You're Dead to Me - Al Andalus

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Amira Bennison and comedian Fatiha El-Ghorri to learn about Al Andalus. From 711 to 1492, a significant amount of the Iberian peninsula – modern day Spain and Portugal – was ruled by a succession of Islamic rulers.This era was a golden age as people and customs were imported from as far away as Iraq and North Africa to mix with what already existed on the Iberian peninsula.The short distance between North Africa and Western Europe at the Strait of Gibraltar has meant there has been a constant interchange and exchange across the centuries. But how did this process of raiding, trading and invading create some of the most sophisticated and populous cities of early Medieval Europe?Research by Jessica Honey Written by Emma Nagouse, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Steve HankeyYou’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Janna. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are jumping back over 1,000 years to discover what life was like in the Umayyad period of Al-Andalus. The name given to medieval Islamic Spain and Portugal. And joining me to do that are two very special guests.

In History Corner, she's professor in the history and Culture of the Maghrib at the University of Cambridge. She's an expert on Islamic Spain, the Middle East, North Africa, and has appeared numerous times on TV and radio. And you'll remember her from our episode on the marvellous medieval traveller Ibn Battuta. It's Professor Amira Benison. Welcome back, Amira. Hello, Greg. It's lovely to be back. I'm really excited to be talking about Al-Andalus today. And in Comedy Corner, she's a rising star on the stand-up circuit. You might have seen her on TV, on the Russell Howard Hour, Jonathan Ross Show, the Stand-Up Sketch Show, Comedy Central, The Edinburgh Fringe or Outsiders. It's the fabulous Fatiha El Ghori. Welcome to the show, Fatiha.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Fatiha, it's your first time on the podcast. So are you a fan of history? I do like history. I don't know much about it. So this is probably going to be like a lesson for me as well. And Fatia, you're a British Moroccan comedian. So when I say to you Umayyad al-Andalus, does that name ring a bell? I know al-Andalus, but I don't know the others. What was it? Did you say al-Amaya? Umayyad, yeah, that's the name of the dynasty in morocco we have um amaya which means like the laundrette maybe we'll be good clean fun today i don't know so what do you know

this is where i have a go at guessing what you our lovely listener might know about today's What do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I'm going to guess that for a lot of you, Al-Andalus is not a familiar phrase, and Umayyad even less so. But that's not to say you haven't holidayed in sunny Spain and visited some of the places we're going to talk about today. Charming Cordoba, stunning Seville, gorgeous Granada, or amazing Andalusia. Al-Andalus is probably best known for its so-called Moorish architecture. That's inverted commas on Moorish there, a bit of a problematic name. But in popular culture, there's not so much to go on, really. You may have heard of El Cid, the famous medieval Spanish knight played by Charlton Heston in 1961 in the movie El Cid. He makes some cameos

in video games I've played, Medieval Total War, Age of Empires II. But video games don't really tell us much about the politics, life and culture of the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 11th centuries. So what do we need to know? And what skill set would earn you 200 bushels of barley in your job? Let's find out. Professor Amira, this subject is extraordinarily complicated. There are several dynasties who rule over Al-Andalus. We're just doing one of them, the Umayyad. So can we start with the basics, please? What is Al-Andalus? Where, when, what's the phrase mean? Okay, that's a really good question. A very sensible starting point. Al-Andalus is the name given to the Iberian Peninsula. So what's now Spain

and Portugal. And in some sources, it's used in a geographical sense. So Al-Andalus can mean the Christian as well as the Muslim parts of the peninsula. But it also has a more political sense, the part of the peninsula that were under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492. And what was under Muslim political control varied immensely. So in the period we're going to be looking at today, from the 8th to the 11th century, we're talking about a massive strip from the southwest up to the northeast. And we're going to look in particular at the big southern cities, which were the main centres of politics and culture in the Islamic period. First of all, Cordoba and then Seville.

So, Fatiha, let's set the scene. Before the Arab-Muslim conquest, Iberia had been ruled by the Romans first and then the Visigoths. They had stolen off the Romans in the 400s. How are you imagining the Visigoths in terms of their name? Black eyeliner, big backcombed hair? Yeah, I was thinking, you know, like the trolls. Have you seen the trolls?

Oh, yeah. Maybe something like that. Brought in all that colour or something. I don't know, like hair pointing that way. Vertical pink hair. Yeah, exactly. And it sounds like a bit of a like big jump isn't it from like romans to visigoths from i don't know julius caesar to like mad max that's what it

sounds like doesn't it yeah the visigoths were a germanic tribe who moved westward so they started in what we now might call germany there was another group as well who went with them called the Vandals, where we get the word Vandal from. They also crossed into North Africa, actually, and they were joined by another fearsomely named group called the Allens. You know those were English, don't you? It turns out Allen, followed by Darren, David. David and Bob, yeah. Yeah.

The Allens are less important to our story. The Vandals are quite important in a small way, Amira, because we maybe think they give the name to Al-Andalus. Is that right? It's a popular theory. Oh, okay. Let's put it that way. I mean, you can see why Vandal, Al-Andalus, they sound really similar.

