A history of Islamic Spain

by W. Montgomery Watt

The period of Muslim occupation in Spain represents the only significant contact Islam and Europe were ever to have on European soil. In this important as well as fascinating study, the author traces Islam's influence upon Spain -- and European civilization -- from the collapse of the Visigoths in the eighth century to the fall of Granada in the fifteenth, and considers Spain's importance as a part of the Islamic empire. Particular attention is given to the golden period of economic and political stability achieved under the Umayyads. Without losing themselves in detail and without sacrificing complexity, the authors discuss the political, social and economic continuity in Islamic Spain, or al-Andalus, in light of its cultural and intellectual effects upon the rest of Europe. Medieval Christianity found models of scholarship in the Islamic philosophers and adapted the idea of holy war to its own purposes; while the final reunification of Spain under the aegis of the Reconquista played