Umayyad state of Córdoba

For almost three centuries, from 756 to 1031, a branch of the Umayyad family ruled from Córdoba over most of Iberia, the land Muslims called al-Andalus. It began as an independent emirate founded by a prince who had escaped the overthrow and persecution of his dynasty in Syria, and in 929 it became a caliphate rivalling Baghdad and Cairo. Our maps show it as the Emirate of Córdoba and later the Caliphate of Córdoba. Its wealth, scholarship and buildings, above all the Great Mosque of Córdoba, made it one of the leading powers of the tenth-century Mediterranean.

Arab and Berber armies under Tariq ibn Ziyad had crossed from North Africa in 711 and overthrown the Visigothic kingdom, and Iberia became a province of the Umayyad caliphate governed from Córdoba. When the Abbasids seized the caliphate in 750 and hunted down the Umayyads, the young prince Abd al-Rahman spent six years on the run. In 756 he took power in Córdoba as an independent emir, refusing to recognise the Abbasids, and spent more than 25 years subduing rival Muslim lords as far as Toledo, Zaragoza and Barcelona.

For some 150 years his descendants governed as emirs, nominally accepting Abbasid religious authority while acting independently. Their grip on the frontier marches was often weak, depending on the competence of each emir. Revolts were common, such as the rising of a Córdoba suburb against al-Hakam I in 818, after which the exiles scattered as far as Fez, Alexandria and Crete. Abd al-Rahman II brought in the fashions of Baghdad, and the musician Ziryab became a celebrated trendsetter at his court.

Abd al-Rahman III, who came to the throne in 912, restored central authority. Faced with the new Fatimid caliphate in North Africa, he proclaimed himself caliph in 929. He took Melilla, Ceuta and Tangier to block Fatimid expansion, and the Idrisid princes of Morocco were drawn into his orbit. He exchanged embassies with the Byzantines and the Frankish kingdoms and dominated the Christian kingdoms of the north. From about 936 he built the palace-city of Madinat al-Zahra outside Córdoba. His son al-Hakam II, who ruled from 961 to 976, presided over an intellectual high point; his library was said to hold 400,000 to 500,000 volumes.

The population was mixed: an Arab elite, a larger Berber community, a growing majority of native converts known as Muwallads, Christians who became increasingly Arabised, and Jews, whose position improved compared with Visigothic times. One estimate suggests that about half the population had converted to Islam by around 950. Córdoba itself probably exceeded 100,000 people in the tenth century. New crops such as rice, oranges and hard wheat, and wider irrigation, transformed agriculture. The Jewish courtier Hasdai ibn Shaprut served the caliph and supported Hebrew learning, and the caliphal workshops produced the carved ivory boxes and silks now found in European museums.

After al-Hakam II died in 976, his ten-year-old son Hisham II became caliph, but real power passed to the chief minister Almanzor. He professionalised the army, relying on Maghrebi Berber and slave troops, led frequent raids on the Christian north and made the caliph a figurehead. After his death in 1002 his sons kept control until 1009, when the killing of Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo opened a civil war, the Fitna of al-Andalus. Rival claimants fought for the throne with Berber and Christian mercenaries, and in 1031 the caliphate was abolished, leaving al-Andalus divided into independent taifa kingdoms such as Seville and Zaragoza.

Our 800 and 900 maps show the Emirate of Córdoba and our 1000 map the Caliphate of Córdoba, across most of modern Spain and Portugal. It succeeded the Visigothic Kingdom and the Umayyad Caliphate, faced the Fatimid Caliphate and the Idrisid dynasty across the strait, and reached its height under Abd al-Rahman III. The long contest between its Muslim successors and the Christian kingdoms is covered under the Reconquista.