When Muslims Ruled Europe Madina al-Zahra, Cordoba, al-Andalus

Sorry, come everyone. I am at Medina azahara. In the city of Cordoba in Al Andalus. This particular city was sanctioned by one of the most powerful Muslim kings who ruled Western Europe. I'm talking about a man the third, who ruled from Cordoba as one of the most powerful monarchs in Islamic history of Spain. And he was the first OMA yet Amir to declare himself to be the case because he was facing political and military threats in North Africa from the Fatimid Caliph caliphate, which was a Shia caliphate. So in response, he had to declare himself as the qlf so that he can confront his enemies in North Africa. He is the one who sanctioned this particular project. And this is called

Medina to Zara. It was built for his private residence. He had his wives and concubines there, he would receive foreign dignitaries and ambassadors there. This is where people would come and they would be awestruck, completely awestruck, this place was awesome, awesome in the sense that when people would walk through the gates, the like the one you can see behind me now it's in ruins. But when it was a booming city when it was a living city, people had recorded the feelings about it that this was a this was a magnificent place. And one of the purposes was to actually drive that fear through people the ambassador's who would come to see him, they will see his pomp and glory and they

would go back and tell the governments and the countries that don't even think of confronting this this particular establishment of this entity called the OMA yet caliphate of Cordoba, so the man the third was the most powerful king or Calif, or monarch or ruler in Western Europe. He ruled most of Spain, and his military power was immense. He had the allegiance of kings, Christian kings from the north, and he had the allegiance of kings from the North Africa in the South. Okay, so he was a very powerful king. This project was started in 1936. See, and it was completed in a decade. And then his son haccombe, the second also ruled from this very city called Medina azahara, which is in the

outskirts of the city of Cordova, right of drama. And the third was special because he was the first person to to declare caliphate from Cordoba, visa vie, the caliphate of the ambassador, the ambassador, by this time, by the mid 10 century have lost their power to Turkish military generals and other elements. So they don't have any real power. They are puppets, the basset Caylus by this time a puppet. So for that reason, he declared himself himself to be a rival, Calif, who had real power of the hand, the third had real power, he had militaries, he had generals, he had reserves. In fact, his Prime Minister, one of his prime ministers, was a Jewish man called has a bunch of root.

So the Jewish people in this territory, and Islamic Spain had immense power. They were physicians, they were philosophers. They were theologians. They were politicians, some of them were generals, military, general Jewish people, in Cordoba. So when people claim that Islam somehow was persecuting the Jewish people, some people claim some unfortunate individuals out there who do claim this, due to the ignorance or due to the hate driven agenda. They are simply lying and misrepresenting history because here in Spain, something absolutely wonderful happened. And scholars call it generally speaking, the economy WNC or la convivencia. Which means coexistence between three Abrahamic faiths,

Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted for this particular case with a Brahmanda third, Jews are working Christians are working and Muslims are working, doing different things, depending on the expertise and what they have to offer. Who succeeded him, how come the second How come? The second succeeded him as the Calif and how come? The second is known for few things. One of those things is that he accumulated one of the largest libraries in

the history of the Islamic world. Okay. He had the largest collection of books anywhere in the world, at that time, actually to date when it comes to the human history. Okay.

How do we know this? He had 400,000 volumes in his library. 14 volumes alone documented the catalog, okay. And he had agents running around the world collecting books from him from Central Asia, from Egypt from Iraq.

And possibly as far as India, he was collecting books, he would pay immense amount of money to collect these books. Unfortunately, this library was destroyed later on. After he had died, this library was destroyed due to the Civil War, and even the city was destroyed. During that civil war between the Muslims when the Umayyad caliphate was falling, it was declining. And there was a civil war as a result between the Muslim powers within Islamic Spain. And the result was the destruction of this city, which was lost and not very long ago discovered. And it became an archaeological site. This is UNESCO human world heritage site. And you can see the artist behind me. And there's a lot to

see, which we cannot possibly share with you right now. But this is what the Zara built in the mid 20th century see by the Muslim kings, in particular of demand the third and happen the second is successor, and this was a masterpiece of architecture. Okay. And there's a lot more that can be said. But I recommend strongly few books for you to look into for studying Islamic Spain. One of them is by Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain, then there is one by Anwar, Shanna and titled, The Muslim Spain and then the legacy of Muslim Spain by Salma kodra. You see, these are some of the works you can consult and there are books by Hugh Kennedy is Islamic Spain and Portugal. Then there

are other books you can look into. But these are some of the words I can recommend from you. Thank you so much for listening to Salaam Alaikum