You can see why Vandal, Al-Andalus, they sound really similar. So it's very tempting to say Al-Andalus is obviously named after the Vandals. But I mean, they passed through Iberia really quite briefly. And they settled in what's now Tunisia in around 430. So they hadn't been near the Iberian Peninsula for a really long time when the Muslims actually arrived in that. But scholars have come up with all kinds of different ways of thinking about why the peninsula came to be called Al-Andalus, including derivation from a Germanic translation of a Latin word for land plots, just to make it really academic and complicated. Wow, glamorous. Or like a corruption of a word related to Atlantis. Oh, that's more fun. Yeah, okay.

Yeah. Or, you know, Noah's flood and the people who lived there after Noah's flood, they called it the land of Al-Andalus. Lots of different theories, actually, because nobody really knows why Arabic speakers called it Al-Andalus. And Arabs knew it was a foreign word, but they just didn't know where the hell it had come from. And the year 711 is the decisive date, Fatih. This is when we first get a Muslim army arriving into that part of Western Europe, I suppose. And do you know how the decision is made to invade a southern Spain from North Africa? I'd imagine it's something to do with oranges or tiles or something crazy like that.

Maybe someone came over from Spain into Morocco and then they took an orange and ran back and they were like, oh, we ain't having this. And then they were like, we're going over, you know what I mean? Like that, because it is is people can be really petty moroccans were like what you doing bruv and then they like went over there and then they were like oh you want to play games do you all right we're gonna take the whole of your country like that kind of thing what is the story yeah i think again we're talking here about legends and myths rather than actual facts. And one of the popular legends around the crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar by Muslim armies was that there was a governor in the city of Ceuta, Sabta in Arabic, on the south of the Strait of Gibraltar. The governor, Julian, sent his daughter to the court of the new Visigothic king, Roderick, and Roderick sexually assaulted her.

And in revenge for that, Julian decided to assist the Muslims in crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and invading the Visigothic kingdom. It actually might have had more to do with the oranges thing, actually. No, I told you. Okay. Not people from Spain pillaging in North Africa. But there seems to be a history of the tribes of North Africa, raiding the Visigothic Kingdom. So probably what lies behind this is when the Muslim armies arrived in the region of Tangier, they actually had a lot of North Africans in their army. And local North Africans were already very aware of that kind of desirable country they could see across the Strait of Gibraltar. And they probably encouraged people coming from further

east who had no idea what was the other side of the strait saying, look, let's go on some raids. the strait saying look let's go on some raids let's have a go let's see what happens so it was sort of a natural continuation of north african raiding into the peninsula and also the impetus of the islamic conquests as they rolled across north africa i told you food was involved somewhere i told you this is what we're like food and Food and the sun. That's what we love. What Amira said about Sibta. So that's in Morocco. It's a Spanish enclave. So I can go there because I've got a British passport. But my cousins who live in Morocco can't go there because you need a visa because it's Europe. I had no idea. It's fascinating. And the Spanish won't give the Moroccans back that territory unless we give them back Gibraltar.

That's right. Oh, hello. Which is like a political, non-logical argument. We haven't got time for that, but that's good to know. All right, so 7-11 is the big year. And so we have a commander called Tarek, and he's got an army of supposedly 7,000 men. That doesn't sound very many.

And he's going to try and conquer Spain. Who are they? And what's he trying to achieve? Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth remembering that armies tended to be small in the period we're talking about. And it may even have been 12, not seven, who knows? So yes, we have this person called Tarek ibn Ziyad. And he's actually a North African client of the governor of the West, Musa ibn Nusayr. And he's based in Tangier. He's acting quite independently of the governor. Getting a message back to Tunisia took a while. So you tended to just make your decisions in the moment on the ground. The army had a small Arab component, but it was probably by this point, mostly North Africans who'd converted to Islam. They began raiding across the strait in 710 and landed at Tarifa. But then the following year in 711, they crossed over to a mountain

and that mountain they renamed Tariq's Mountain or Jabal Tariq, from which we get Gibraltar. Oh. So, yeah. So the vengeance subplot of Julian against Roderick likely isn't true. And Roderick, the Visigothic king, but he's not there to defend himself. He's somewhere else. Yeah, that's right. He's actually up north because his accession to the throne was contested.

So he was trying to deal with a Visigothic rebellion against his rule in the north. I mean, the Muslims sort of sat around in the south for about three months before anything happened. But then Roderick came racing down the peninsula to try and resist the new threat. But in the meantime, the Muslims may well have been speaking with some of his opponents, the sons of the previous king, Vertiza, who'd have been quite young, but they may well have had advisors who were saying, if you side with these Muslim raiders, we can get rid of Roderick, and then you can regain the throne. So when the battle actually occurred, Roderick's army was actually defeated. The assumption is he was killed because

he just disappears completely from the record. And that kind of just leaves the way open for the Muslim army who just march on to Toledo, which was a Visigothic capital, and take it. You know, you said only 7,000 men. But in this period, conquest is really about getting the main town. No regime really controls all the countryside in between. So once you've got the main town or towns you have in effect got the country wow you can do a lot of 7 000 people and it might have been like 7 000 people but each one felt like he was about 10 men because i know from my uncles they're like five foot two they think they're about seven foot honestly my uncle's like five foot two he comes

in the door and bends his head i'm like are you mad the door you are you do not need to do that like as if he can't fit through the door i'm like you could fit through the door three times you're tiny don't be ridiculous so yeah i can imagine all their ego so there's probably like 7 000 of them but they thought there's about 50 000 it's all about confidence yeah absolutely big dick energy exactly when you're invading a country. Okay, so 7,000 men. And Tariq writes to his boss, Musa, to just casually mention, no biggie or anything, but I've just conquered this kingdom.

