Almohad Period Research Articles

Agua, arquitectura y poder en una capital del Islam: la finca real del Agdal de Marrakech (ss. XII-XX)

The Agdal is a royal country estate located to the South of Marrakech and annexed to the kasba, founded in the Almohad period. The current enclosure is an area of 340 ha and consists mainly of orchards farmed uninterruptedly for centuries. Over 40 preserved buildings and numerous archaeological remains have been catalogued in its interior. Among these remains, the enclosure of the Dar al-Hana has been identified with the residential area of the Almohad and Saadian periods. In the southern area of this complex, the remains of a large central court Saadian palace, built on a previous Almohad one, have been identified. The enlargement of the Agdal northwards, which converted an isolated country estate (an almunia ) into an appendix of the kasba, has been also recorded. The archeological prospection of the Tasltante plain, close to the Agdal, has allowed defining a model of country state and a settlement pattern, which is also followed by this royal property. The archaeological information and the analysis of the written sources have made possible to reconstruct the Agdal and the peri-urban landscape previous to the Alaouite restoration of the imperial capital status to Marrakech in the eighteenth century.

Andalusi exceptionalism: the example of “Philosophical Sufism” and the significance of 1212

In both medieval and modern times, al-Andalus was often seen as distinctive or even exceptional within the Islamic world and within Islamic history. Among its distinctive features figure the almost uniform Malikism and the long-lasting support for the Umayyad cause. Others are associated with the end of Muslim rule over al-Andalus. In this context, 1212 can be seen as a prelude to the iconic event, 1492. The defeat of the Almohads can also be considered responsible for other distinctive features of Andalusi culture. Another phenomenon mostly associated with Andalusis is the “intellectual” or “philosophical” Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), Ibn Sabʿīn (1217–70), al-Shushtarī (1212–69) and ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī (1213–91), most of whom emigrated from al-Andalus to the East. It remains unclear to what extent this branch of Sufism existed in al-Andalus before the Almohad period, not least because the works of these Sufis do not lend themselves to a reconstruction of a coherent doctrine which combines elements of philosophy and of mysticism. In fact, the phenomenon of “philosophical Sufism” may be a creation of Eastern responses to these Sufis. The exodus of Andalusi Sufis to the Mashriq in the aftermath of 1212, in particular following the Christian conquests of cities in the 1230s and 1240s, may thus have led to the development of an intellectual and religious phenomenon that is considered characteristic of al-Andalus.

Una nueva interpretación del Patio de la Casa de Contratación del Alcázar de Sevilla

This paper presents a review of the so called patio of the Casa de Contratacion in Seville according to new data provided by recent research on the architecture of al-Andalus. Differing from traditional interpretations that supposed its origin to be in the eleventh century with two reforms in Almohad times, we propose the consideration of an initial Almohad period and successive Christian transformations, the first of which probably took place in the times of Peter the 1 st , in the middle of the fourteenth century, as part as a huge construction program carried out by the Castilian monarch in the Alcazar of Seville.

The Fall of the Almohad Empire in the Eyes of Modern Spanish Historians

One reason for the lack of interest in the Almohad period is the great emphasis on local history that swept Spain after the advent of democracy. This tendency has produced a great deal of interest not only in local figures, but also in local communities, and especially in Mudejars and Jews. This article investigates this issue from within a broader context, namely, the status of Islamic studies in contemporary Spain and raises the question as to whether Spain has really overcome its polemic and romantic interpretation of its Andalusi past.

Muslim Spain and the Maghrib: the artistic relationship in the Almoravid and Almohad periods

The artistic history of Muslim Iberia, spanning nearly 800 years (711-1492), is divisible into five consecutive phases, each one of them possessing sufficient individual socio-political and stylistic characteristics to allow scholarship to segregate them into distinct periods. By the closing years of the eighth century, the Muslim artists and architects of the Iberian Peninsula had already created, albeit in a formative stage, and both in theory and practice, definite artistic rules and norms which were constantly followed until the end of the fifteenth century. These regulations and habits originated in large part from the legacy of Near Eastern, ancient Mediterranean, and early medieval European cultures, which the Muslims inherited and then brought from the Middle East and which, in addition, were reinforced by the cultural background which they found in Hispania. The Andalusian artists, whether conscious of it or not, understood and applied in a totally unprecedented way the aesthetic concepts of classicism and anti-classicism that had been the fundamental standards in the Graeco-Roman world. To these opposite artistic trends they added a strong measure of a sense of elegance and refinement, and a taste for luxury and surface embellishment, which were direct inspirations from their PersoMesopotamian inheritance.The result was a new and highly graceful, delicate, sumptuous, and ornamental style that was expressed in a manner which was consonant with either the classical or anti-classical principles of antiquity. Although these two divergent artistic currents are present in all phases of Hispano-Islamic art, the degree in which they occur, except for the first period of the Umayyads, is never in balance. One of the trends was always dominant over the other, reflecting the social taste of the time. Nevertheless, if one of the two tendencies is to be categorized as characteristic of Andalusian culture as a whole, because of its pervasive quality and high level of development, it has to be the anti-classical tendency. The overall, paramount artistic current of Muslim Iberia is similar, in concept, to the baroque, anti-classical styles of the Hellenistic, late Roman, Sasanian and Byzantine periods. In architectural embellishment, this Andalusian sense of aesthetics always produced very rich compositions. The ornamentation is characterized by the use of polychromatic motifs organized in complex arrangements, giving the illusion of depth or actually possessing varying subtle distances between foreground and background, and consequently, implying a certain degree of visual motion. In order to achieve its typifying optical effect, this trend relies on such elements as coloration, density, spatial manipulation, as well as movement and counter-movement. The end-product is a work of art which appears overwhelming, for it aims more for the senses than for the intellect. Moreover, because of its tremendous complexity and atectonic manner, it is incapable of being absorbed all at once