al-Andalus Research Articles

G. Willow WilsonThe Bird King

communication: “Communication? What communication? I try to go deep, but I’m barely a few centimeters in.” However you put it, this sentiment is an effective measure of the reader: while “deep” and “shallow” are riddled with too much bias to communicate much, what a reader wants from poetry is questioned, and, equally, what reactions to poetry are considered legitimate enters into consideration as well. Matt Reeck Brooklyn, New York G. Willow Wilson The Bird King New York. Grove Press. 2019. 440 pages. Before 2014, American author G. Willow Wilson was a nominally successful author, having written a handful of comics —including the graphic novel Cairo and creator-owned series Air for Vertigo—and challenged American audiences with her memoir of conversion to Islam and her move to Egypt. Her 2012 fantasy-cyberpunk novel Alif the Unseen, also published by Grove, won her a World Fantasy Award and several smaller literary association awards, but it was her debut as the writer of a Ms. Marvel solo series in 2014 at Marvel Comics featuring a Muslim Pakistani American teenage superhero that won her lasting fame among readers of comics, science fiction, and fantasy. When Wilson’s run on Ms. Marvel ended in February 2019, fans wondered what her next step would be. While Wilson is busy at work on DC Comics’s Wonder Woman, she has also returned to the world of prose fantasy with The Bird King, which impresses beyond her previous literary accomplishments and rivals the consistent inventiveness and aesthetic complexity of her comics. Wilson’s The Bird King blends fantasy, historical romance, magical realism, adventure , and the court tale in a story about the favored concubine of the last sultan of Granada, a mapmaker with world-shaping artistic abilities, and a werewolf/vampire jinn in the final days of Moorish Spain and the rise of Catholic power in Iberia. Together the three flee the Alhambra, stronghold of Islam in fifteenth-century Spain, after a coalition of Spanish knights and one particularly terrifying female inquisitor, Luz, bring terms for the sultan’s surrender— including the handover of mapmaker Hassan to the Inquisition. Learning the threat to her childhood friend, the sultan’s most favored concubine, Fatima, escapes with Hassan and the jinn with the blessing of the sultan’s mother, Lady Aisha. Two thirds of The Bird King concerns the unlikely trio’s flight from the Inquisition . On the way, they take refuge in their search for the fabled land of the titular Bird King, whose story, penned centuries before by the Persian poet Attar as The Conference of the Birds and known to Fatima only through an incomplete copy in Lady Aisha’s modest library, becomes both a symbol of the decline of Moorish Spain and of the possibilities that thrive in the shadows of empire. Through Fatima and Hassan’s complementary world-making strategies— one narrative and mythical, the other cartographical —Wilson reveals the limits of orthodoxy and the violence of calcified belief, opening up spaces for an exciting critique of war, power, religion, and history. The Bird King is an important, magical story of a world in which Islam and Christianity contend for global dominance and offers a vibrant reconsideration of the individual’s place in the global circulations of power in the post-9/11 world. Sean Guynes Michigan State University Emily Skaja Brute: Poems Minneapolis. Graywolf Press. 2019. 72 pages. Much of the narrative arc—and indeed art—of Emily Skaja’s debut collection, Brute, is marked in the first poem of the book. There is skillful sound-play coupled with daring metaphors to revisit for days. And though we learn something of the beginning , middle, and end of this story of abuse and self-determination, the ominous last line of “My History As” is a reminder that escape is hardly ever a straight line: “I learned to counter like a torn edge / frayed from the damp. That’s how I left it. // Leaving the river, leaving / wet tracks arrowed in the brush.” Frayed, leading, necessarily incomplete; in form a number of the poems seem to WORLDLIT.ORG 83 ...