Pretty fancy. Fatiha, how do you think Musa reacts to this news? He's probably like, very good, bruv. Now eat some oranges. So you think he's supportive. All right. Well, I mean, he actually feels left out. He feels like he's missed out on a fun opportunity. And he's like. All right. Well, I mean, he actually feels left out. He feels like he's missed out on a fun opportunity.

And he's like, oh, I want to do some conquering. So he gets 18,000 men and he has a go. So he crosses Tangiers as well. He goes to Seville and he conquers that. And then Tarek and Musa do a kind of double act where they're both just tag teaming various Visigothic towns. And they end up with two thirds of Spain just within a couple of years. And then they don't even get to enjoy it, Fatia. They get called back by the big, big boss man who is the caliph. At this point, the family ruling in the east are the Umayyads.

So the ones we're going to look at in the peninsula later are their descendants. So it's an Umayyad caliphate in the Middle East. Okay. And so the big, big boss is like, right, report to me. You've just conquered a whole kingdom. I want to know what I've got. By the time Tariq and Musa show up, he's dead, I think, the caliph. And the brother is suddenly trying to get to the throne. And so Tariq and Musa get tortured and they don't get to enjoy their thing at all it's all gone a bit wrong so it's a very complicated bit of history here fatia we're racing through it to try not to terrify you but there is a sort of period of chaos here between 711 the start of the invasion and 756 where al-anderlous is now just ruled by governors do you want to guess how many governors there are? I mean, this is 45 years.

How many governors in that 45-year period? I'd say probably about 20, because I know they row a lot, I'm telling you. Imagine all those men, all those five-foot-two men trying to get in the door, that's six foot, and all bending their heads, not being able to see, probably banging into each other. Probably about 20.

I imagine they would have been a massive fight for leadership and power. in their heads, not being able to see, probably banging into each other, probably about 20. I imagine they would have really, there would have been a massive fight for like leadership and power. Spot on, right? I've got 22 on my script here, Amira, 22 governors in 45 years. It's endless swapping of who's in power now. And we now have feuds between rival Arab factions, Amira, and Berber rebellions, and then battles with the Christian armies in the north that were trying to get their lands back. So this period is really quite chaotic, isn't it? You can say that a rapid succession of governors is also democratic. That's a polite way of putting it, right? Yeah. I wouldn't say it's necessarily chaotic, but there is a lot of political churn.

I said 756 as a sort of cutoff point, because this is where we get a properly big moment in history, the coup at the heart of the Arab Islamic Abbasid revolution, overthrows the Umayyad Caliphate and a new Abbasid Caliphate is established. And it's at that point that the capital moves from Damascus, where it had been for some years, to Baghdad. The Abbasids are called the Abbasids because they were descended from the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, Abbas. And they're quite brutal towards the remnants of the Umayyad family. They kill a lot of people. But one young prince, Abd al-Rahman, escapes. He runs west.

He goes to North Africa to his maternal kin. He gathers loyal supporters of the Umayyad family around him, a group we call the Umayyad clients. And then he decides to try his luck in the Iberian Peninsula. Basically, he wants to have a little kingdom as far away from the Abbasids as humanly possible. So he sets himself up in Iberia, but he doesn't take a grand title. He doesn't call himself a caliph like his ancestors. He just calls himself Amir, which sort of means prince, commander. And it takes him 30 years to establish some kind of real control and to make Cordoba his capital. And when he does that in the 780s, he builds his palace and he builds the great mosque of Cordoba, which becomes the hallmark monument of the dynasty.

Let's hear that name again. Abd al-Rahman I. The first, OK. The first, yes. There's lots of Abd al-Rahman, so we have to pay lots of attention to first, second, third. All right. So he's done a runner, Fatiha.

He's fled from the Middle East into Iberia and he's set himself up as a little mini king. He's done all right for himself. Very well. And I was going to say, Amirah said that he set himself up as a little mini king. He's done all right for himself. Very well. And I was going to say, Amira said that he called himself Amir, which means like she said, king or commander. And her name's Amira. So she's like the queen and commander.

So she slipped that one in. She's trying to tell you to watch yourself, Greg. All right? Yeah, I wasn't going to point that out, but yes. Julie warned. We have this key year, 756, where we get an emir. We've got a king for the first time ruling over Al-Andalus as a Muslim king. And Cordoba becomes a stable political power base.

