Al-Andalus

Seven-hundred years before the famed Reyes Católicos (“Catholic Monarchs”) unified the neighbouring kingdoms of Aragon and Castile and created the Kingdom of Spain (Hispania) in 1469, the last kingdom to call itself Hispania, the Kingdom of the Goths (Visigoths), fell to the Umayyad Caliphate in 711. By 720, Umayyad Iberia, now renamed by the Muslims as Al-Andalus, stretched from the west of the peninsula in modern-day Portugal to the city of Narbonne on the Mediterranean coast of Merovingian Gaul. What remained of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom moved to Northern Iberia to establish the Kingdom of Asturias between 718 and 722. Over the next few centuries, Christian and Muslim polities would engage in a struggle for power that saw the dynamics of authority vacillating between the two religious groups across various parts of the region at different points in time. Historical accounts often identify the conflicts that emerged between these two groups as the most determining events in the lives of Muslims, Christians and Jews living in medieval Al-Andalus. However, the coexistence (La Convivencia) of Christians, Muslims and Jews, and the cultural interactions that resulted from this, also played a crucial role in defining what it meant to be Andalusian in the pre-modern world.

The period after the initial Umayyad conquest in 711 until the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom of Gharnata (Granada) in 1492 is often referred to as the Reconquest (Reconquista), since nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars saw the period as one characterised by religious warfare as well as a gradual process of the Christian ‘reclamation’ of territory to rightful ownership. This label problematically undermines the long history of Muslim leadership, integration and indigeneity in the region, and erases the cultures of plurality that were cultivated during this time. Across this period, the Muslim population was itself notably diverse, constituting of ethnic Arabs and Imazighen, as well as musālimah, Spaniards who had willingly converted to Islam, and muwallads, who were the Muslim descendants of converts to Islam and those Muslims born from intermarriages between different ethnic groups. The period also saw the emergence of mozarabs, Christians living in Muslim-led Al-Andalus who adopted Muslim cultures and customs, such as their language (Arabic) or dress while retaining their own religious identity. Thus, over the course of its presence in medieval Iberia, Islam became wholly incorporated into the region via not only the migration of Muslims to the area but also through the Spanish adoption of Muslim faith and cultures.

Moreover, from the early days of Umayyad rule in Al-Andalus, Jews and Christians received a protected status as dhimmis, which enabled them to continue to freely practice their own religions. People of the three Abrahamic religions lived among one another in cities such as Tulaytula (Toledo), Barshiluna (Barcelona), Banbaluna (Pamplona), Ishbiliya (Sevilla) and others, where they were reliant on one another for agricultural and material trade. More importantly, during this time intellectual and cultural exchanges between Muslims, Jews and Christians were abound, as the societies worked collaboratively to expand their understandings of sciences, art, commerce, architecture, religion and philosophy. This began from the period of Umayyad rule and continued until the fall of Gharnata, during which time Al-Andalus was home to the likes of great thinkers such as Ibn Rushd (Averroës) and Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides). Scholars translated numerous classical works from Latin, Persian and Chinese into Arabic, interrogating a variety of scholarship from the works of Aristotle and Plato to the numerical systems from the subcontinent. This scholarship continued (and continues) to serve the production of knowledge globally for generations.

However, peaceful cooperation, convivencia, was not always easily upheld, as the political ambitions of each of the religious polities led to confrontations that generated violence and political instability. As clashes between the Muslim and Christian powers grew steadily in the ninth and tenth centuries, there were significant changes in the geopolitical organisation of the region. In 1030, Al-Andalus broke into Taifa Kingdoms such as Balansiya (Valencia), Gharnata, Mursiya, Daniyah and Qurtuba. Shortly after, around 1035, Asturias fractured into a series of Christian domains, namely Castile-Leon, Aragon, Catalunya and Navarre. By the mid-eleventh century, the expansion of the Christian kingdoms of Castile-Leon and Aragon threatened the Taifas in the south, particularly Balansiya, or Medina al-Turab (City of Sand) as it was first known. Meanwhile, threats were emerging from within the Taifas too. An example of this is the case of Joseph ibn Naghralla, wazir (prime minister) to Gharnata's Taifa King Badis al-Muzaffar and nagid (leader) of the Iberian Jews. Ibn Naghralla conspired to overthrow al-Muzaffar and take Gharnata’s throne for himself. However, word of the wazir’s treachery got out, embellished with claims that he had had assassinated the king. This led to an uprising of Muslim inhabitants who killed Ibn Naghralla and attacked the city’s Jewish community in what has come to be known as the ‘Granada Massacre of 1066’. The brutal incident, acknowledged by scholars as a rarity in Islamic history, is an illustration of the political intrigues of the increasingly fragmented region.

