The Story of the Andalusis

From Târiq ibn Ziyâd’s first steps on the soil of the Old Continent, in 92AH/711AD, to the last expulsions of the Moriscos, in 1023AH/1614AD, “The Story of the Andalusis” unfolds a fantastic epic of 900 years of Muslim presence in Europe through historical upheavals and reversals of fortune, conquests and exiles, triumphs and disasters. A tale of wars, clashing wills and ambitions, but also of exchanges, encounters, waves of ideas, goods and peoples, at the crossroads of civilisations, identities and continents – all this making al-Andalus an exciting human fresco, filled with great and not so great men of power, religion, pen or sword.

From its birth to its extinction, here is the story of the life and adventures of a nation that was born almost by an accident of history on the outer reaches of the West, that shaped itself not without clashes before reaching its peak under the Umayyads of Qurtubah, that came close to annihilation several times, that experienced the highs and lows of the great Berber dynasties, and then, against all odds, granted itself another quarter of a millennium of existence under the Nasrids of Granada. A nation whose cultural golden age enlightened the world with its pioneering spirit and its society of excellence – the home of urban refinement and agricultural prosperity, of knowledge bubbling and burgeoning arts and letters. And a nation, finally, that Catholic Spain tried to eradicate methodically and ruthlessly – to the point of trying to make the world forget it ever existed… Without success – for the nostalgia of al-Andalus has brilliantly survived on both sides of the Mediterranean.

The first opus in our series on the Muslims of Europe, this great historical saga also attempts to dispel the many myths that obscure the understanding of this complex era.