It also becomes a city of culture, by which, of course, I mean it's got regular performances of Magic Mike Live, which is what any great culture has. No, I'm talking here about libraries and palaces and the great mosque, Amira. This is a city of learning, right? Yeah, it is. It's the political and cultural hub of Al-Andalus. So everything happens in Cordoba first. It's very quickly Arabized, so everybody's speaking Arabic. The second Abdurrahman, Abdurrahman II, in the middle of the 9th century, is really keen on patronizing scholars, musicians, scientists, artists, singers, and creating a glittering court around him. Now, I sometimes think of these people as influencers, if you like, for the period. And one of them, for instance, Abbas ibn Firnas invented the metronome. He

discovered how to improve techniques for making glass. He did some scientific experiments, like he had an Icarus moment and made some wings and jumped off Abdurrahman II's villa in the countryside landed hard so that was a bit painful for him I've done that have you done that I did honestly I got a bump on my forehead right and my brother when we was little he put me on the sink and he goes Fatiha just let yourself go and you'll fly and I've done that smack straight onto the tile floor well he got in big trouble basically my mom sent him to morocco for the rest of his life that's a joke by the way she didn't he lives in north london he's a postman you briefly flew yeah yeah so that makes you uh

an equal scientist to to a phone ask then perhaps because it doesn't sound like he flew very much sort of just smashed into the ground. I don't think he did. But he survived, so that's okay. So he's one of the sort of first big names. But we've got another big name who also is attracted to Cordoba. This guy is a polymath. A polymath is someone who's got loads of different incredible skills, usually sort of great genius like Leonardo da Vinci.

This guy in particular is called Ziryab. Fatia, do you know what that translates to as his nickname? So in Morocco, we say Zirba, which means quickly. So I don't know if it means maybe something at speed or fast. It might have nothing to do with that. I might just be talking nonsense. Because when you, what did you say? It's a polymath.

Yeah, polymath, a multi-skilled. So he's got all sorts of, he's a musician, he's a poet, he's a mathematician, he's really into all sorts of things. His name, I believe, translates to blackbird because he sings so beautifully. Amira, Ziriab, he's a big fun character from this period and we want to do lots on him, but you've warned us that he's slightly mythologised. So what do we know about this guy? Yeah, Ziriyeh does a lot of legend and conjecture around him. I guess the way to look at it is he becomes the personification in the sources of the ideal court gentleman with all the skills and talents you'd expect of a courtier. So he didn't necessarily have all these skills and talents himself, but he sort of personifies a later image. He's meant to have fled Abbasid Baghdad, where he was an accomplished court musician and singer. He wandered around the Mediterranean. He worked in Tunisia for a while. He eventually ended up looking across at the Iberian Peninsula, and he decided to send a message to the emir of the time, Al-Hakam I,

looking for a job. This was just around the time that Al-Hakam died and his son, Abdurrahman II, came to power. So it was a great opportunity for Abdurrahman II to add someone from the prestigious Islamic East to his court circle. So he was very happy to offer Zuriyeb, this singer and musician from Baghdad, a position at his court. And that's why he offered him such a huge salary. You know, some sources talk about a salary of 200 gold dinars per month, which is an enormous sum. But also we mentioned in the introduction, he gets bushels of barley. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Again, this is kind of a normal form of payment in this period. You know, you give them a stipend in cash, but you also give them something in kind.

Because people make their own bread in their homes. So if you're sitting at court, you haven't got much time to, you know, sort out your own flour. So you get 200 bushels of barley and 200 bushels of wheat per annum that's kind of like your allowance to get your flour made and have some bread fatia can we pay you for this podcast in barley is that all right i prefer coke zero but um all right barley makes me very gassy i'll pop to the local shop and i'll get some. But I mean, Ziriab is a trendsetter as well, Amira, not just a great musician. I mean, you've described him as an influencer. So what is he promoting beige loungewear and hair loss pills? You know, what's he selling?

Well, I mean, almost, you know, you're not far off there. So I guess if you talk about his day job, he founds a school of music for court entertainers. So he's there to promote an Eastern style of singing and music at the Umayyad court. So that's what he does. So he has a school of music where the kids learn how to perform properly. Many of them are actually of enslaved origin because most singers and entertainers were. So Ziriyeb himself is probably a freedman. Oh, okay. What does freedman mean? Freedman means that his ancestors or even he

was enslaved at one point. And we didn't say much about the name Blackbird, but in most Arabic sources, it says it was because of his skin colour. Oh, really? Okay. In most Arabic sources, it says it was because of his skin colour. Oh, really? OK. Yeah, that he was a dark-skinned person who may well have had enslaved ancestors or been enslaved in the first part of his life, but then becomes a freedman. And his introduction to the music school to Iberia and North Africa is often really hailed as very important, significant in musical history. And he's got techniques for teaching his students, doesn't he?

Well, I mean, he's definitely seen as the person who establishes an Andalusi school of music, which continues to exist in North Africa, as Amfeteha will know well, the Andalusiet, or is a whole genre type of music. But to improve the skills of the young people he was training, But to improve the skills of the young people he was training and he also developed techniques for playing the oud with a flexible plectrum maybe made out of an eagle's talon or a quill rather than a hard wooden one that's so heavy metal that is badass eagle talon as a guitar pick this guy's amazing yeah siriab's great i mean like what amira said we do have like on Eid and stuff, Eid is the celebration that we have.

