship to al-Andalus, the incredible output of Francisco Márquez Villanueva must also be mentioned.

120

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

to the recent spate of terrorist attacks.28 It is thought-provoking that these views have been predominant in Spain and, furthermore, encouraged for the most part by authors with barely any knowledge of the matter. The absence of specialists in such generic digressions on al-Andalus means that, by and large, the alternative is not to enter into generic historical constructions of one kind or another, but to accurately formulate the critique.29 Obviously, this clash of essentialist discourse has «wrong-footed» medieval studies in general and Arabism in particular, meaning that now is the time to analyze the causes of this discrepancy.

Divergent Perspectives In the USA, a greater development in cultural studies explains, in part at least, certain differences between Anglo-Saxon, and in particular US, historiography and Spanish (and even French) historiography in terms of the theme of conviviencia, aptly outlined by Ryan Szpiech in his recent work.30 This author’s essay puts this said divergence down to the existence of a wider conflict between empirical and interpretive traditions, already present in the development of philological studies from the 19th century onwards, as well as in strictly historical studies. The split between hermeneutics and empiricism corresponds to the rupture of the nexus established by German Romanticism between Bildung and Wissenschaft —the first term is understood as the notion of learning as personal self-fulfillment, the second as knowledge that should lead to this fulfilment through science. The rupture of this symbiosis in the second half of the 19th century in favor of science that, free from any form of subjectivism, fully reached humanistic studies and was exemplified in the detachment between interpretive and linguistic philology. For Szpiech, this serves to explain the path taken by figures such as Américo Castro or his contemporary Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), who also opposed scientific history —given the difficulties in making use of it in experimentation— in favor of figurative history dominated by interpretation and essentialist ideas.31 28

Serafín Fanjul (2002). Al-Andalus contra España: la forja del mito. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España; also Serafín Fanjul (2004). La quimera de Al-Andalus. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España; César Vidal (2004). España frente al islam: de Mahoma a Ben Laden. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros; Rosa María Rodríguez Magda (2008). Inexistente Al Ándalus: de cómo los intelectuales reinventan el Islam. Barcelona: Nobel. This last book was awarded with the Jovellanos International Essay Prize.

29

Fernando Bravo López (2009). «Islamofobia y antimusulmanismo en la obra de Cesar Vidal», Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, 8, pp. 47-71; Eduardo Manzano (2001). «Reseña a Serafín Fanjul, Al-Andalus contra España», Hispania, lxi/3 (209), pp. 1161-1164; María Isabel Fierro (2004). «Idealización de al-Andalus», Revista de Libros, 94; Luis Molina (2004). «Reseña a Serafín Fanjul. La quimera de al-Andalus», Al-Qantara, xxv, pp. 571-575; and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano (2006). «Reseña a Serafín Fanjul, La quimera de al-Andalus», Aljamía, 18, pp. 295-300.

30

Ryan Szpiech (2013). The Convivencia Wars: Decoding Historiography's Polemic with Philology, in Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette. A Sea of Languages: Rethinking Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 254-295.

31

Ibidem, pp. 266-284.

121

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

This divergence also explains the distancing of recent Spanish Arabism regarding the more culturalist and interpretive approaches that authors such as Julián Ribera (18581934) and Miguel Asín Palacios (1871-1944) developed in the first half of the 20th century —nowadays this has resulted in a closer link to internationally dominant approaches in the field of Arab studies. Consequently, while this discipline developed a kind of aversion to any form of high-flown rhetoric, the Cultural Studies and Literature departments in the USA followed a reverse process characterized by prevalently comparative ideas and a fascination with the study of identities and the phenomena of hybridization by means of post-colonial and interdisciplinary perspectives.32 This critique is a reasonable one and worthy of attention: we have been so concerned with demonstrating that the concept of convivencia does not have any historical backing that we have failed to explore the possibilities encapsulated in the cultural complexity of the Middle Ages in Spain. It is also true that social history in Spain has traditionally cast cultural aspects aside, even to the point that in many cases their interpretation seem more akin to Russian kolkhozy than the, somewhat indistinguishable, ideal and material aspects that shaped medieval societies. Hence there is still validity in the critique by Glick and PiSunyer that argues that Spanish historians have not always been fully aware of the possibilities offered by a multicultural study of the Middle Ages in the Iberian Peninsula. Indeed, it gives the impression that a field of study that certainly requires significant analysis should reconsider its themes of examination from fresh perspectives, accepting a «cultural shift» that, for the most part, has gone unnoticed to date.