In the late eleventh century, Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by a coalition of Taifa kingdoms to travel to Al-Andalus to aid in their fight against the encroachment of Castile-Leon on their borders. Yusuf, a leader of the Almoravid dynasty in North Africa, crossed into Southern Iberia through Gibraltar and engaged with the Castilians in battle at Sagrajas in 1086. From Sagrajas to the arrival of Frankish Crusaders in Portugal in 1147, the Almoravid dynasty stretched from Al-Andalus to the Sahara. For Al-Andalus, Almoravid rule politically unified Southern Iberia against the advancements of Castile-Leon and Aragon to the north in ways that they had not been seen since before 1030. This period of Almoravid prosperity lasted until the siege of Lisbon by an army of Crusaders sent to Iberia at the behest of Pope Eugenius III. The fall of Lisbon ultimately meant the fall of the Almoravid state in Iberia and a restructuring of the dynasty’s territory in Northern Africa.

The events of the Second Crusade (1147-1150) and the expansion and contraction of Al-Andalus, Castile-Leon and Aragon shifted Iberia into a period of conquest, crusade and colonisation that intensified in the early thirteenth century. By the late 1230s, the Crown of Aragon conquered Balansiya. The region adopted Latin Christianity as its state religion, and incorporated the Catalan language. The conquest of Balansiya is one of several examples in the thirteenth century of violence between the Muslim and Christian polities. The 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa caused the Almohad Caliphate’s foothold in Iberia to shrink to the last Taifa kingdom of Gharnata led by Muhammed ibn al-Ahmar of the new Nasrid dynasty. While the supposed ‘reconquest’ carried on for two centuries without another battle, Muslim-led Gharnata continued to flourish culturally and economically. The trade of spices, precious metals, and gemstones between Gharnata and Castile-Leon allowed both regions to coexist in relative peace for many years following 1212.

About two decades later in the mid-thirteenth century, Gharnata’s neighbour to the northeast, Aragon, encroached on its neighbours inside and outside of the peninsula. Under James I “the Conqueror” (r. 1213-1276) and his successors, the Aragonese began a campaign of invasion and conquest around the Mediterranean that brought the Balearic Islands (1229-1240), Kingdom of Sicily (1302), the Duchy of Athens and Neopatria (c. 1312) and Sardinia (c. 1410) into the Crown.

People living in these areas were subject to Catalan laws (The Usatges of Barcelona), the Catalan language and called the monarch of Aragon their own. For the Almohad controlled lands of Mayurqa (Mallorca), Menorca, and Yabisah (Ibiza), the Aragonese intervention meant that the Muslim population of each island was either forcibly removed, converted to Christianity or sold into slavery. In the context of broader expansionist efforts by Christians in Iberia, the Aragonese expansion had, by this point, become primarily about conquest. The same is true for the pursuits of the Castilian and Portuguese crowns in the Atlantic, as the Canary Islands became a vassal of Castile in 1402 and the Portuguese began what became the brutal Atlantic slave trade in Western Africa in the 1440s.

By the end of the fifteenth century, Aragonese, Castilian and Portuguese expansionist policies reached their peak with the union of the crowns of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Their 1469 marriage unified the kingdoms of Castile-Leon and Aragon into one dynastically connected body. However, it should be noted that the creation of the Kingdom of Spain (España) did not occur officially and politically until 1715 at the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) when the Bourbon dynasty of France replaced the Habsburg government. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile only brought the crowns of both Castile and Aragon together under the leadership of themselves and their Habsburg successors but did not officially bring both kingdoms together as “Spain.”. This dynastic and political union of the fifteenth century ultimately proved disastrous for the religious pluralism that had existed in Iberia since the eighth century: by the end of 1492, the Emirate of Gharnata fell to Spanish forces and was incorporated into the Christian monarchy. In the same year, the Spanish monarchy established the Inquisition, which called for the violent removal or conversion of all of Iberia’s ’s Jewish and Muslim populations. This policy, which lasted until the nineteenth century, ultimately changed Iberian culture; the religious coexistence and tolerance that had characterised medieval Al-Andalus vanished in a matter of a few years. A new order was now established in Iberia.

At the end of the sixteenth century, these political and religious dynamics were complicated further when the Iberian kingdoms entered the Atlantic and Pacific to begin a new phase of imperialism and conquest. From 1517 onwards, the Spanish Crown (Aragon-Castile) controlled territories from the Philippines to the Mediterranean as Carlos I of Spain held more titles than any crown head in Europe as the King of Aragon, Castile, , Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, Lord of the Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy, King of the Two Sicilies and now, monarch over colonies in the Americas and the Philippines.  His son and successor, Philip II, expanded these domains further to the Kingdom of Portugal as the crowns of Spain and Portugal united in 1580 and remained joined until the rise of the House of Braganza in Lisbon in 1640. Relations between the Christian Iberian kingdoms and the Muslim world remained contentious during this period. The early sixteenth century marked the beginning of a lengthy war between the Hapsburg monarchy and the Ottomans over territories in Eastern Europe that would only conclude in 1791. Frictions between Iberia and the Maghrebians too remained prevalent in the years following the Spanish antagonism towards the Muslims in Iberia. A mutual animosity towards Spain in part fuelled the establishment of diplomatic ties between Elizabethan England and the Sa’di dynasty of Morocco.