Emily SkajaBrute: Poems

communication: “Communication? What communication? I try to go deep, but I’m barely a few centimeters in.” However you put it, this sentiment is an effective measure of the reader: while “deep” and “shallow” are riddled with too much bias to communicate much, what a reader wants from poetry is questioned, and, equally, what reactions to poetry are considered legitimate enters into consideration as well. Matt Reeck Brooklyn, New York G. Willow Wilson The Bird King New York. Grove Press. 2019. 440 pages. Before 2014, American author G. Willow Wilson was a nominally successful author, having written a handful of comics —including the graphic novel Cairo and creator-owned series Air for Vertigo—and challenged American audiences with her memoir of conversion to Islam and her move to Egypt. Her 2012 fantasy-cyberpunk novel Alif the Unseen, also published by Grove, won her a World Fantasy Award and several smaller literary association awards, but it was her debut as the writer of a Ms. Marvel solo series in 2014 at Marvel Comics featuring a Muslim Pakistani American teenage superhero that won her lasting fame among readers of comics, science fiction, and fantasy. When Wilson’s run on Ms. Marvel ended in February 2019, fans wondered what her next step would be. While Wilson is busy at work on DC Comics’s Wonder Woman, she has also returned to the world of prose fantasy with The Bird King, which impresses beyond her previous literary accomplishments and rivals the consistent inventiveness and aesthetic complexity of her comics. Wilson’s The Bird King blends fantasy, historical romance, magical realism, adventure , and the court tale in a story about the favored concubine of the last sultan of Granada, a mapmaker with world-shaping artistic abilities, and a werewolf/vampire jinn in the final days of Moorish Spain and the rise of Catholic power in Iberia. Together the three flee the Alhambra, stronghold of Islam in fifteenth-century Spain, after a coalition of Spanish knights and one particularly terrifying female inquisitor, Luz, bring terms for the sultan’s surrender— including the handover of mapmaker Hassan to the Inquisition. Learning the threat to her childhood friend, the sultan’s most favored concubine, Fatima, escapes with Hassan and the jinn with the blessing of the sultan’s mother, Lady Aisha. Two thirds of The Bird King concerns the unlikely trio’s flight from the Inquisition . On the way, they take refuge in their search for the fabled land of the titular Bird King, whose story, penned centuries before by the Persian poet Attar as The Conference of the Birds and known to Fatima only through an incomplete copy in Lady Aisha’s modest library, becomes both a symbol of the decline of Moorish Spain and of the possibilities that thrive in the shadows of empire. Through Fatima and Hassan’s complementary world-making strategies— one narrative and mythical, the other cartographical —Wilson reveals the limits of orthodoxy and the violence of calcified belief, opening up spaces for an exciting critique of war, power, religion, and history. The Bird King is an important, magical story of a world in which Islam and Christianity contend for global dominance and offers a vibrant reconsideration of the individual’s place in the global circulations of power in the post-9/11 world. Sean Guynes Michigan State University Emily Skaja Brute: Poems Minneapolis. Graywolf Press. 2019. 72 pages. Much of the narrative arc—and indeed art—of Emily Skaja’s debut collection, Brute, is marked in the first poem of the book. There is skillful sound-play coupled with daring metaphors to revisit for days. And though we learn something of the beginning , middle, and end of this story of abuse and self-determination, the ominous last line of “My History As” is a reminder that escape is hardly ever a straight line: “I learned to counter like a torn edge / frayed from the damp. That’s how I left it. // Leaving the river, leaving / wet tracks arrowed in the brush.” Frayed, leading, necessarily incomplete; in form a number of the poems seem to WORLDLIT.ORG 83 Books in Review end like this, circling back the way predatory birds and abusive relationships...

The Effect of an Al Andalus Fused Curriculum Model on the Learning Outcomes of Elementary School Students

The Effect of an Al Andalus Fused Curriculum Model on the Learning Outcomes of Elementary School Students

알-안달루스 초기 정복자들의 메스키타에 관한 연구: 알헤시라스, 사라고사, 세비야를 중심으로

알-안달루스 초기 정복자들의 메스키타에 관한 연구: 알헤시라스, 사라고사, 세비야를 중심으로

Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography, by Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

As Christian conquerors from the north of the Iberian Peninsula gradually gained possession of Islamic Spain during the medieval reconquista (largely between 1085 and 1492), they not only took control of lands, cities and peoples but also came into contact with a very different architectural style. The result was a fascinating coexistence of cultural hybridity and anti-Islamic prejudice. While some Islamic buildings were torn down and replaced with new Christian edifices (such as the Great Mosque of Toledo), others were preserved or adapted (mostly notably the Mosque/Cathedral of Cordoba, the Mosque/Cathedral of Seville and the Alhambra palace in Granada, which all survive today and are major tourist attractions). Elements of Islamic art and architecture were incorporated into buildings built after the conquest in what has, since the nineteenth century, commonly been called the ‘Mudejar style’. In this impressive work, Antonio Urguízar-Herrera presents and analyses the ways in which the conquerors developed a variety of different narratives relating to the architecture of Islamic Spain and the ‘strategies of religious and cultural appropriation’ that evolved in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Different interpretations arose, and some Christians sought to stake a claim to this Andalusi legacy, presenting it as a part of the historical narrative of their kingdoms. Christian images supposedly hidden in churches turned into mosques at the time of the Islamic conquest in 711 and then miraculously rediscovered after the ‘reconquest’—such as the painting of Our Lady the Ancient (Virgen de la Antigua) in the Cathedral of Seville—gave rise to legends and cults that served the purpose of creating a legitimising historical continuity connecting the Christians with the newly conquered lands.