With this critique in mind, other aspects of debate brought about by the work of Szpiech are also worth examining —one points to a certain theoretical inanity by Spanish and French authors consumed in the kind of scientificism that clings to data.

Without refuting that this has been true in many cases, as occurs in many historiographical traditions and, of course, without being negative, it is worth remembering that the field of medieval studies —in reference to its generic form— has given rise in Spain to a considerable number of theoretical debates within historical materialism, linguistics and social anthropology.33 Although it is true that these debates have not moved in similar directions to those predominant in the USA, I do not believe that only those interpretations focused on multicultural issues are the ones that have looked to transcend empirical data; the contributions to social history have been both important and extensive.

32 33

Idem, pp. 283-284.

Manuel Acién (1998). «Sobre el papel de la ideología en la caracterización de las formaciones sociales: la formación social islámica», Hispania, 58 (200), pp. 915-968; Pierre Guichard (1999). «A propos de l'identité andalouse: Quelques éléments pour un débat», Arabica, 46, pp. 97-110; Eduardo Manzano (2012). Al-Andalus: un balance crítico, in Philippe Sénac. Histoire et Archéologie de l'Occident Musulman (VIIe-XVe siècle: Al-Andalus, Maghreb, Sicile). Toulouse: Université Le Mirail, pp. 19-31.

122

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

More specifically, in the field of Arabism the abandonment of dominant viewpoints in the first half of the 20th century was also down to, I believe, a deep mistrust of such an idealization of the discipline that the works of authors such as Ribera, Asín Palacios and García Gómez took on. Once again, it involves the tendency to understand the key parts of the field of Spanish historiography. The end of the Franco regime coincided with a deep crisis inside Arabism in terms of both identity and objectives —the former was characterized by the break-up of the nebulous field of «Semitic studies», while the second was determined by the progressive irrelevance of the study of al-Andalus, which seemed to interest very few (not even Américo Castro and his supporters) and which neglected the study of contemporary issues, for example, that were in greater social demand.

Therefore, the context Spanish Arabists were faced with in the seventies is worth recalling in order to gain an understanding of subsequent developments. Moreover, it is fair to say that due to such large gaps of knowledge there was the overriding need to open completely unprecedented fields: for instance, Islamic Law, barely studied up to that point; historical linguistics —it is still assumed that in al-Andalus Romance languages were generically spoken; or contemporary studies, completely ignored until that point. The list of pending tasks was quite simply colossal. Under these circumstances, Arab studies, in my opinion quite correctly, looked towards increasing basic knowledge that was then even more precarious. Before embarking upon the easy route of essayism with scant and erratic data, Spanish Arabism took the difficult, and sometimes misunderstood, route of laying more solid foundations in a discipline that had previously been considered secondary.

In fact, the fervent reaction Szpiech finds in authors opposed to the concept of convivencia —what leads him to talk of «wars» surrounding the term and «vociferous criticism»— can not only be attributed to a rejection of any kind of perspective that implies an interpretive focus. Bruna Soravia has argued how unusual it is to verify the absence of references to recent studies on al-Andalus in books and articles about medieval multiculturalism in the Iberian Peninsula published in English. 34 Of course, it is not about a subjective appreciation of this author. If the bibliographies of many of these works are examined, besides the conspicuous absence in the section of primary sources, it is true that the authors have barely used a bibliography in Spanish, Catalan, French or Portuguese —the languages that, besides English, the most relevant contributions over the last three decades have been published in. Therefore, the problem is a recurring one. Can credit be given to interpretations that base their conclusions on at times very summarized knowledge of not only the evidence available, but also the abundance of recent contributions that have appeared in a particularly active historiography? I don’t think it comes as a surprise that the answer on this side of the Atlantic has often been far from affirmative.