We've got two Eids in the year. And the first Eid is after Ramadan. And then the second one is two months after. Always on TV, they'll have Andalusian music, Andalusian musicians. They'll be Moroccan and playing that music and stuff. So it still has a massive presence in our culture. It is part of us so Ziriab is sort of a founding father in that history going back to the 800s isn't it the 822 I think you said is when he showed up in the court so what's that 1200 years ago he's also a fashion influencer Amira

he's he's he's on insta posing in his latest stuff. What's he telling people to wear, how to dress, how to do their hair? What's his big ideas? Later sources talk about him introducing all sorts of Baghdadi trends to Cordoba. Things like new types of deodorant, toothpaste. And yes, this thing about new hairstyles. Supposedly the normal hairstyle in the Iberian Peninsula was long hair with a middle parting, sort of hanging down and maybe plaited at the back. But he introduced sort of new trendy

haircuts with, you know, fringe and a bob. But if you look at the earliest sources, it says that he introduced these new haircuts for people like himself. So lower class people of enslaved origin, so the people who were working at the court, not the ruling elite. And it actually says that people adopted these styles for their servants, not for themselves. So this idea that Andalusis were all kind of slavishly following Zerriyeb, the guy from Baghdad is maybe not. I want to stand up for the Andalusis here. They had some style before Zeryeb arrived. It's not all Zeryeb. And I was going to say, if I was around in those times,

I would totally slide into his DMs. Do you know what I'm saying? All those lovely haircuts. He's got a lot going on. I mean, by the sounds of it, he's doing medieval makeover guru stuff. He's doing food. He's doing fashion. He's doing haircuts. He's doing music. He's basically a one-man queer eye. And I say food, actually, Amira. Again, one other thing we think, we're not sure if it's

entirely true, but he perhaps changes the meal culture of how food is served. Yeah, I think that's right. It's said that he introduced a sort of a more complicated meal etiquette, where you would have, you know, a first course, a soup course, basically. And then you'd have your fish, poultry or meat, and then you'd have a dessert. And that perhaps before he arrived, it was more like everything out on the buffet, grab what you want. what you want. But again, it's very hard to know whether Ziriyeb really did this or not. But it's kind of this point in time where the Umayyad court is seen as becoming as sophisticated and cultured as the court in Baghdad. You know, Ziriyeb's presence there kind of personifies that and rationalises and explains what's going on in an entertaining kind of way. And 100 years after Ziryab, we get the Umayyad going up a gear because in 929, we get the foundation of a new caliphate. The Umayyads are reclaiming their caliphate. They've lost it ages ago back in Damascus, but now they're like, no,

we're a new caliphate here in Al-Andalus. Yeah, so from 757 to 929, the Umayyad rulers were just emirs, as we've discussed. But in 929, Abd al-Rahman III, so number three, we're on to number three now. It's a good name, stick with it. Yeah, it is. And I guess you're evoking your ancestors if you take the same name. Abd al-Rahman came to power in 9 912 when he was just a young man around 20, but he turned out to be a really good astute politician and he was able to rebuild the Umayyad state in the peninsula after a very difficult period where there'd been a lot of political fragmentation and a lot of rebellion. Once he'd rebuilt that state, for various reasons, he decided to reclaim the caliphate. So he was actually staking a claim to be the foremost Islamic ruler in the entire Islamic world

by taking the title. And this is meaningful for the population of the peninsula at this point, because the majority of them are Muslim. So he tells all his subjects that from then on, they need to address him using the caliphate title, which is Amir al-Mu'minin, commander of the faithful or prince of the believers. And he's an interesting guy because he's multilingual, isn't he? He obviously speaks Arabic as his first language, but he also has family heritage that's Christian. And so he's speaking the new Romance language that's evolving out of Latin. He's got, you know, a foot in each sort of camp. I suppose he can sort of be a universal leader in some ways. Yeah, I think that's true. But he's not unique in that. This is historically very common for

the Umayyad rulers. The sources describe Abd al-Rahman III as blonde, blue-eyed, handsome guy. Abdur Rahman III as blonde, blue-eyed, handsome guy. And his mother was a Frankish concubine, but his grandmother had also been Christian. It was very common for the Umayyads to have concubines from the Christian north. So people are working in Arabic and working in Romance, which is a kind of sort of popular form of Latin moving towards Spanish and Portuguese and the modern languages of the peninsula. So he is very representative of his community. I mean, Fathia, he's now the commander of the faithful. He's incredibly powerful. He's got all sorts of things. He builds himself a fancy new palace. It's called Madinat al-Zahra. What would you do if you were a brand new ruler? What would you go for?

I would build myself a stage and do my little comedy show and make everyone, because I'll be the ruler, they'd all have to turn out, so it's sell out. And then I'll be like, you know, sending it to all the other influences of the world and being like, look at me, I've sold out my own stage. Like, what have you done? I mean, I guess he has to build a palace isn't it to show them who's boss kind of thing too so yeah i'd probably do the same i mean as soon as i finish this podcast i'm gonna go and buy a house in chelsea you know what i'm saying because that's how much

i'm getting paid in bali in bali remember yeah and that's probably why he's able to build something so lavish, because he's paying people in food. I mean, Amira, Madinat al-Zahra only stands for 74 years. So if you go visit it today, it's in ruins. It's still very beautiful. But this is not just a palace. This is a palace and administration centre. Yeah, that's right. And in fact, Farid's idea of building a stage is in a sense what he was doing. He wanted a stage for his monarchy. He wanted a place he could receive dignitaries, ambassadors and perform. And yeah, if he told a joke, everyone did actually have to laugh. So there is an element of that. So it was centred on a large palace. There was a great mosque. There were other