The Vocabulary of nature in the poetry of Ibn Mujbar Al Muwahhidi Alandalusi ( Buhtori Al Andalus )

The Andalusian poets were given a magical nature , in which the Andalusia souls were most concerned , and their senses and their interests were expressed. The expressions of nature appeared in their various manifestations in many or all of the Andalusian poets works .
 I chose among these poets Ibn Mujbar , known as Bohtori Al Andalus , to be the subject of our research .It dealt with an introduction and two articles , the first one deals with The Vocabulary of silent nature , the second one deals with The Vocabulary of living nature , and I ends this research with conclusion of the most important results that emerged from the research

Travelogue of an Almohad Sherd: from Twelfth-Century al-Andalus to Fourteenth-Century Flanders

ABSTRACT Excavations in Sint-Lievens-Houtem (Flanders, Belgium), an important medieval pilgrimage village, uncovered a fourteenth-century refuse pit. This feature contained a fragment of a rare Andalusī moulded lustreware vessel, dating to the mid or second half of the twelfth century. The reconstruction of the vessel’s itinerary aids in understanding how an object travelled from Muslim Spain to Catholic Flanders and why it ended up under Sint-Lievens-Houtem’s marketplace, about two centuries after its production. Traditional explanations of Crusades or trade seem unlikely or do not account for the entire trajectory of the vessel. These narratives are therefore extended with the incorporation of the vessel in Sint-Lievens-Houtem’s church treasury. This biographical approach offers a valuable framework to interpret the increasing number of Islamic finds across Europe, the way by which they travelled north and the contexts in which they functioned.

AKAR HISTORIS DAN PERKEMBANGAN ISLAM DI INGGRIS

This paper will reveal the historical roots and Islamic development in British. The discussion covers various areas of study pertaining to historical situations. The study tends to focus on the search for the historical roots of Islam in the 7th to 15th and 16th-17th centuries, and also the development of Islamic institutions in British contemporer.The historical roots of Islam in Britain have existed since the discovery of several coins with the words 'laa ilaaha illallah' belonging to the King of Central England, Offa of Mercia, who died in 796. The history records that this Anglo Saxon King had trade ties with the peoples Muslim Spain, France and North Africa. In addition, also found in the 9th century the words 'bismillah' by Kufi Arabic on Ballycottin Cross. Indeed, in the eighth century history has noted that trade between Britain and the Muslim nations has been established. In fact, in 817 Muhammad bin Musa al-Khawarizmi wrote the book Shurat al-Ardhi (World Map) which contains a picture of a number of places in England. In the 12th century, when the feud with Pope Innocent III, King John established a relationship with Muslim rulers in North Africa. Later, in the era of Henry II, Adelard of Bath, a private teacher of the King of England who had visited Syria and Muslim Spain, translated a number of books by Arab Muslim writers into Latin. The same is done by Danel of Marley and Michael Scouts who translated Aristotle's works from Arabic. In 1386 Chaucer wrote in his book prologue Canterbury of Tales, a book that says that on the way back to Canterbury from the holy land, Palestine, a number of pilgrims visit physicists and other experts such as al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibnu Rusyd. At that time Ibn Sina's work, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, had become the standard text for medical students until the seventeenth century.The development of Islam increasingly rapidly era after. In 1636 opened the Arabic language department at the University of Oxford. In addition, it is well known that the English King Charles I had collected Arabic and Persian manuscripts. In the era of Cromwell's post civil war, the Koran for the first time in 1649 was translated in English by Alexander Ross. In the nineteenth century more and more small Muslim communities, both immigrants from Africa and Asia, settled in port cities such as Cardif, South Shield (near New Castle), London and Liverpool. In the next stage, to this day, Islam in Britain has formally developed rapidly through the roles of institutions and priests, and the existence of Islam is also widely acknowledged by the kingdom, government, intellectuals, and the public at large.

Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492–1614 By Matthew Carr

<i>Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492–1614</i> By <scp>Matthew Carr</scp>

Akar Historis dan Perkembangan Islam di Inggris

This paper will reveal the historical roots and Islamic development in British. The discussion covers various areas of study pertaining to historical situations. The study tends to focus on the search for the historical roots of Islam in the 7th to 15th and 16th-17th centuries, and also the development of Islamic institutions in British contemporer.The historical roots of Islam in Britain have existed since the discovery of several coins with the words 'laa ilaaha illallah' belonging to the King of Central England, Offa of Mercia, who died in 796. The history records that this Anglo Saxon King had trade ties with the peoples Muslim Spain, France and North Africa. In addition, also found in the 9th century the words 'bismillah' by Kufi Arabic on Ballycottin Cross. Indeed, in the eighth century history has noted that trade between Britain and the Muslim nations has been established. In fact, in 817 Muhammad bin Musa al-Khawarizmi wrote the book Shurat al-Ardhi (World Map) which contains a picture of a number of places in England. In the 12th century, when the feud with Pope Innocent III, King John established a relationship with Muslim rulers in North Africa. Later, in the era of Henry II, Adelard of Bath, a private teacher of the King of England who had visited Syria and Muslim Spain, translated a number of books by Arab Muslim writers into Latin. The same is done by Danel of Marley and Michael Scouts who translated Aristotle's works from Arabic. In 1386 Chaucer wrote in his book prologue Canterbury of Tales, a book that says that on the way back to Canterbury from the holy land, Palestine, a number of pilgrims visit physicists and other experts such as al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Ibnu Rusyd. At that time Ibn Sina's work, al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, had become the standard text for medical students until the seventeenth century.The development of Islam increasingly rapidly era after. In 1636 opened the Arabic language department at the University of Oxford. In addition, it is well known that the English King Charles I had collected Arabic and Persian manuscripts. In the era of Cromwell's post civil war, the Koran for the first time in 1649 was translated in English by Alexander Ross. In the nineteenth century more and more small Muslim communities, both immigrants from Africa and Asia, settled in port cities such as Cardif, South Shield (near New Castle), London and Liverpool. In the next stage, to this day, Islam in Britain has formally developed rapidly through the roles of institutions and priests, and the existence of Islam is also widely acknowledged by the kingdom, government, intellectuals, and the public at large

The Almoravid and Almohad Empires, by Amira K. Bennison

The Almoravids and Almohads have long been a problem in the Anglo-European historiography of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) and the Muslim West. Their characterisation as fanatics, fundamentalists, puritans and even ‘Taliban’ is symptomatic of an anti-Berber bias that originates in contemporary Arabic Andalusi sources and has been uncritically assimilated by historians since the nineteenth century. Many of these have romanticised the era of the Umayyad caliphate and the taifa kingdoms, imagining it as an innocent paradise of pre-Modern ‘tolerance’, in part as a consequence of an uncritically Eurocentric and nationalistic perspective. The Almoravids, whose conquest of al-Andalus destroyed the taifa kingdoms, and the Almohads, whose revolution brought down the Almoravids before they conquered what remained of Muslim Spain, are often characterised as dourly pious, foreign philistines, who brought an end to the rich courtly culture and convivencia, or inter-religious concord, which it embodied (a convivencia sometimes characterised as ‘European’). Despite the fact that they dominated the Maghrib and al-Andalus from the second half of the eleventh to the first half of the thirteenth centuries, very little English-language scholarship has focused on the two movements. That is changing now, thanks in no small measure to the tremendously important and voluminous research carried out in recent years by academics in Spain and elsewhere. Amira K. Bennison’s book sets out to redress this historiographical problem, and provide a comprehensive history of the two imperia for English-language readers.