Between 1640 and the independence movements of the Latin American colonies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, what it meant to be Iberian or controlled by an Iberian nation changed significantly. The “Decline of Spain,” as many historians refer to it, began a new phase of contraction for both Spain and Portugal. This saw many of their colonies and European possessions break away from Madrid by the mid-eighteenth century when the House of Bourbon took the Spanish and Sicilian thrones in 1714. By this point, the many centuries of cultural interactions, whether harmonious or hostile, between Muslims, Jews, Christians, Africans, Arabs, Europeans, Native Americans and others in pre-modern Andalus and Christian Iberia and its colonies, had already left an indelible mark on the region and the formations of its identities.

The Maghreb

While medieval records suggest that King John I (r.1199-1216) sent an embassy to the Almohad Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir (r.1199-1213) in 1213, and English crusaders settled in Tunis after the Eighth Crusade (1270-71), consistent contact between England and the Maghreb began in earnest from the early sixteenth century. As English merchants ventured southwards into Africa and westwards towards the Americas, they also entered the Mediterranean to compete with Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Venice and the Ottomans for trade. By the 1550s, direct Anglo-Moroccan trade was established on English ships, and contacts with Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were not far behind. This increasing contact came alongside the contested establishment of the Ottoman Empire in Al-Jaza'ir (Algeria/Algiers), Tunisia and Trablus Garb (Tripoli), and the Sa’di dynasty in Morocco.

The peripheral regions of the Ottoman Empire were often afforded greater autonomy, either as vassal states where authority was shared with local governments on the payment of tribute, or, as in the case of the Ottoman Regencies of the Maghreb, as increasingly self-governed provinces where expatriated Ottomans collaborated with local powers to govern themselves under Ottoman suzerainty. In both cases, the Ottoman central government expected loyalty in wartime and the provision of soldiers and ships when needed and promised the same in return. However, the Regencies increasingly took control of their own foreign policy, military engagements and economic relations.

Ottoman rule in the Maghreb began to emerge in 1516, when Albanian-born privateer brothers Oruç Reis and Hayreddin Barbarossa moved their base of operations from independent Hafsid Tunis to Al-Jaza'ir. Capturing key strategic outposts from the expansionist Spanish Hapsburgs, Oruç and Hayreddin were successively awarded nominal Ottoman governorship and military assistance until 1532, when Al-Jaza'ir was formally incorporated into the empire, and Barbarossa instituted as the province’s first Beylerbey (governor). His corsair fleet conquered Tunisia in 1534, but it was quickly retaken by the Hapsburgs, and changed hands twice more until finally joining the Ottoman Empire in 1574. In 1551, Ottoman forces drove out the Knights of St John, who had relocated to Tripoli after the Ottoman conquest of Rhodes in 1522.

Ottoman ambitions turned further west as they consolidated rule over the Maghreb in the late 16th century. However, increasing Moroccan assertiveness and diverting conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe cemented Al-Jaza'ir as the westernmost Ottoman province. Gradually across the seventeenth century, Al-Jaza'ir, Tunis and Trablus Garb increased their autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the founding of the Husaynid Dynasty in Tunis in 1705 and the Qaramanli dynasty in Trablus Garb in 1711, both of which commanded the regions under nominal Ottoman rule beyond the close of the early modern era.

In Morocco, following decades of struggle with the ruling Wattasid dynasty, and encroaching Portuguese, Spanish and Ottoman influence, the Sa’di dynasty reached its apex in the reign of Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, the Victorious (r.1578-1603). Following seventeen years in exile in Al-Jaza'ir and Istanbul, al-Mansur took power after his brother’s death at the Battle of Ksar el-Kebir. Al-Mansur slowed Ottoman, Spanish and Portuguese expansionism into Morocco, consolidated power in the regions, and in 1590-91 secured control over trans-Saharan gold and slave trade routes by conquering the Songhai Empire. After his death, Morocco was once again divided between warring factions, most prominently those led by his three sons and their descendants, as well as rebel leaders Ahmed ibn Abi Mahalli (fl. 1610-13), Sidi Muhammad al-Ayachi and the corsair republic of Salé (fl. 1627-41/68), the Dila Sufi brotherhood (fl. 1637-68) and Khidr Ghaylan (fl. 1660-72). In the 1660s, following the final demise of the Sa’di sultanate, the Alawis rose to power, and under Sultan Mawlay Isma’il (r. 1672-1727) the empire was reunified, numerous European presidios were reconquered and Morocco became a significant regional power again. Following Isma’il’s death, conflicts between his sons and grandsons fractured the empire for thirty years.

Over the course of their reigns in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Elizabeth I enjoyed some friendly relations with Aḥmad al-Manṣur of Morocco that centred around their shared conflicts with Spain and the mutual benefits of trade. This period of heightened engagement between the English and Moroccans coincided with the appearance of a number of ‘Moors’ or Black, North African (especially Moroccan) and often Muslim characters, on the English stage in plays such as The Battle of Alcazar (1589), The Merchant of Venice (1596), The Fair Maid of the West I (1604) and Othello (1604). These plays reflected England’s mixed feelings of excitement at the opportunities for exchange with the thriving Islamic world, as well as anxieties about the ethnic, cultural and religious differences of their new trading partners, the latter of which typically translated into racist representations of Black Muslims on stage.

