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Chapter 5 - The Jews of Muslim Spain

from B. - Regional Surveys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

By
Jane S. Gerber
Edited by
Phillip I. Lieberman
Phillip I. Lieberman
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

In 711, a small Muslim invading force composed of Arabs and Berbers crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa and began a military campaign that overthrew the Visigothic Kingdom and inaugurated a new chapter in Islamic and European history. It also marked the beginning of a new era in Jewish history. The Arabs applied the name al-Andalus to the newly acquired Iberian territory, probably recalling the Vandals, one of the Germanic tribal groups who formed the prior Christian kingdom. Henceforth, the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule would be known as Andalusia or al-Andalus. Al-Andalus endured for almost 800 years in an ever-contracting territory until its last stronghold, the Nāṣrid Kingdom of Granada, fell in 1492. Since the end of the fifteenth century, the name Andalusia has denoted the small southwestern province at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula; the entire, unified, peninsula became known as Spain. The Jews recall the area as Sepharad and its Jewish inhabitants and their descendants are designated Sephardim.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Judaism , pp. 164 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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