34

Bruna Soravia (2009). Al-Andalus au Miroir du Multiculturalisme. Le Mythe de la Convivencia dans quelques Essais Nord-Américains Récents, in Manuela Marín (ed.). Al-Andalus/España. Historiografías en contraste: siglos xvii-xxi. Op. Cit., p. 352.

123

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

Nevertheless, it can be argued that many of these interpretations aren’t looking for irrevocable historical solidity, their aim is to demonstrate that if in the past there were epochs in which it was possible to create conditions where different cultures were able to enter into dialogue together, in the present day we should follow these examples and try to advance along similar lines.35 When worded in this way, of course it is difficult not to agree with such a proposal.

The problem lies in the fact that once we have accepted the sacrifice of historical exactitude for the sake of such a laudable objective as universal brotherhood, not only do the rules stop working, but many could also demand political capitalization from this message.

Above we saw a Muslim leader evoke «a great period of cultural enrichment created by Muslims»; however we also saw a dictator imbued with militant Catholicism refer to the tolerant tutelage of The State providing shelter for the mosques and the synagogues in medieval Spain. A similar kind of message with radically different objectives. If I had to choose, I would, without any shadow of a doubt, subscribe to the message implicit in President Obama’s speech —I’m sure many other truly liberal American and European academics would do the same— but, for example, does this speech convince those that see convivencia in al-Andalus as a result of the strict application of Islamic Law in terms of the dhimmi laws?

Similar sources have lead authors like Manuela Marín to argue, quite rightly, that the use of convivencia «does nothing more than create new elements of confusion in a debate already tainted in numerous aspects».36 The tainted debate and this confusion are aspects that I feel suitably explain many Spanish historians’ resistance to addressing themes in which experience shows that the messages are never as apparent as hoped, and the reception of these messages is never as simple as expected.

Furthermore, the high-flown rhetoric also gives rise to other problems. We have seen that it is possible to select images and perceptions illustrating medieval tolerance in order to draw conclusions regarding the ideals of convivencia between cultures and religions. Adhering to a similar method, however, we have also seen other authors reach very different conclusions, emphasizing the long history of the irremediable clash of cultures that has existed until the present day. This vision also looks to the past to plan the present, calling on the undeniable existence of past reconquistas, holy wars and Crusades, which would prove the historical impossibility of agreements that are not based on rights of ownership. This perspective vindicates the odd number of historical pages of violence and wars as proof of a realist perspective 35

On this matter see the telling words of the great Harold Bloom in the prologue to the work of María Rosa Menocal in 2002 «Menocal’s Andalusia [...] may to some degree represent an idealization, healthy and useful», in María Rosa Menocal. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Op. Cit., p. xii.

36

Manuela Marín and Joseph Pérez (1992). «L'Espagne des Trois Religions. Du Mythe aux Realités. Introduction», Revue de Monde Musulman et de la Mediterranée, 63-64, p. 23.

124

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

that acknowledges the inevitability of conflict as opposed to an idealized concept that prefers to focus on the scant and ephemeral even number of pages of pacific coexistence.

For instance, such a vision even goes so far as to justify the expulsion of religious minorities during the Modern Era, arguing that despite it being a somewhat painful measure, in Spanish society it would have avoided the tragic inter-community tensions experienced by other countries. Once again there are very different conclusions, yet the same conception of history as a window to the present and looking to past precedents for current situations works in exactly the same way.