Muslim Andalusia: New Insights into Linguistic and Literary Exchanges between the East and the West

This paper offers a new perspective on the cultural relations between Arab Muslims of the East and Christians of the West, in medieval Iberia (known as al-Andalus by the Muslims) from 711 to 1031 C.E, identifying the benefits that emerged from such relations. Evidence has been extracted from primary historical sources, including the travel writings of Ibn Hayyan and Ibn Jubayr, along with other Western sources and writings born out of the academic exchange of ideas and literature between Muslim Spain and the European states of the time. The discussion also draws upon manuscripts and studies that transcend the stereotypical images of the victors and the defeated. The main thesis of this study argues that universal values and mutual respect between Muslim and non-Muslim communities of medieval Spain were in fact the norm and not the exception. It endeavours to show that literature, in all its forms, had a significant impact on the development and maintenance of harmonious, peaceful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims (mainly Christians). The paper highlights the synthesis between the Arabic and Spanish languages, between Arabic and European poetry and between Arab and European tales and stories. The findings contest the idea of a clash of civilisations and instead demonstrate how in medieval Spain, people of various creeds and cultures communicated and interacted successfully in spite of their religious and cultural differences.

IBN RUSHD AS JURIST” AND HIS FATWĀ ON LEGAL CAPACITY

Legal capacity is one of the major topics in Islamic law on personal status. The Qurʾān deals with this subject, for example in Q 4: 5-6. However, it only discusses the issue of legal capacity in relation to orphans and minors. Based on the loose Qurʾānic concept of orphans and minors, the jurists of the classical period attempted to understand what was meant by legal capacity in Islam and how ought to operated in a Muslim society. One of the most remarkable jurists who tackled this issue was Ibn Rushd (520/1126-595-1198). In his celebrated collection of fatwā, the Fatāwā Ibn Rushd, he explored the issue of legal capacity based on questions brought to him, who at a time sit as a qāḍī in Sevilla and Cordoba. Keywords: Averroes, legal, capacity, personal status, guardianship, Muslim Spain.

Altarabische Dichtung über Dattelpalmen aus dem Kitāb al-Fuṣūṣ („Buch der Ringsteine“) des Ṣāʿid al-Baġdādī (ca. 335–417/945–1026)

Abstract The present paper presents a hitherto unstudied collection of twenty-six early Arabic poems (sixth to eighth centuries) on date palms. The poems are preserved in the Kitāb al-Fuṣūṣ (“Book of Gemstones”) of Ṣāʿid al-Baġdādī (ca. 335–417/945–1026), an Iraqi philologist and littérateur who made a career as a court poet in Muslim Spain. Despite its importance as a crop, the date palm was a topic very rarely raised in Abbasid poetry. As this unique collection shows, however, poems praising the date palm were more common in earlier times. The poems examined here express the benefits of date palm farming by contrasting the supposed ease and safety of agriculturists to the difficulties and risks faced by camel breeders. The repeated comparison of palm trees with camels conveys the tension between the sedentary and the nomadic lifestyles, as they co-existed in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia.

The Most Noble of People: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain By Jessica A. Coope

Meccanomics explores the growing middle class in the Muslim world and their propensity to consume, and assert conservative values. Nasr uses evidence of significant progress in commerce and freedom that have been made in the Islamic world, and ties that progress to an emerging Muslim middle class that is more interested in stability and trade than war and religion. The book comprises of ten chapters. Each chapter introduces the reader to an emerging middle class that is developing the economic clout that is essential for inevitable liberalisation.

Heine and Convivencia: Coexistence in Muslim Spain

‘Convivencia’ refers to the coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews during the period of Muslim rule in Spain (711–1492). Like the historian Isaak Markus Jost (1793–1860), Heine formed an idealized image of Muslim Spain in support of his own cultural ambitions. Heine’s identification with Marranos is well documented (Veit). This article considers the depiction of ‘convivencia’ in two texts by Heine, the drama Almansor and the poem ‘Jehuda ben Halevy’. In accordance with Heine’s sources, the chorus of Almansor presents Muslim Spain as a centre of cultural and religious tolerance for modern Europeans to emulate. Three decades later, Heine’s poem ‘Jehuda ben Halevy’ presents a more troubled picture, as two of the three Sephardi poets are murdered. Crucially, though, in Cordoba the murderer is punished. In this way, the poem asserts that the rule of law prevailed in Muslim Spain.