areas in the city which were inhabited by the servants and soldiers of the Umayyad Caliph. They were very luxurious, beautifully decorated audience halls with carvings, marble panels, some reused Roman artifacts as well. And in terms of its style, it was designed to pick up the architectural style of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, the dynasty's hallmark monument founded by Abd al-Rahman I. There were also gardens with pools, a menagerie, a hunting park. I mean, basically anything you could want, as well as more useful utilitarian things like workshops and a mint to make coins and things like that. So multifunctional, basically. But we've talked an awful lot about caliphs and emirs and trendsetting polymaths,

fancy people, but we need to talk about normos, people like us, the real people. Speak for yourself, Greg. Well, obviously, yes. Obviously, we've established a mirror means commander and you're going to be a supreme comedian of the world. But me, I'm talking about me, people like me. So who are the people of Al-Andalus? You know, what is the economy? What is the population size?

What do people do for jobs? Who's being ruled by the Umayyads? Most of the population were Iberian and the incomers from the east or from North Africa were a numerical minority overall. So we're talking about the Arabs, and North Africans often called Berbers or Imazigan. But they are the political and military aristocracy,

so we tend to hear more about them in the sources. When the Muslims actually arrived in the peninsula, most of the population were Catholic Christians. There were pagans in corners and also a small Jewish minority. The big conversion wave actually happened in the ninth century. And it probably started in towns and then radiated out to the countryside, eventually touching most of the villages and rural areas of the south. And people who are Iberian who convert to Islam are called in the sources Mawalladun. They're, you know, merchants and artisans and farmers, and they're just sort of getting on with all the normal stuff you expect people to get on with. And there were many people

who adopted Arabic but didn't convert. So there's a Christian community who come to be known as Mos-Arabs. Every big city had a Mos-Arabic Christian community. There were Mos-Arabs at court. And the same applies really to the Jewish minority. There are Jewish communities in most big towns. All these religious minorities are permitted to practice their faith, keep to their laws, but they're generally expected to be quite discreet. Fatia, let's talk about the economy and jobs. What do you think are the kind of major industries and outputs of the Al-Andalus economy? Probably like tiles and stuff, for sure. We get a lot of our tiles in Morocco from Spain.

Maybe even alcohol. They've got a lot of wheat going there, isn't it, and barley. They're paying people in that. They must have loads going spare. So I'd say, and definitely like agriculture and fabric. Those are really good guesses, I think, Amir. On my list in front of me, I've got leatherworking is a really famous thing. Weapons, there's a really strong weapons manufacturing

sort of industry in Toledo, I think. Definitely agriculture. Paper production comes out of Al-Andalus. The production of paper to write on, which is not used in Europe, paper of this period. Alcohol is an interesting suggestion from Fatiha. Where do we stand on that, Amira? Well, there are definitely vineyards in the Iberian Peninsula. Wine was definitely produced.

Abbasid Iraq had vineyards and wine production as well. So medieval Muslims did drink. Religious scholars didn't like it. But generally, members of the elite did have access to wine and poorer people tended to have access to various kinds of beer and yeah it was a primarily agricultural economy as you'd expect I mean some other things in addition to what's been mentioned there's mulberry trees which have silkworms on them so they can spin silk. Crocuses to produce saffron from the stamens for cooking and also to dye cloth yellow. Loads of beekeeping. Lovely.

Oh, yeah. So lots of honey. We should mention olives given how much olive oil comes out of the peninsula. How could I not say olive oil? I'm going to get disowned. gonna i'm gonna get disowned i am gonna get disowned by the whole of north africa they're gonna be like goodbye fatihah my mom even to now if you get sick honey anything i'm like mom my toes hurt and i think i broke it honey she's just like giving you you know honestly all the time like just spoon feeding it to you

going this will make it better i'm like i've got a toothache honey i'm like you can't do that like and we should talk about what the uh what the streets look like what the city looked like i mean um there's a quite a famous german nun with a great name her name fatia is hrotsvitha of gandersheim which is wow it's very Lord of the Rings. I thought my name was Fethiha Al-Ghorri. She comes out. No, I think she wins. She wins. Yeah, Hrothitha of Gandersheim. She called Cordoba the glittering ornament of the world, which sounds like a compliment. But then she follows it up by saying Al-Andalus is a perfidious nation of foreign heathens. So make your mind up, Hrothwitha. That's, you know, you're saying it's good, you're saying it's bad. So, Amira, Cordoba is known about in Germany. German nuns are writing about it. Is it a glittering ornament?

Is it a kind of beautiful city? Is it clean and hygienic? Yeah, I think it probably is. I mean, Hrothwitha meant that Cordoba was a worldly tempting place. So for her as a nun, to have a nice, comfortable, clean city was not a good thing. So Cordoba was a lot more comfortable than most Northern towns. I mean, she actually knew about it because there were ambassadors who went backwards and forwards from Cordoba to the Frankish and Germanic North.