As I have outlined previously, when the resource of historical exactitude is nullified and what we are faced with is the use of the past to manage the present, the consequences are unpredictable: from an undesired capitalization of our ancestors’ great achievements (my ancestors vs your ancestors) to the exacerbation of antagonistic discourses that strive to obtain their reasons in the bottomless trove that is history and from which arguments can be procured to justify almost anything.37 Therefore, is it so surprising that medievalists and Spanish and French Arabists have abstained from delving deeper into these essentialist labyrinths? Hence it is the time to go back and ask ourselves to what extent ideas tainted by the concept of tolerance can be applied to historical interpretation.

Convivencia as a Historical Concept As already referred to, one of the periods in history normally ascribed a great deal of social tolerance is that which corresponds to the epoch of the Umayyad Caliphate. At the time, the splendor reached by Cordoba, the capital of this Caliphate, was normally associated with a favorable environment of respect towards others and the, even unconscious, acceptance of archetypal contradictions that gave rise to a strong creative drive, visible in significant intellectual, artistic and even social achievements. Therefore, the best of Islamic tradition was the result of an attitude of acceptance towards the integration of highly diverse influences that didn’t relinquish its own marks of identity.38 In order for this argument to work we must consider the fact that into the 10th century —the time of the Umeyyad Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031)— there was this environment of multiculturalism and respect towards difference. The details surrounding this issue, however, are not quite as apparent. They show Caliphs from Cordoba that were presented and acted as jealous guardians of orthodox religion, hounding the followers of the philosopher Ibn Masarra, putting a stop to any attempt at Shia infiltration and, in the case of Almanzor, ordering works of philosophy, astrology and doctrinal controversies kept 37

Eduardo Manzano (2009). Pensar históricamente al otro, in Marició Jauné i Miret (ed.) (2009). Pensar històricament. Ètica, ensenyament i usos de la història. Valencia: Publications from the Universitat de València, pp. 103-122.

38

María Rosa Menocal (2002). The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Op. Cit., p. 79 and ss.

125

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

in the library of Caliph al-Hakam to be burnt. This, along with other information, do not allow us to describe the social atmosphere in the Caliphate of Cordoba as «tolerant», in general terms at least; violence always lurked in al-Andalus society and could erupt in highly varied ways and circumstances.39 Outside the sphere of the Muslim community, the data we possess on Jewish and Christian communities from the epoch of the Caliphate of Cordoba is very scant —this comes as somewhat of surprise given the clout of the platitudinous definition of convivencia. We know practically nothing about Jewish communities in the earliest al-Andalus period. In 711 they definitely supported the Arab conquerors and the dhimmi laws also definitely enabled them to free themselves from the savage laws the Visigoth monarchs had ordered them to abide by during the period that came before.40 That said, we ignore the expanse of the Jewish communities, how they were organized, what role they played or in what social dynamics they were immersed in; in fact, when Jewish people are mentioned in the epoch of the Caliphate of Cordoba, in truth only one figure that monopolized and centralized all the available information is mentioned: Hasday ibn Ishaq ibn Shaprut. What we know about him would hardly fill an encyclopaedia, but at least it tells us that he was born in Jaén, that he was a doctor, and that in the court of ‘Abd al-Rahman III he also upheld the position of secretary (not vizier, as is often wrongly asserted), acting as an emissary to the Caliph in the embassies as he appeared before the Christian kings or as an intermediary for the arrival of Juan de Gorze, the ambassador of the Emperor Otto I. His interest in the translation of Dioscorides’s Materia Medica, and, primarily, his patronage of authors such as Menahem ben Saruq and Dunash ben Labrat who, besides being poets were also the founders of Hebrew lexicography in al-Andalus, has given Haday the worthy reputation as an initial precursor to the illustrious Judean-Andalus culture.41 Given that the data we possess from this epoch is either about him as a person or his immediate surroundings, it is difficult to know to what degree the example of Hasday is an exceptional case or a symptom that points to the highly relevant role of Jewish communities in al-Andalus during the Caliph period.