While some level of productive co-operation was cultivated between England and Morocco, no such relations were established between England and the Regencies. From the beginning of Ottoman rule, Regency relations with the English were hostile, dominated by privateering, captivity and the spectre of forced conversion to Islam. Small communities of merchants persisted in Al-Jaza'ir and Tunis, including John Tipton, who was appointed first English consul in Al-Jaza'ir in 1580. However, relations with all four regions took a turn after James I succeeded to the throne of England, withdrew from relations with the Moroccans and Ottomans, made peace with Spain and banned English privateering.

No longer interested in anti-Spanish cooperation, emboldened by civil war and flooded with English privateers looking for work, corsairs equipped with European sailing technology began sailing against England from all along the Maghrebi coast. By 1625, the Levant Company had withdrawn all its assets from the Maghreb, and English envoy John Harrison repeatedly failed to establish peace with warring Moroccan factions. In England, published narratives from travellers such as William Lithgow and captives like John Rawlins and Francis Knight mixed in the popular consciousness with threatening plays like Robert Daborne’s A Christian Turn’d Turke (1612) and Phillip Massinger’s The Renegado (1624) as English sailors increasingly fell prey to stronger, faster Maghrebi ships in the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, the corsairs ventured northwards: a joint expedition of corsairs based in Al-Jaza'ir and Moroccan Salé captured the English isle of Lundy in 1627 and carried away over 100 villagers from Irish Baltimore in 1631. Charles I, who had continued his father’s diplomatic distance from Muslim powers, received mounting pressure from petitioners, many of them women, to address the problem of piracy. This led to the English bombardments of Al-Jaza'ir in 1620 and Salé in 1637 as well as Charles I’s fateful decision to levy ship money that, by extension, contributed to his unseating in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Yet, simultaneously, many individual English people went freely to the Regencies in search of advancement, fortune or freedom from Christian social norms, often going as far as to convert to Islam and captain fleets or serve in armies against their former countrymen.

Rising English naval, diplomatic, and economic power in the Mediterranean during the later Interregnum and Restoration periods saw relations between England and the Ottoman Regencies improve. By 1662, treaties were being negotiated in all three regions. Simultaneously, the first English, Irish and Scottish settlers and soldiers took possession of Tangier, which England received on Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza. Factors such as newspaper reporting, the influence of a growing group of resident English consuls and merchants with intense colonial and mercantile interest in Tangier and increasingly detailed captivity narratives ensured that the Maghreb became far less alien and intimidating to the English. However, until the final war with Al-Jaza'ir was concluded in 1682, the threat of maritime combat, enslavement and forced conversion did not begin to abate; relations with Morocco cooled significantly surrounding the siege and abandonment of Tangier in 1683-84, but rising English maritime power made Moroccan corsairs only a small threat. Treaties in the 1690s even regulated conversion to Islam, giving British consuls the right to persuade prospective converts.

The early 18th century and England’s conquest of Gibraltar and Minorca saw the decline of Moor and Turk plays, while still-popular captivity narratives and newspaper accounts continued to be printed and were joined by scientific investigations and popular histories. Trade, particularly in wheat and other foodstuffs, proved vital in supplying English military forces in the War of Spanish Succession, and supplied a rising market for Barbary horses, Morocco leather and numerous other luxurious commodities. But the threat of corsairing, captivity and war diminished in favour of settled peace, long-term and stable consular treaty management and British maritime power.

Curated by Hassana Moosa and Lubaaba Al-Azami

Written by Hassana Moosa, Jessica Minieri and Nat Cutter

Al-Andalus

A note on terminology:

Al-Andalus was the label originally used by Muslims to refer to the Iberian Peninsula. However, during the period of reconquest, which saw the fall of Umayyad rule in Spain and the increase in Christian power over the peninsular territories, the name Al-Andalus became more commonly used as a reference to the still Muslim-led regions in Spain.

The label Berber, which has long been used to describe the non-Arab peoples indigenous to North Africa, is an offensive term that emerged from derogatory categorisations of the speech and customs of this population. The preferred term contemporarily used by this ethnic group to categorise themselves is “Amazigh” (singular) and “Imazighen” (plural).

Umayyad Emirate:

711-718 Having established control over the Maghreb (or Ifriqiya as it was then known) by the start of the 8th century, in July 711 the Umayyad Caliphate begins to expand their territories into Spain (Hispania). The Muslim army enters into the South of Spain to confront the new Visigoth King Roderic. Muslim expansion in the region continues until 718 as the Visigothic Kingdom eventually disintegrates.

717 Qurtuba becomes the capital of Al-Andalus.

718-722 Pelayo, a Visigothic nobleman and former follower of Roderic, forms the Christian Kingdom of Asturias. The Christians defeat the Umayyad army at the Battle of Covadonga (718/722).

720 The Umayyads conquer Barshiluna (Barcelona) and Narbonne.

739 Imazighen uprisings start to occur in North Africa, eventually spreading to Spain.

749-750 In the Maghreb, Abu Muslim leads a revolt against the Umayyads, and the Abbasid Caliphate assumes power over the Muslim territories.