And it was very clean by medieval standards. Somebody writing a bit later, Ibn Said, writing in the 13th century, says that Spanish Muslims are the cleanest people on earth in respect of their person, dress, beds, and in the interior of their houses. And it's known that even in the Umayyad period, Cordoba had sort of street lighting, running water, and all these kind of things that keep a city sanitary and clean. It was also pretty big. It was the biggest city in Europe or the Western Mediterranean even in this period. And somebody writing much later, al-Maqari, who's writing in the 17th century, he talks about Cordoba as having well over a thousand mosques, 900 bathhouses, and so on and so forth. I mean, when people want to big up a city, they

always give these very long lists of how many mosques and shops and homes they have. So we can't take the numbers particularly seriously. But Cordoba may have had like 100,000 people at a time when it was very unusual for towns to have more than 10,000. Let's switch now to a different city, Seville. And if we jump to the early 1000s, so 1000 years ago, Fathia, we have something called the Hispa handbooks for market inspectors, which doesn't sound glamorous or particularly comedic, but it's a great historical record for us, Amira, because it lets us see what was being policed and banned in the market squares. Hispa manuals are actually hilarious in many ways. The word Hispa means

regulation. And these sort of manuals sort of tell market inspectors what they need to look out for and try and stop. Check the quality of products being sold, check prices were fair, weights and measures were as they were supposed to be. They were also supposed to monitor relations between different groups in the population, look at public order, decencyency especially appropriate sort of male female interactions in public spaces so a big role and the manuals tell us a lot about people not obeying the rules yeah fatia we've got a little mini quiz for you here we've got four options which of these was not listed as a rule in the hispa handbook for Seville. So number one, truffles should not be sold around the mosque for this is a delicacy of the dissolute.

Number two, flour should not be mixed with the cheese used for fritters. Number three, the sale of tame pigeons must be prohibited for they are used by thieves and people of no religion. And number four, the women who weave brocades must be banned from the markets for they are nothing but harlots. Which of those do you think is not in the hispa book is not yeah oh oh the pigeon one maybe i was yeah i got it the other way around i've got it wrong i thought you said which one definitely is okay it's the pigeon one i think you think you think you can trust a pigeon yeah i think and they probably use them to send cryptic messages,

I don't know, little love letters to the girl on the 12 roofs away from your roof. You know, like that. Kind of, we have these terraced roofs in Morocco and we jump over them sometimes into other people's houses and, yeah. You're going for pigeon option? Yeah.

Well, we basically, we've screwed you over here. All four of them are true. All of them are in the Hispa books. We've been very mean there. It's not fair. Amira, I love Fatiha's idea of a pigeon messenger, but presumably pigeons are a source of what crime? What's happening? Why are pigeons in this list? Why is everything in this list quickly? You might do races. And so you shouldn't be doing betting and gambling. That's not really very good. Pigeon coops were often on rooftops, though. So that whole peeping Tom thing, you know, men are just dealing with my doves and actually looking into the courtyard of the house next door. That's why my uncle spends all his time on the roof. Oh, no. There was in Baghdad a directive in the 11th century specifically about saying that pigeon coops needed to be taken off the roofs of houses for that specific reason, men peeping into neighboring houses.

So with the other ones, though, I'd say, you know, the truffle idea is in general, there were lots of stalls and fast food booths around the Great Mosque. And market inspectors often didn't like that, you know, they thought it should be a quiet place for reflection, prayer. The flour with the cheese is well, I mean, that's actually quite familiar to us, you know, this idea of adulterating the quality of food by adding a cheaper substitute, you know, bit like horse meat in your beef mince. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the last one, actually, the banning of female brocade sellers in the market, because I find that

really interesting. One, women are weaving brocades. That's quite interesting. But two, they're out in the marketplace selling them. And this market inspector really didn't like that. And it's partly about male female interaction and these women sort of being out there in the market chatting with their male peers but it's also i think about competition that their economic competition out there in the marketplace so that's quite oh they're taking jobs from the blokes oh honestly they are taking jobs from the blokes yeah these women oh honestly dreadful and if you're taking a job from a bloke, clearly you're a harlot

or a prostitute. You can't be anything else. The Umayyad dynasty ends and we end up with another dynasty ruling. They're called the Umarovids and we get through that process in the 1000s by the introduction of taifa, which I think is the phrase, but

translated into English is party kings, which sounds great. They sound like a strip crew to rival Magic Mike. So tell me that party kings are fun, Amira. Who are the party kings? Are they a hoot? Do they take the tops off? Well, you know, I think the party kings are actually quite fun. They're a kind of an assortment of local notables, ex-Omayad governors, military commanders from the Iberian

Peninsula, from North Africa. They're collectively known as party kings, as maluka tawaif. And tawaif in Arabic means a party in the sense of a political party. So that's not particularly exciting. But in the sources, they are also described as loving wine, women and song. So just like the Tories, eh? Yeah, so they are, they're sort of implicated in the downfall of the Umayyad and the rise of the Umarovids. How do we end up with the end of the Umayyad dynasty? So in the late 900s, the caliphs were supplanted by their chief ministers, the emirates. And this kind of led to a lot of political faction fighting. And in the early 1000s, unpaid soldiers

mutinied in Cordoba and Madinata Zahra. The population of Cordoba itself also rebelled and the party kings gradually took over. You can see them almost all as just leaving Cordoba and running to other cities and establishing themselves independently in Saragossa, in Valencia, in Seville, in Granada, in Carmona, any town of any size had one of these part-effer kings. They were not united. You know, they competed against each other. And a lot of them began to make alliances with the northern Christian kings against their own rivals.