The information on the Christian communities from this period is not much more extensive. If hagiographical sources are anything to go by, although during these times there were still the last death rattles of the movement of voluntary martyrs that had caused mayhem in the Cordoba community in the previous century, in other regards the situation inside the 39

María Isabel Fierro (2004). Violencia, política y religión en al-Andalus durante el s. iv/x: el reinado de ‘Abd al-Rahman III, in María Isabel Fierro. De muerte violenta. Política, religión y violencia en al-Andalus. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (csic); Laura Bariani (2003). Almanzor. Donostia-San Sebastián: Nerea, pp. 104-105.

40

Raúl González Salinero (2000). Las conversiones forzosas de los judíos en el reino visigodo. Madrid: csic.

41

Ángel Sáenz-Badillos and Judit Targarona Borrás (1988). Diccionario de autores judíos (Sefarad, siglos x-xv). Córdoba: El Almendro, pp. 50-51; Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (2004). «Gramáticas y léxicos y su relación con el judeoárabe. El uso del judeoárabe entre los filólogos hebreos de al-Andalus», ILU, Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones, ix, pp. 75-93.

126

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

Christian communities in al-Andalus appears to have been calm. Likewise, there is also another prominent figure here: Recemundo, Bishop of Elvira, who was also employed by the Caliph in the role of ambassador and intermediary to Juan de Gorze, and also ventured into intellectual endeavors: the writing of the Calendario of Cordoba around 961.42 Relations in the Christian community in al-Andalus, however, needed to have specific elements given the atmosphere of fierce conflicts that took place between al-Andalus and the Christian Kingdoms, notably resolved in the frequent military campaigns sent to fight against the North of Spain. This, for instance, would explain early references to Pelayo, the illustrious martyr child, by ‘Abd al-Rahman III; which must also be understood within the framework of these political relations and which gave rise to the early writing of a Passion based on the event, and in far-off Lower Saxony another Passion dedicated to Pelayo in the second half of the 10th century by the nun Hroswitha.43 Broadly speaking, this constitutes the most important information we have on the Jewish and Christian communities in the epoch of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Is it fair to speak of tolerance in al-Andalus society solely because Hasday ibn Ishaq ibn Shaprut and Recemundo carried out missions at the service of the Caliph and upheld or favoured noteworthy intellectual activity? If we strictly adhere to this data it proves difficult to think in this manner. The employment of Jews and Christians in diplomatic missions or as interpreters was as common as the punishments handed out for not adequately undertaking these missions,44 whilst writing or inspiring determined works can be explained within the climate of creative expansion that characterized the epoch of the Caliphate. Furthermore, the written output directly linked to both figures is explained not so much in the sense of their religious confessions, but in finding themselves integrated into the courts of the Caliphate —this is precisely where the term «the splendor of the al-Andalus Caliphate» stems from. It can never be stressed enough that this Caliphate was the most powerful political system the Iberian Peninsula, and even Western Europe, had seen since the end of the Roman Empire; this is demonstrated by the astronomical amounts amassed by the Umayyad’s tax system. The extraordinary intellectual and artistic output generated by this Caliphate is explained not by the existence of a climate of tolerance, but by increased resources produced in this epoch, which the Umayyad Caliphs and their courts greatly benefited from.45 42

Ann Chrystys (2002). Christians in al-Andalus (711-1000). Richmond: Curzon Press, pp. 80-134.

43

Juan Gil (1972). «La Pasión de Pelayo» Habis, iii, pp. 161-202. The expression «ornament of the world» comes from Hroswitha. See the interesting conclusions reached by Kenneth Baxter Wolf in 2007 in relation to the book with the same title, «Convivencia and the Ornament of the World», Spartanburg, South Carolina: Southeast Medieval Association, Wofford College.