756 Abd al-Rahman I initiates a break from the Abbasid dynasty and establishes the Umayyad Emirate of Qurtuba.

785 Construction begins on the Great Mosque of Qurtuba.

788 Abd al-Rahman I dies and is succeeded by his son Hisham I (r.788-796). Between 791 and 798, a series of battles ensues between Umayyads and Asturias. These battles continue after Hisham’s death, when his son al-Hakam I (r.796-822) comes into power.

791-798 A series of battles take place between the Umayyads and Asturias.

800-1 Charlemagne becomes the Holy Roman Emperor and conquers Barshiluna.

813 The grave of St. James is discovered at Santiago de Compostela or Shant Yaqub, marking the town as a site of religious significance. The town is later leveraged to support Christian causes.

822 Abd al-Rahman II becomes the emir of the Umayyads.

852 On the death of Abd al-Rahman, he is succeeded by his son Mohammed I (r.852-886)

873 The County of Barcelona is established as a hereditary title.

886 Al-Mundhir becomes the emir of the Umayyads for a period of two years.

888 Abd’Allah becomes the emir of the Umayyads.

910 The Kingdom of Asturias becomes the Kingdom of Leon.

912 Abd al-Rahman III becomes emir of the Umayyads following the death of his grandfather, Abd’ Allah.

Caliphate of Qurtuba:

929 Abd al-Rahman III declares himself Caliph of Qurtuba and officially breaks with the Abbasid Caliphate.

929- 934 Abd al-Rahman III retakes territory in Leon, Navarre, Saraqusta (Zaragoza), and Maridah (Merida).

961 Abd al-Rahman III dies and is succeeded by his son al-Hakam II (961-976) who, in turn, is succeeded by Hisham II.

1009-1013 The Imazighen invade the Caliphate of Qurtuba, Hisham II is deposed, and the Caliphate of Qurtuba begins to disintegrate.

1018-1023 Abd-ar-Rahman IV, Abd-ar-Rahman V, and Muhammad III become Caliphs in succession.

1031 The Caliphate of Qurtuba officially falls and independent Taifa kingdoms emerge.

Taifa (Principality) Kingdoms and Almoravid Dynasty:

1035 Aragon and Castile become independent kingdoms.

1066 The Granada Massacre takes place.

1092 The Almoravids, an imperial Imazighen dynasty based in Morocco, take control of the Taifa Kingdoms.

1094 “El Cid” (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar) takes Balansiya (Valencia) from the Almoravids.

1095 In November, Pope Urban II makes the first call for the crusade, giving Christians the directive to reclaim the Holy Land following the destabilising effects of Seljuk power in the region.

1096-1099 The First Crusade occurs.

1102-1115 The Almoravids retake Balansiya and conquer the Balearic Islands.

1134 Queen Petronilla of Aragon marries Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona. Their marriage establishes the Crown of Aragon.

1139 The County of Portugal becomes the Kingdom of Portugal.

1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The Almoravids are defeated by a Christian alliance of the monarchs of Aragon, Castile-Leon, Navarre, and Portugal.

1229-1235 The Almoravid territories of Mayurqa (Mallorca), Menorca, and Yabisah (Ibiza), are conquered and join the Crown of Aragon.

Emirate of Gharnata:

1230 The Emirate of Gharnata is established by Muhammed ibn al-Ahmar of the Nasrid dynasty, who attains power of the regions formerly ruled by the Almohad dynasty. Gharnata continues to remains an independent Muslim state for another two and a half centuries.

1238/48 Construction begins on the Alhambra Palace in Gharnata.

1346/47 The Black Death or bubonic plague begins, killing millions in Europe until it dissipates between 1531-1353.

1391 The Pogroms or Massacre of Jews occurs around Iberia, following years of growing anti-Semitism amongst Spanish Christians.

1440 The slave trade in Western Africa by Portuguese slave traders begins.

1469 Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile.

1475-1479 War of the Castilian Succession.

1478-1480 The Spanish Inquisition, which sought to discern heresy amongst converts to Christianity, is institutionalised by Ferdinand and Isabella. The system continues to operate throughout Spain and its colonies until 1834.

1479 The crowns of Castile and Aragon are united. Following the War of the Castilian Succession, Ferdinand ascends as King of Aragon and Isabella as Queen of Castile.

The Fall of Gharnata and Castilian Rule:

1492 Following the Granada war and the gradual Castilian occupation of the region, the Emirate of Gharnata falls to the Christians. The Jews are expelled from Spain. Christopher Columbus voyages to Hispaniola.

1501 Ferdinand II and Isabella I’s daughter, Catherine of Aragon, marries the English Tudor Prince Arthur, heir to the English throne. Catherine is accompanied to England by an extensive entourage, including a Gharnata-born servant or slave named Catalina who is thought to be one of the earliest ‘Moors’ to enter England.

1502 The crown of Spain orders all Muslims in Iberia to convert to Christianity.

1509 Henry VIII becomes King of England and marries his brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine. Henry has the marriage annulled in 1533.

