Moorish Gibraltar
Moorish Gibraltar | |||
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711–1462 | |||
Tower of Homage, the largest surviving remnant of Moorish Gibraltar. The dents in its eastern wall were caused by Castilian siege engines in 1333. | |||
Chronology
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The history of Moorish Gibraltar began with the landing of the Muslims in Hispania and the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in 711 and ended with the fall of Gibraltar to Christian hands 751 years later, in 1462, with an interregnum during the early 14th century.
The Muslim presence in Gibraltar began on 27 April 711 when the
The Madinat al-Fath (English: City of Victory) was intended to be a major city furnished with palaces and mosques, but it seems to have fallen well short of the ambitions of its founder, the Almohad caliph Abd al-Mu'min, by the time it was captured by the Kingdom of Castile in 1309 after a short siege. Muslim control was restored in 1333 after another, much longer, siege. The city subsequently underwent a major expansion and refortification. A number of buildings and structures from this period still exist, including the Moorish Castle, parts of the Moorish walls, a bath-house and a subterranean reservoir.
Gibraltar was subjected to several more sieges before its final fall on 20 August 1462 (feast of St. Bernard) to Christian forces under the 1st Duke of Medina Sidonia. The population, Muslim and Jewish, was expelled en masse and replaced by Christian settlers.
Early years of Muslim conquest
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Gibraltar's Islamic history began with the arrival of
It has been argued that some kind of fortification was probably constructed at Gibraltar thereafter. According to the 13th century
As the rest of Al-Andalus, Gibraltar was initially part of the territory of the Umayyad Caliphate before passing to the Spanish branch of the Umayyads, which broke away from the main Caliphate after the Abbasid Revolution. Around 1035, the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba splintered into a series of independent taifa kingdoms. The Taifa of Algeciras included Gibraltar and managed to maintain its own independence only until 1056, when it was forcibly absorbed into the Taifa of Seville.[10] By the mid-1060s Seville faced the threat of invasion from the Almoravids of North Africa. The kingdom's ruler, Abbad II al-Mu'tadid, was conscious that the Almoravids could repeat Tariq's feat of three centuries earlier and bring an invasion force across the Strait before the garrison at Algeciras could react. In 1068 he ordered the Governor of Algeciras to "build a fort on Gibraltar, and to be on guard and watch events on the other side of the straits."[11]
However, nothing seems to have been done before the death of Abbad II in 1069. The Almoravids did come, in 1086, but at the invitation of the taifa kings whose territories were threatened by the expansionist Christian king
Madinat al-Fath
It is unclear how much of Madinat al-Fath was actually built, since after the death of Abd al-Mu'min, his son and successor Abu Yaqub Yusuf preferred Seville as his capital.[15][16] A portion of wall some 500 metres (1,600 ft) long still survives to the south of the main part of the city of Gibraltar, of similar design to defensive walls in Morocco. It may have protected a settlement on the upper part of the Rock, around where the modern Queen's Road is, but firm archaeological evidence is lacking.[16] In fact, there is no mention of any settlement in Gibraltar either in Arabic or Spanish contemporary sources between the project of Madinat al-Fath and the capture of the town by the Christians in 1309.[17][18]
The Battle for the Strait
In the late thirteen and early fourteenth centuries, Castile, the
With the implosion of the Almohad Caliphate and the
Although no documentary account of Gibraltar is available for the period following the Madinat al-Fath project, there are reasons to believe that a small fortified town existed in Gibraltar, and that its existence was the direct consequence of the fall of Tarifa in 1292. After the capture of the city, it was expected that Sancho would lay siege to Algeciras (it did not eventually happen) in order to sever the most direct links of the Marinids with the Iberian peninsula. The threatening presence of a Christian stronghold to the west would have led to the establishment of a garrison to the east of Algeciras. That way, Gibraltar would have protected the rearguard of Algeciras and provide a fallback position should Algeciras have fallen. At the same time, and with the increased presence of the Christian fleets in the Straits, Gibraltar provided an excellent lookout post.[18]
Some years after the events in Tarifa, a quarrel erupted between the Marinids and the Nasrids, in 1306. The Nasrids promptly sponsored the rebellion of