44

See, for instance, the threats of severe punishment ordered by al-Hakam II to the Muslim Judge of the Christians from Cordoba, Asbag ibn ‘Abd Allah, for not having correctly translated terms from a Christian embassy in the book by Ibn Hayyan and ‘Isa ibn Ahmad al-Razi (1967). El Califato de Córdoba en el «Muqtabis» de Ibn Hayyan: anales palatinos del Califa de Córdoba al-Hakam II. Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, p. 185.

45

Eduardo Manzano (2006). Conquistadores, emires y califas. Los omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus. Barcelona: Crítica.

127

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

By contrast, what does indeed epitomize the figures of Recemundo and Hasday is the profound Arabization of Christian and Jewish communities, which also corresponds to Latin and Hebrew being maintained, at least by the wealthier classes. This Arabization was not only limited to linguistics, it also fully entered into cultural areas, aptly highlighted in the celebrated epigram attributed to the aforementioned Dunash ben Labrat: «Make your garden the books of the devout, your paradise the Arab scriptures».46 Such testimonies cause rivers of ink to flow in the celebration of a society that successfully prompted a Jewish writer show their appreciation for the Arab legacy. Nevertheless, a more fitting appreciation would put things into perspective: seen from the position of merely the search for tolerance, these verses serve as little more than a reflection on a supposed process of cross-fertilization, disregarded because of their unidirectional nature. Seen instead from a «transcultural» perspective, these facts would lead us towards «a more nuanced conceptualization of the complex interaction between Andaulsí Jews [I would also add between the Mozarabs] the Arab Islamic culture».47 Besides deducing tolerance and convivencia as historical concepts given their strong political permutations, one way to carry out this conceptualization would be to shift the emphasis from religious identity to cultural identity. From this point of view, a Jewish author writing poetry in al-Andalus should be considered as ascribing to the Arab-Andalusi cultural tradition, whose genesis must be understood within the frameworks of this deeply Arabized society under the cultural guidance of the ruling class. Likewise, Moorish texts should be demarcated within Castilian culture without having to consider religion or the origin of their authors. That said, these social experiences in their current conception have been divided into stationary behaviors with direct genealogies with the present and are considered somewhat unprecedented by the fact they have coexisted together. If we were able to rid ourselves of the monolithic identities that tend to shape orthodox religions, it is possible that we would be able to more competently refine transcultural developments in history by relating them to processes of social change.48 Primarily, such a perspective would enable us to break away from the equivalents between religions and cultures, considering them as the manifestation of social dynamics capable of embracing elements with very different origins. Furthermore, this perspective would also enable a more adequate exploration of the phenomena linked to the existence of dominant cultural paradigms —quite clearly Andalusi Arabic and the Hispano-Romance linguistics from the North of Spain— and the behaviour of cultures in circumstances of control.49 46

Quoted by Ross Bran (2002). Reflections on Arabic and the Literary Identity of the Jews in al-Andalus, in María Isabel Fierro (ed.). Judíos y musulmanes en al-Andalus y el Magreb. Contactos intelectuales. Madrid: Publicaciones de la Casa de Velázquez, p. 14.

47

Ibidem, p. 19. See also Esperanza Alfonso (2008). Islamic Culture Through Jewish Eyes. Al-Andalus from the 10th to the 12th Centuries. Nueva York: Routledge.

48

See, for instance, the thought-provoking considerations of Jonathan Ray (2005) on the matter. «Beyond Tolerance and Persecution: Reassessing our Approach to Medieval Convivencia», Jewish Social Studies, 11 (2), pp. 1-18.

49

Federico Corriente (2000). Tres mitos contemporáneos frente a la realidad de Alandalús: romanticismo

128

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

A Vindication of Historical Concepts In the pages above I hope I have demonstrated that the concepts of tolerance and convivencia are ineffective as tools of historical knowledge. They involve political concepts employed by different agents, under different circumstances, that embody development programs with highly variable aims. Therefore, we need to be very aware that this content is used with fairly common objectives that can also be personified by very different sectors, while certain notions tied to these concepts must be incorporated into historical interpretation with a clearer idea of what has gone before. The reality of medieval Iberian societies was a multicultural one, and continuing to consider every aspect as stationary behaviors makes little sense; there is a broad spectrum of situations brought about by the proximity, contact and the threat of other cultures, and their wealth can be better understood if we cast aside platitudes associated with the idea convivencia, as well categorization that is intent on defining Judaism, Christianity and Islam as cultures when in actual fact they are religions.