1516 Charles V is crowned the King of Spain.

1554 Spain’s Philip II, son of Charles V, marries Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

1585-1604 The Anglo-Spanish War occurs.

1588 The Spanish Armada.

1601 Elizabeth I produces a draft proclamation that calls for the deportation of all ‘Blackamoores’ from England to Spain and Portugal.

1609 Spain’s Philip III expels the Moriscos - Christian converts with Muslim ancestry - from Spain and Portugal.

The Maghreb

1121-80 Almohad Caliphate establishes power over Morocco, Al-Jaza'ir (Algeria), Tunisia and Tripolitania.

1213 King John of England sends an embassy to Almohad Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir, requesting an alliance against France.

1229 The Hafsid dynasty secede from Almohads and establish power in Tunisia.

1235 The Zayyanid dynasty overthrows Almohads and establishes power in Al-Jaza'ir.

1244 The Marinid dynasty overthrows Almohads and establishes power in Morocco.

1271 A group of English soldiers take up residence in Tunis, then part of the Hafsid Sultanate, following the failed Eighth Crusade, establishing presence in a neighbourhood that later housed the British consulate.

1415-1614 Spain and Portugal set-up dozens of presidios, fortified ports, in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla, captured in 1415 and 1497 respectively, remain in Spanish hands.

1465-72 Wattasid dynasty comes to power in Morocco.

1500 English merchants begin visiting Moroccan soil on Spanish and Portuguese trading ships.

1510-57 The Sa’di dynasty comes to power in Morocco.

1516-74 Ottomans gradually attain control over Al-Jaza'ir, Tunisia and Trablus Garb (Tripoli of the West), in conflict with the Spanish Hapsburgs, the Knights of St John, the Hafsids, and the Zayyanids.

1551-60 English merchants institute direct Anglo-Moroccan trade in Moroccan ports.

1578 The Battle of Ksar el-Kebir takes place, in which the deposed Moroccan Sultan Abu Abdallah Mohammed II and his ally the King of Portugal Sebastian I, fight against the new Sultan Abd Al-Malik I who has come to power in Morocco with the support of the Ottomans. The Portuguese King gives an English mercenary, Captain Thomas Stukeley, a prominent position in the army against the Moroccans. George Peele later turns the story into a play entitled The Battle of Alcazar, which is published in 1592.

1578-1603 Having corresponded with his predecessors, Elizabeth I establishes close relations with the powerful Moroccan Sultan Mawlay Ahmad al-Mansur. The two are co-operative on matters of trade and their mutual conflict with Spain.

1580 John Tipton is appointed first English consul in Algiers.

1585-97 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, uses his influence with Queen Elizabeth I to establish the Barbary Company and control Anglo-Moroccan trade.

1600 Abd el-Ouahed ben Messoud makes a landmark embassy from Morocco to London. In the same year, John Pory’s English translation of A Geographical Historie of Africa is published in London. The text, written by the Andalusian diplomat al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi (otherwise known as Leo Africanus) provides a cultural and geographic survey of significant regions of Africa.

1601 Elizabeth I produces a draft proclamation that calls for the deportation of all ‘Blackamoores’ from England.

1603 Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I (r.1603-1625). He signs a peace treaty with Spain in 1603 and attempts to distance himself politically from the Ottomans. Ahmad al-Mansur’s death casts Morocco into a series of civil wars lasting until the 1660s, threatening English trade and sending corsairing into overdrive.

1604 William Shakespeare’s play Othello, about the Moorish General of Venice, is performed in London.

1612 Robert Daborne’s play A Christian Turn’d Turk is published. It is based on the life of Jack Ward (1553-1622), an English pirate who converted to Islam, moved to Tunis and was reported to be living a life of luxury as a renegado.

1620 English forces under Admiral Arthur Herbert bombard Algiers in retaliation for rising corsair attacks.

1625-31 James I dies and is succeeded by Charles I (r.1625-1649) who continues his father’s policy of political froideur towards the Ottoman Empire. His reign is dogged by corsairs from Al-Jaza'ir and Morocco who rove the Bristol Channel, English Channel and Irish sea, frequently kidnapping English men and women. The Levant Company withdraws their assets from the Maghreb.

1624/27-68 The Republic of Salé establishes a city-state independent from the Moroccan sultanate, dedicated to corsairing against European shipping. Repeated negotiations and a bombardment in 1637 fail to restrain attacks against the English.

1640 Francis Knight publishes A Relation of Seven Years Slaverie Under The Turkes of Argeire, the first captivity narrative to include a contemporary description of the Ottoman regencies.

1662 England establishes unprecedentedly stable peace treaties with Al-Jaza'ir, Tunis and Trablus Garb, expanding official resident consuls and small merchant houses in regency ports.

1662 The Portuguese port of Tangier is transferred to England with the marriage of Charles II and the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza, and several thousand English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish settlers and soldiers take up residence, under constant threat of Moroccan siege.

1665 The Oxford/London Gazette is launched, providing consistent, reliable and up-to-date reporting on Morocco and the Ottoman Empire to English readers.

1662-68 Alawi dynasty establishes power in Morocco. Sultan Mawlay Isma’il reigns from 1672-1727.

