This research examines Islamic traditions in Spain between about 732, the year that Charles Martel famously halted the Muslim invasion of Europe at Tours, and 1492, which marked the expulsion of Islamic political power from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. During the intervening centuries, Spain represented the western extent of Muslim rule of Spain and the last bastion of non-Christian independence in Europe. During this time, too, certain Islamic religious traditions and protocols were able to assert themselves in a way that distinguished Muslim political and cultural dominance from such dominance under Christianity.
Apart from the apparent ability of invading Muslim forces to impart administrative, and economic strength to a weak, factionalized, and demoralized late-Roman/Visigothic Spain, the Islamic tendency for tolerance of individual religious belief, though non-Muslims were given second-class civic status, is noteworthy. Not unrelated to the organizational competence of Islamic rule in Spain during the Middle Ages was the ability of the distinctive religious consciousness of Islam to contribute to the cultural and social identity of Spain and Europe. Yet the privileging of Islamic religious consciousness in Spain seems to have been far more benign than the dynamic of religious consciousness was when Christianity and Christendom reasserted control there.
The history of Islamic conquest and domination of the Iberian Peninsula, especially in Andalusia, or Al-Andalus, up to the fifteenth century is well documented. The prevailing view of Islamic control of the region is that as long as the presumption of Islam as foundational and incorrigible was not challenged, its rulers espoused a policy of fairness and tolerance. Latham gives the example of Abd al-Rahman III, who inherited what over some 100 years had become a bankrupt throne at Cordoba but overtook minor Muslim governors and princes in Andalusia to consolidate power in a...