Thus the possibility of defining a kind of Christianity and Arab Judaism in al-Andalus emerges in the same way that the culture of the Spanish Kingdoms ceases to be identified exclusively as an element of Christianity.

Yet this reflection gives rise to one obvious critique: upon distinguishing, unequivocally, between political and historical concepts, it would seem that I am advocating the absolute dissociation between the present reality and history, thus upholding a concept of the latter that is far removed from any commitment and focused on the search for knowledge with no other aim than erudite indulgence. Such a history that lacks any connection to the present would be no more than irrelevant antiquarian academic theory. This critique could originate from authors such as Simon Doubleday, authors that have been particularly astute in ruling out any temptation to establish a cordon sanitaire to the past, considering that it must be: [...] urgently relevant, sometimes in terms of analogies, sometimes in terms of long-term historical continuities, and sometimes because exposure to Spanish history might sensitize us to the horrors of repression, imperialism and intolerance, no matter their cultural origin.50 But this stance is not without its own problems. Pursuing the relevance of the past could become labyrinthine; as Doubleday himself acknowledges, historical analogies, for example, are not always adequate. This is also stressed by Islamic leaders, who endeavor filoárabe, cultura mozárabe y cultura sefardí, in Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla, Manuel C. Feria García and Eduardo Manzano Moreno. Orientalismo, exotismo y traducción. Op. Cit., pp. 45-46.

50

Simon R. Doubleday (2008). Criminal Non-Intervention: Hispanism, Medievalism, and the Pursuit of Neutrality, in Simon R. Doubleday and David Coleman (eds.). In the Light of Medieval Spain. Islam, the West and the Relevance of the Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 10-11.

129

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

to draw exact parallels between current armed interventions from the West and the Crusades in the Middle East; such an analogy could appear unfounded inside our comfortable academic enclaves, but maybe it does not seem so preposterous to an Iraqi citizen. So are some analogies pertinent and others not? Who decides this pertinence? The same could be said for the search for long-term historical continuities. Is it, therefore, necessary to recall platitudes linked to the history of Spain as a string of cruel and violent episodes from the time of the Visigoths to the Spanish Civil War, as some authors have attempted to highlight in order to offer a not-so-positive image of Spain? Should we recall the perceptions of certain observers on the «continuities» as tangible proof of the existence of certain old «Spanish customs» that involve «indiscriminately massacring enemies»?51 In truth, the only way for us to escape these unfathomable essentialist labyrinths is precisely to reclaim the value of historical knowledge itself. By defending this knowledge I am not upholding a lack of commitment or comfortably settling into the ivory tower. The very opposite. The transforming nature of historical knowledge inexorably forces us to stress a commitment to the present, which is what the great historians of the 20th century, such as Marc Bloc, Lucien Febvre and Eric Hobsbawm were always fully aware of. In the same way that knowledge of the cosmos —despite its radical distancing from us— has played a part in decisively molding the perceptions about ourselves, increased knowledge about the past, as far away as it may seem, works towards augmenting historical awareness in our societies, thus contributing to social progress.

Naturally, although no-one can propose either the development of «definitive histories» or the culmination of the aim of «historical objectiveness», it is true to say that our knowledge of the past has increased as exponentially as other aspects of knowledge documented in other sciences. Never before, throughout history, have we been in such a position to say so much about the past, nor have we been in a position to understand so well the complex processes of change that run into the present. Contrary to what the advocates of more reactionary thought search for, this present never repeats the past, never presents eternal recurrences, and is never determined by the weight of history: it is, pure and simple, a product of change. For that reason it can never be understood without knowing how this change has been produced, or, how the past has developed. That is where its radical relevance stems from. The day that historians understand that they don’t need to «sell» their goods by appealing to parallels, continuities or essences, a giant step will be taken towards recognizing history as a discipline without which the present makes little sense.