1670 T.S. publishes his adventurous and raunchy captivity narrative The Adventures of (Mr T.S.) an English Merchant, Taken Prisoner by the Turks of Argiers, containing rich detail on Al-Jaza'ir’s regional government and military organisation.

1675 William Okeley publishes Eben-Ezer; or, A Small Monument of Great Mercy, offering a detailed, theologised account of urban captivity in Al-Jaza'ir.

1676-80 Samuel Martin, British consul in Al-Jaza'ir, publishes three times his Present State of Algiers, providing terse and highly researched information on the region's government, military organisation, ethnicities, and trade.

1681-82 Dashing and courteous Moroccan ambassador Muhammad ben Haddou visits England, prompting a festival of publicity.

1682 The last war between England and Al-Jaza'ir concludes in a peace treaty and exchange of prisoners.

1684 Tangier is abandoned after English negotiations with Sultan Mawlay Isma’il break down.

1687 The Duke of Grafton, Charles II's illegitimate son, visits Al-Jaza'ir, Tunis, and Trablus Garb.

1704 Joseph Pitts publishes A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mahometans, presenting from the perspective of an escaped captive and convert England’s earliest first-hand account of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

1704-13 British garrisons in Gibraltar and Minorca are dependent on Maghrebi food supplies for survival during the War of Spanish Succession.

1705 The Husaynid dynasty establish power in Tunisia.

1711 The Qaramanli dynasty establish power in Trablus Garb.

1728 Joseph Morgan, former British consul in Al-Jaza'ir, publishes the monumental A Complete History of Algiers, providing unprecedented Enlightenment-style information about Al-Jaza'ir’s society and culture.

Al-Andalus

Abate, Mark T. Convivencia and Medieval Spain: Essays in Honor of Thomas F. Glick. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Barton, Simon. Conquerors, Brides, and Concubines: Interfaith Relations and Social Power in Medieval Iberia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Blumenthal, Debra. Enemies and Familiars: Slavery and Mastery in Fifteenth Century Valencia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Brann, Ross. Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.

Bullón-Fernández, Maria. England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, 12^th to 15^th Century: Cultural Literary, and Political Exchanges. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Catlos, Brian A. Kingdom of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

Catlos, Brian A. The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon 1050-1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Collins, Roger and Anthony Goodman. Medieval Spain: Culture, Conflict, and Coexistence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Corfis, Ivy. Al-Andalus, Sepharad and Medieval Iberia: Cultural Contact and Diffusion. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Fernández-Morera, Darío. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Iberia. Wilmington: ISI Books, 2016.

Fierro, Maribel, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Muslim Iberia. London: Routledge, 2020.

Gerli, E. Michael and Giles, Ryan D., eds. The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia: Unity in Diversity. London: Routledge, 2021.

Hamilton, Michelle M. and Silleras-Fernández, Núria, eds. In and of the Mediterranean: Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Studies. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015.

Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus. London: Taylor & Francis, 2014.

Lay, Stephen. The Reconquest Kings of Portugal: Political and Cultural Reorientation on the Medieval Frontier. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Remi Constable, Olivia and Robin Vose, ed. To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

Roth, Norman. Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

Sabate, Flocel. The Crown of Aragon: A Singular Mediterranean Empire. Leiden: Brill, 2017.

Sáez-Hidalgo, Ana. Exile, Diplomacy and Texts: Exchanges Between Iberia and the British Isles, 1500-1767. Leiden: Brill, 2021.

Safran, Janina M. Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.

Shatzmiller, Joseph. Cultural Exchange: Jews, Christians, and Art in the Medieval Marketplace. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

The Maghreb

Abadi, Jacob. Tunisia Since the Arab Conquest: The Saga of a Westernised Muslim State. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2012.

Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. London: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Akihito, Kudo, and Ota Atsushi. ‘Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean: Violence, Diplomacy and Commerce in the Maghreb, c. 1600–1830’ in In the Name of the Battle Against Piracy: Ideas and Practices in State Monopoly of Maritime Violence in Europe and Asia in the Period of Transition, ed. Ota Atsushi, pp. 19-42. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

Auchterlonie, Paul, ed. Encountering Islam: Joseph Pitts: An English Slave in 17th-Century Algiers and Mecca. London: Arabian Publishing, 2012.

Bartels, Emily C. Speaking of the Moor: From Alcazar to Othello. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

Beach, Adam R. ‘Baffled Colonial Discourse: Representing the First Decade of English Tangier’. Restoration 31. 2 (Fall 2007): 21-41.

Bejjit, Karim. English Colonial Texts on Tangier, 1661-1684: Imperialism and the Politics of Resistance. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.

Benhayoun, Jamal Eddine. Narration, Navigation and Colonialism: A Critical Account of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century English Narratives of Adventure and Captivity. Bern: Peter Lang, 2006.

Boubaker, Sadok. ‘Corsairs in Tunis from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries: A Matter of Religion and Economics’ in Ideologies of Western Naval Power, c.1500-1815, ed. J.D. Davies, Alan James, and Gijs Rommelse, pp. 139-52. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Brotton, Jerry. The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam. New York: Viking, 2016.