Rafica: Early Medieval Caravan Trade between the West Frankish Kingdom and Al-Andalus

Rafica, an enigmatic customs duty recorded in several charters issued by West Frankish kings during the 9^th and 10^th centuries, can be traced back to its original Arabic meaning, caravan. That leads to the conclusion of a regular transit trade between the West Frankish Kingdom and Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus) operated by caravans. The merchants of Verdun assured this lucrative trade bringing Slavonic slaves, Cornish tin and Frankish swords to Al-Andalus whence they imported, on their way back, silk and leather fabrics and drugs as crimson, saffron and ambergris. Two main routes of this trade can be established, one connecting Verdun with Barcelona along the rivers Saône and Rhône, the other leading through the western regions of France touching Paris, Angers, Bordeaux and Toulouse. All rafica caravans entered Al-Andalus through a crossing point southwest of Barcelona leading to the Andalusian border town of Tortosa. At several customs stations along their way, the caravans had to pay a specific duty named after the Arabic word rafica.

MEMBACA GELIAT PENDIDIKAN DAN KEILMUAN DI SPANYOL ISLAM (TAHUN: 756-1494 M.)

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This paper is about to assert that the triumph of science in the Islamic Spain didn’t only occur in the period following the Umayyad dynasty II (c. 756-1031), but quite the dynasty during the reign of al-Muwahhidun (1078-1214) and reached its peak under the the reign of the Caliph Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur (d. 580 h./1184 M). The intellectual glory of Andalusia marked several things: first, expedition scientists massively in the Umayyad II to the Eastern Islamic world in order to study and acquire as many references to the development of science upon his return to their Islamic Spain; Second, the migration of scientists to Eastern Andalusia happened in al-Muwahhidun dynasty is the transmission of knowledge from the East to the Islamic Spain; and the third, the translation movement in the 12&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; century and 13&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; based in Toledo can be seen is the bridge to the current scientific knowledge of the Arab world to Europe, Islam is encouraged intellectual progress stretching in Andalusia. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Keywords: Intellectual, Academic, Transmission of the expedition scientists.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

The taifa of Denia and the Jewish networks of the medieval Mediterranean: a study of the Cairo Geniza and other documents

The rulers of Denia, on the Mediterranean coast of eleventh-century Islamic Spain, and one of the principal taifas, or kingdoms, to emerge from the fallen caliphate of Cordoba, developed a unique maritime policy that bound their polity to the Mediterranean. The taifa is best known for its active promotion of piracy against Christian coasts, as well as its failed conquest of Sardinia, but the port also participated in direct maritime trade with Christian and Muslim ports. From a minor harbor in the tenth century, Denia became second only to Almeria in the transfer of goods between al-Andalus and the Mediterranean by the end of the taifa period. Denia’s rulers and commercial elites built complex networks that spanned from Barcelona to Alexandria. Essential to their success was their ability to attract and conduct business with members of the Mediterranean Jewish community, as evidenced by Denia’s unique and significant presence in the documents of the Cairo Geniza. This study examines commercial ties between Denia’s rulers and the Jewish trading houses of the Mediterranean, while attempting to retrace the networks built by the taifa’s own Jewish community with their coreligionists in Iberia and across the Mediterranean.

La alimentación en al-Andalus a partir del registro arqueofaunístico. Estado de la cuestión

Al Andalus fue un espacio plural, dinámico y variable en el tiempo, que bebió de influencias culturales muy diversas. Todo ello le dio una idiosincrasia mestiza y claramente mediterránea que sólo consiguieron matizar la religión y sus rigurosas prescripciones, también en el campo de la alimentación. Aun así, y con sólo ligeros matices que evolucionan, cambian o se enriquecen a lo largo de los siglos conforme evoluciona también el propio al Andalus, los andalusíes practicaron un modo de comer sano y socializador, nutrido de alimentos que combinaron de forma hábil y sabia incluso en sus expresiones más pobres y frugales -dirigidos de alguna manera por sus sabios y dietistas, herederos militantes de los legados grecorromano y oriental-, pero también de manera intuitiva y espontánea. Tales prácticas se vieron favorecidas por un nuevo sistema de explotación de las tierras, basado fundamentalmente en la irrigación, la introducción de nuevas especies vegetales y una intensificación racional de las cosechas que les permitieron disponer de productos frescos todo el año, protagonistas sin saberlo de lo que muchos autores han dado en llamar la revolución verde. De todo ello dan buena cuenta las fuentes escritas, pero también la arqueología, en particular el registro faunístico; de ahí la necesidad de cruzarlos, en aras de contrastar ambos universos.