In the case we are dealing with here, I wanted to demonstrate in this essay to what extent the concepts of tolerance and convivencia mean certain «siren songs» that, despite appearing to put the wind firmly in our sails with many good intentions, can end up generating con51

This testimony is by an Austrian sociologist that arrived in Barcelona in August 1936. See Tom Buchanan (2007). The Impact of the Spanish Civil War on Britain: War, Loss and Memory. Brighton; Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press.

130

Qurtuba: Some Critical Considerations of the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Myth of Convivencia

tradictions to such an extent that it is hard to break away from them. Naturally, in deeming them as political concepts, I did not want to assign them a pejorative meaning —historical knowledge, made clear in the previous paragraph, is deeply political. Rather my intention was to verify that they represent a program of mobilization based in the present with objectives that can be both diverse and constitute alternatives that exist to capitalize on counterposed, or even identical, discourses. In the face of this mobilization program, the historical concepts laid out here as a way of understanding the past appear to be less ambitious in scope, when in fact, and in practice, they are much more resonant. Understanding that al-Andalus was a society that underwent steep processes of change clashes head on with essentialist views that, from one perspective or another, insist on trying to convince us that we have not moved one iota for a thousand years. Asserting that cultures were as equally changeable as they were prone to control or being under domination convinces us that, ultimately, like ourselves, our ancestors also had to face new and unpredictable decisions, similar to the ones that define our own era.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Eduardo Manzano Moreno has a PhD from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and Master of Arts in Near Eastern Studies (School of Oriental and African Studies) from the University of London. As Head of the Centre for Human and Social Sciences at csic (2007-2012), he is a specialist in al-Andalus history and the political implications of historical memory. He has also contributed to significant work on the history of Jerusalem during the First World War. Within his extensive body of work, the following publications are of note: «The Iberian Peninsula and North Africa» (in The New Cambridge History of Islam, edited

by Chase F. Robinson, 2010); «Épocas medievales» (in Historia de España, edited by Josep Fontana and Ramón Villares, 2010); Conquistadores, emires y califas: los omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus (2007); and La gestión de la memoria. La Historia de España al servicio del poder (in collaboration with Juan Sisinio Pérez Garzón, Ramón López Facal and Aurora Rivière) (2002).

Similarly, he has been a member of the Editorial Board of the science magazines Hispania, Al-Qantara, Arqueología y Territorio Medieval and the Journal of Medieval Studies.

131

Eduardo Manzano Moreno

ABSTRACT This article focuses on how convivencia has become a universal reference regarding the Middle Ages in Spain. The distant origin of this reference point can be found in the ideas of the Spanish philologist AmĂŠrico Castro, but it has also been reworked to become a tool with which to meet the multicultural challenges that have arisen in societies since the last quarter of the 20th century. Therefore, convivencia is a political and not historical concept.

This contraposition between political and historical concepts raises a broader and more complex discussion of historical knowledge and its relevance in contemporary societies.

KEYWORDS Al-Andalus, convivencia, Umayyads, Caliphate, Cordoba.

132

Edition Javier Rosón Design and layout Zum Creativos Legal Deposit CO-1265-2013 ISBN 978-84-695-8335-7 © of the texts: its authors © of the photographs: its authors © of the present edition: Casa Árabe c/ Alcalá, 62. 28009 Madrid (España) www.casaarabe.es Printed in Spain.

This publication is a partial reproduction of the collection of articles originally published in the Journal AWRAQ: Revista de análisis y pensamiento sobre el mundo árabe e islámico contemporáneo, 7 (first quarter of 2013). The full collection is available in electronic format at http://www.awraq.es/ Casa Árabe is a consortium comprising:

ISBN 978-84-695-8335-7