The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Spain and Portugal (Andalus)

Andalus (Spain and Portugal) was initially a province of the Umayyad caliphate, based in Syria. The arrival of the Umayyad ‘Abd al-Rahman I in Córdoba in 756, after escaping from the Abbasids, led to independent rule—a trend toward autonomy that had already begun under the previous Arab governors. It took more than 150 years for one of the descendants of the first Córdoban Umayyad amir to proclaim himself caliph. ‘Abd al-Rahman III did so in 929, mainly as a reaction against the proclamation of the Fatimid caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909, which obliged him to develop a rival political and religious ideology. The rise to effective power of the Yemeni Arab Ibn Abi ‘Amir—acting as chamberlain and helped by the fact that the third caliph, Hisham II, was a minor—and his descendants posed the problem of their legitimization, achieved mostly through jihad. Military reforms aiming at weakening the old conquest elites involved increased importation of Berber troops from North Africa. Dissatisfaction with these developments eventually led to civil wars—which sources tend to present as the result of enmity between Berbers and Andalusis—and to the “abolition” (ibṭāl) of the caliphate in Córdoba in the year 1031. Political fragmentation gave rise to a varying number of party kingdoms, whose rulers had different backgrounds and found different ways of legitimizing their power without ever claiming the caliphate. Only the Maghribi Hammudids—who claimed ‘Alid (Idrisid) descent—obtained recognition as caliphs in a reduced area and for a short period. Coins struck at the time mention “the imam ‘abd Allāh [servant of God], Commander of the Faithful,” a useful formula that did not refer to any specific caliph but merely implied acknowledgment of the Sunni doctrine regarding the need for an imam as supreme leader of the community of believers. When after 1087 the Berber Almoravids started incorporating Andalus into their empire, they kept the same formula, while their leader limited himself to adopting the title Commander of the Muslims. The recognition of Almoravid rule by the Abbasid caliphs led eventually to the new formula “the imam ‘abd Allāh [servant of God] the Abbasid,” attested in a coin minted in 1140. The Almoravids were by then fighting a new Berber movement, that of the Almohads, founded by a messianic figure (Ibn Tumart), whose successor ‘Abd al-Mu’min officially proclaimed himself caliph in 1147. ‘Abd al-Mu’min developed a revolutionary policy that involved the creation of new political and religious elites and the assimilation of Almohad rule to God’s command (amr Allāh). His successors reigned in Andalus until the Christian advance greatly reduced the territory under Muslim rule, with Córdoba and Valencia conquered in 1236 and Sevilla in 1248. The resulting power vacuum was filled by various local notables, such as Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad b. Yusuf b. Hud, known as Ibn Hud, who followed the Almoravid model by proclaiming himself Commander of the Muslims in Murcia in 1228, and Muhammad b. Nasr (Muhammad I, also known as Ibn al-Ahmar), who entered Granada in 1238 and made it his capital from which he extended his rule to Almería and Malaga, thus establishing the Nasrid kingdom. Almost three centuries later, in 1492, it was conquered by the Catholic kings, thus ending Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. The existence of a Muslim population living under non-Muslim rule (the so-called Mudejares) gave rise to different legal opinions about whether this was in accordance with Islamic law. The Mudejar population was eventually forced to convert and finally was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula between 1609 and 1616.

Andalusi scholars sometimes produced works reacting to the political developments of their time. The Zahiri scholar Ibn Hazm (d. 1064)—from positions usually understood as pro-Umayyad—devoted a lengthy section of his book on religions and sects to the issue of who is entitled to the imamate (leadership) of the community, while in other works he argued for the illegitimacy and illegality of Taifa politics. Coinciding with Almoravid rule, two Andalusi scholars—Muradi (d. 1095) and Turtushi (d. 1126)—wrote Mirrors for Princes, Ibn ‘Abdun reflected in his ḥisba (commanding right and forbidding wrong) work the tendency of qadis (judges) to assume power in their towns in moments of a power vacuum, and Abu Bakr b. al-‘Arabi (d. 1148) elaborated his political thought within Ash‘arism. Almohad rule favored philosophical political thought, as shown by both Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185) and Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), within a tradition going back to Ibn Bajja (Avempace; d. 1138). Sufi involvement in politics—with Ibn Qasi (d. 1151) becoming a political leader thanks to his army of murīdūn during the disintegration of Almoravid rule—or just the fear of such possibility led to the persecution of Ibn Barrajan (d. 1141) and Ibn al-‘Arif (d. 1141), and to the emigration under the Almohads of many Andalusi Sufis such as Abu Madyan (d. 1197), Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240), and Ibn Sab‘in (d. 1270). Under the Nasrids, Ibn al-Khatib (d. 1375) reflected in his political writings his own experience as a member of the ruling circles, and Ibn al-Azraq (d. 1491) heavily relied on Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima in his Bada’i‘ al-Silk. Andalusi political thought still awaits a monographic study, analyzing both works such as those mentioned and the reception and assimilation of non-Andalusi thinkers and writers.