A good introductory picture of the Islamic presence in Spain, from the year 711 until the modern era.

This work examines the debt owed by Europe to the Moors for the Renaissance and the significant role played by the African in the Muslim invasions of the Iberian peninsula. While it focuses mainly on Spain and Portugal, it also examines the races and roots of the original North African before the later ethnic mix of the blackamoors and tawny Moors in the medieval period. The study ranges from the Moor in the literature of Cervantes and Shakespeare to his profound influence upon Europe's university system and the diffusion via this system of the ancient and medieval sciences. The Moors are shown to affect not only European mathematics and map-making, agriculture and architecture, but their markets, their music and their machines. The ethnicity of the Moor is re-examined, as is his unique contribution, both as creator and conduit, to the first seminal phase of the industrial revolution.

History of the Moors of Spain by Samuel Green Florian, first published in 1900, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Stanley Edward Lane-Poole (18 December 1854 - 29 December 1931) was a British orientalist and archaeologist. His uncle was Edward William Lane The Moors in Spain is a lengthy history about the Muslim Moors' presence on the Iberian Peninsula, and their time there until the Spanish took back all the territory near the end of the 15th century.

The two previous volumes draw a fascinating picture of the confrontation between the Christians and Moors in Spain from the Christian side. This volume attempts to redress the balance by describing many of the same incidents from the Muslims' point of view. The close intermingling of Christians and Moors, whether in love, in politics or in the common enjoyment of popular festivals, helps to account for the unique character of Islamic society in the Iberian Peninsula. Extracts from Arabic sources cover the relations between Christians and Moors in Spain over nearly 800 years. Apart from military encounters, some attention is paid to diplomacy, and also to lawsuits, legal judgments and regulations governing the co-existence of the rival communities. These not only reveal the fundamental differences between the two sides, but show how, in many cases, the divisions were not as clear-cut as the jurists and theologians would have wished. Only a handful of these texts have ever been translated into English before, and it is hoped that this selection will make a contribution to the understanding of this remarkable period in Spanish and Islamic history.

In 1482, Abu Abdallah Muhammad XI became the twenty-third Muslim King of Granada. He would be the last. This is the first history of the ruler, known as Boabdil, whose disastrous reign and bitter defeat brought seven centuries of Moorish Spain to an end. It is an action-packed story of intrigue, treachery, cruelty, cunning, courtliness, bravery and tragedy. Basing her vivid account on original documents and sources, Elizabeth Drayson traces the origins and development of Islamic Spain. She describes the thirteenth-century founding of the Nasrid dynasty, the cultured and stable society it created, and the feuding which threatened it and had all but destroyed it by 1482, when Boabdil seized the throne. The new Sultan faced betrayals by his family, factions in the Alhambra palace, and ever more powerful onslaughts from the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of the newly united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. By stratagem, diplomacy, courage and strength of will Boabdil prolonged his reign for ten years, but he never had much chance of survival. In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella, magnificently attired in Moorish costume, entered Granada and took possession of the city. Boabdil went into exile. The Christian reconquest of Spain, that has reverberated so powerfully down the centuries, was complete.