The siege was brief. It seems clear that the defences of Madinat al-Fath were lacking as the Castilians succeeded in capturing Gibraltar in 1309.[9] The Castilian account of the First Siege of Gibraltar indicates that it was only a small place, with "one thousand one hundred and twenty-five Moors" within at the time of its fall.[22] Only two siege engines and a few hundred men were needed to reduce it. After the conquest and the expulsion of the town's population, Ferdinand IV of Castile ordered the defences to be strengthened with the walls repaired, a keep constructed above the town and a dockyard (atarazana) to be built to house galleys.[23] However, the main siege of Algeciras failed, and the Castilians struck a deal with the Granadan sultan allowing them to hold on to Gibraltar.[citation needed]
The loss of Gibraltar led to the deposition of the Nasrid sultan of Granada by his brother
The Castilians held Gibraltar for over twenty years, until a new deal was struck in 1333 between the Nasrid sultan
The Castilians immediately mounted an unsuccessful
Final century of Moorish Gibraltar
The refortified city – the final incarnation of Moorish Gibraltar – stood in the north-eastern part of the present-day city, reaching from the area of
Below the kasbah was an area later called the Villa Vieja (Old Town) by the Spanish, accessed via the Bab el-Granada (Granada Gate), and below that was a port area called La Barcina by the Spanish, which may have taken its name from the
I walked round the mountain and saw the marvellous works executed on it by our master, the late Sultan of Morocco, and the armament with which he equipped it, together with the additions made thereto by our master Abu Inan, may God strengthen him ... [He] strengthened the wall of the extremity of the mount, which is the most formidable and useful of its walls.[33]
A number of other Moorish remnants are still visible in Gibraltar today. A
Fall of the city
The powerful Marinid sultan Abu al-Hasan was severely defeated by the Christian kings at the
In 1374 control of Gibraltar was transferred from Marinid Morocco to Nasrid Granada.
Another attempt to capture the city for the Christians was made by
Finally, on 20 August 1462,
The Reconquista of Gibraltar took place on the feast of St. Bernard, whom the Spanish named patron saint of Gibraltar and has remained so ever since.[41] This brought an end to Moorish Gibraltar, just over 751 years after Tariq ibn-Ziyad had begun the conquest of Iberia.
References
- ^ a b Hills 1974, p. 23.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 25.
- ^ a b Hills 1974, p. 26.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 28.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 29.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 24.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 31.
- ^ Jackson 1986, p. 31.
- ^ a b c d e f Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 11.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 32.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 33.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 34.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 36.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 38.
- ^ Harvey 1996, p. 30.
- ^ a b Hills 1974, p. 39.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 50.
- ^ a b Harvey 1996, p. 35.
- ^ Mann 1873, p. 93.
- ^ Jackson 1986, p. 36.
- ^ Jackson 1986, p. 38.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 48.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 49.
- ^ a b c d e Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 9.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 58.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 59.
- ^ a b c Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 12.
- ^ a b c d Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 16.
- ^ "The Islamic City and Fortifications". Moorish Castle, Gibraltar
- ^ Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 14.
- ^ Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 56.
- ^ Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 13.
- ^ a b c Hills 1974, p. 86.
- ^ a b Jackson 1986, p. 60.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 89.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 90.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 91.
- ^ Hills 1974, p. 92.
- ^ a b Hills 1974, p. 93.
- ^ Levey 2008, p. 16.
- ^ Fa & Finlayson 2006, p. 5.
Bibliography
- Fa, Darren; ISBN 1-84603-016-1.
- Harvey, Maurice (1996). Gibraltar. A History. Spellmount Limited. ISBN 1-86227-103-8.
- ISBN 0-7091-4352-4.
- ISBN 0-8386-3237-8.
- Levey, David (2008). Language Change and Variation in Gibraltar. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-1862-9.
- Mann, J.H. (1873). A History of Gibraltar and its Sieges (2nd ed.). London: Provost. OCLC 39745364.
- Watt, William Montgomery; Cachia, Pierre (1996). A History of Islamic Spain. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 13–. ISBN 978-0-7486-0847-8.