Bulman, William J. Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and its Empire, 1648-1715. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Clancy-Smith, Julia, ed. North Africa, Islam and the Mediterranean World: From the Almoravids to the Algerian War. London: Routledge, 2001.

Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850. London: Pantheon, 2003.

Cook, Weston F. The Hundred Years’ War for Morocco: Gunpowder and the Military Revolution in the Early Modern Muslim World. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994.

Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Day, Stephen, and Philippa Day. At Home in Carthage: The British in Tunisia. Tunis: St George’s Church, 1991.

Ellinghausen, Laurie. Pirates, Traitors, and Apostates: Renegade Identities in Early Modern English Writing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Esra, Jo-Ann. “Diplomacy, Piracy and Commerce” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, vol 8, ed. David Thomas and John Chesworth, pp. 15-34. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Fraser, Elisabeth A., ed. The Mobility of People and Things in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Art of Travel. London: Routledge, 2019.

Fuchs, Barbara. Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

Fusaro, Maria, Colin Heywood, Mohamed-Salah Omri, eds. Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010.

Garces, Maria Antonia, ed. An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa’s Topography of Algiers (1612). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.

Garcia-Arenal, Mercedes. Ahmad al-Mansur: The Beginnings of Modern Morocco. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009.

Garcia-Arenal, Mercedes, and Gerard Wiegers. A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Garcia-Arenal, Mercedes, and Gerard Wiegers, eds. The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: A Mediterranean Diaspora. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Greene, Molly. A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Helgason, Thorsteinn. The Corsairs’ Longest Voyage: The Turkish Raid in Iceland 1627. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

Hershenzon, Daniel. Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

Heywood, Colin. “Microhistory/Maritime History: Aspects of British Presence in the Western Mediterranean in the Early Modern Period” in La frontière méditerranéenne du XVe au XVIIe siècle: Échanges, circulations et affrontements, ed. Bernard Heyberger and Albrecht Fuess, pp. 81-121. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014.

Hornstein, Sari R. The Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade 1674-1688. Farnham: Scolar Press, 1991.

Hutchinson, Steven. Frontier Narratives: Liminal Lives in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2020.

Jowitt, Claire, ed. Pirates? The Politics of Plunder. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

Kaiser, Wolfgang, and Guillaume Calafat. “Violence, Protection and Commerce: Corsairing and Ars piratica in the Early Modern Mediterranean”, in Persistent Piracy: Maritime Violence and State-Formation in Global Historical Perspective, eds. Stefan Eklöf Amirell and Leos Müller, pp. 69-92. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Klarer, Mario, ed. Mediterranean Slavery and World Literature: Captivity Genres from Cervantes to Rousseau. London: Routledge, 2020.

Klarer, Mario, ed. Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean, 1550–1810. London: Routledge, 2019.

Lofkrantz, Jennifer, and Olatunji Ojo, eds. Ransoming, Captivity & Piracy in Africa and the Mediterranean. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2016.

MacLean, Gerald. Looking East: English Writing and the Ottoman Empire Before 1800. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

MacLean, Gerald, ed. Re-Orienting the Renaissance: Cultural Exchanges with the East. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

MacLean, Gerald. The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580-1720. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.

MacLean, Gerald, and Nabil Matar. Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Matar, Nabil. Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005.

Matar, Nabil. British Captives from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1563-1760. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Matar, Nabil. Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1999.

McDougall, James. A History of Algeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Naylor, Phillip. North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Second edition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Nolan, Joanna. The Elusive Case of Lingua Franca: Fact and Fiction. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2020.

Orr, Bridget. Empire on the English Stage, 1660-1714. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Parker, Kenneth. “Reading ‘Barbary’ in Early Modern England, 1550-1685”. The Seventeenth Century 19, 1 (2004): 87-115.

Pennell, C.R. Morocco: From Empire to Independence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2003.

Pennell, C.R., ed. Piracy and Diplomacy in Seventeenth-Century North Africa: The Journal of Thomas Baker, English Consul in Tripoli, 1677-1685. London: Associated University Presses, 1989.

Rejeb, Lofti Ben. “‘The General Belief of the World’: Barbary as genre and discourse in Mediterranean history”. European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 19 (2012): 15-31.

Roberts, Hugh. Berber Government: The Kabyle Polity in Pre-colonial Algeria. London: I.B. Tauris, 2014.

Rogers, P.G. A History of Anglo-Moroccan Relations to 1900. London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 197-.

Snader, Joe. Caught Between Worlds: British Captivity Narratives in Fact and Fiction. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

Stein, Tristan. “Passes and Protection in the Making of a British Mediterranean”. Journal of British Studies 54 (2015): 602-31.

Temimi, Abdelhelil, and Mohammad-Salah Omri, eds. The Movement of People and Ideas between Britain and the Maghreb. Zaghouan: Fondation Temimi, 2003.

Tucker, Judith E. The Making of the Modern Mediterranean: Views from the South. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019.

Vitkus, Daniel. Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

White, Joshua M. Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018.

Zwierlein, Cornel. Imperial Unknowns: The French and British in the Mediterranean, 1650-1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.