Postcard from Islamic Spain
Postcard from Islamic Spain Monday, 08 September 2008 22:39 Adnan Khan My recent trip to Spain shocked me into a number of facts of history. Tariq ibn-Ziyad brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islam in a seven-year campaign. He also crossed the Pyrenees and occupied parts of southern France for 20 years stopping short only 200 hundred miles from Paris. The most intriguing part of this conquest was the people who undertook it, Tariq ibn Ziyad was not an Arab and had until the conquest of Spain never been to Hijaz. Under Umar ibn Khattab Northern Africa came under Islam and the Berbers who were considered wild bandits became Muslims and then carried Islam to the next lands, something even the US and Britain can never attest to achieving. Under Islam Spain become a regional power, and a centre of learning second only to Abbasid Baghdad. Muslims and non-Muslims often came from abroad to study in the famous libraries and universities of al-Andalus after the reconquista of Toledo ...