And that gave the Christian kings a sort of leverage to push south. And Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon took advantage of all of this to take Toledo in 1086. And that really shocked the Tartuffian kings. They were like, oh no, this is actually a crisis now. We better stop competing with each other and we better look for help. So they looked across the Strait of Gibraltar naturally to North Africa. And that's where this new power, the Almoravid Empire was on the rise. So the Almoravid Emir Yusuf bin Tashfin landed in Al Jazeera in 1086, joined up with the King of Seville, and they managed to defeatfonso the Sick at a very famous battle, the Battle of Zalaca or Sagrajas, which sort of held the line for the next century or so. Oh, wow. So they'd been partying too hard. They let the Christians in and then they went,

oh, oh no, quick, emergency beacon. It's a bit like, you know, the fight between like the Chippendales and then like Magic Mike. It's a bit like the fight between the Chippendales and then Magic Mike. It's a bit like that, isn't it? They're like, oh, they're on my territory. Oh, my God. And they're touring. And they're like, oh, my God, why are they here? And yeah, fighting for stage time.

That's what it is, I would say. Yeah, Magic Mike v. the Chippendales. That's what it is. Absolutely. I think all medieval history should be condensed down to rival stripper groups fighting it out. But yes, maybe Professor Amira would disagree. So we have reached the end of the Amaya dynasty, Fatiha. We've talked an awful lot and it's time now for The Nuance Window.

The Nuance Window! This is where Fatiha and I sit quietly in the marketplace and look out for dodgy pigeon trainers while we allow Professor Amira two uninterrupted minutes to tell us something we need to know about today's subject. So my stopwatch is ready. Amira, take it away. It's worth noting that this period in the history of Al-Andalus under the Umayyads is often seen as a golden age,

characterized by what's called in Spanish, convivencia. And that means harmonious, living together of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. But that idea was only really generated in the 20th century by Spaniards, in fact, who opposed Franco's persecution of minorities and opponents and sort of pointed to the past as a moment where that didn't happen and where you could be a minority and you were actually allowed to live relatively freely. Convivencia was also an idea which was popular with Jews within Europe who were facing the persecution that came out of modern nationalism and obviously escalated eventually to the Holocaust. So if you're in Jewish studies, there was a look towards the Iberian Peninsula and what they called Seferad, which was their name for Al-Andalus,

as a time and a place of tolerance and harmony where you could live as a Jew in a larger community without being persecuted. So this idea of convivencia has, you know, some positive roots. But the other side of it is it means that one tends to see in Spain and in sort of popular history that the golden age of the Umayyads is seen as being a sort of a European thing. And when North Africans enter the Iberian Peninsula, it's then seen as a disaster, you know, the arrival of the barbarians from North Africa. But in reality, I would say as a historian, that what you see is constant movement across the Strait of Gibraltar. The society of medieval Al-Andalus was created by people working together, people of Iberian background, people of Arab origin, North Africans,

others indeed from sub-Saharan Africa. And it was that kind of melting pot atmosphere and the potential of moving forward, regardless of your background, in a place like Cordoba created a golden age. Amazing thank you so much that's fascinating and Fatia any thoughts on that? Just the harmony side of it I guess we have that in Morocco as well we have like churches we have synagogues we have a massive Jewish community we have Moroccan Jews so there's that unity and that's something that is close to my heart and that's something we practice and we've been brought up like that as well so I'm

so grateful for that lovely thank you sorry I don't have nothing funny to say it's just about love hey we love love here don't worry it's all good so what do you know now? But it's time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for our comedian, Fatiha, to see how much she has learned. I mean, we've really, just a lot of history has been chucked at you. So how do you feel, Fatiha? Are you feeling confident or?

I feel like I've got a big bag of wheat here that I'll give you to not ask me these questions. Oh, right. Okay. I'm open to bribery. Yeah, what are we talking? How much wheat? All right. We've got 10 questions for you. Question one. In the year 711, Tariq bin Ziyad allegedly brought 7,000 men to invade Iberia, but which Germanic kingdom did he conquer? The Haivist gods. Yeah, the Visigoths, absolutely. That's it. Question two. In 929, Abin al-Rahman III declared himself. What impressive title of the revived Umayyad dynasty?

The Khalif. Question three. Abd al-Rahman III also built the impressive Madinat al-Zahra in the 930s. But what was it? Was it not a palace? It was. It was this palace city, yeah, with all the fancy stuff in it. I can't believe I'm getting these right. What's going on?

You're doing great. Question four. The German nun, Horst Lither of Gandersheim, great name, described Qaddafa with what impressively shiny phrase? A glitter ball. It was an ornament of the world. I'll have that. Yeah, that's fine.

Glitter ball is good. Question five. Name three agricultural products that were produced in the Andalusi economy. Silk worms. Silk, silk, not silk worms. Silk. Saffron.

Yep. And, oh, oh my God, olive oil. Hello. Olive oil, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God, my mum is going to absolutely kill me. Thank God she don't listen to podcasts. Question six.

Poet, musician and fashion trendsetter Ali ibn Nafi was better known as Ziliyab. What did his name translate to? Blackbird. It was Blackbird. You're doing great. Question seven. The phrase Taifa kings translates to what in English? Party kings. Yeah, it was. Do you know why I remembered that? Because you know the biscuit, the party rings biscuits?

I hate them. I love a party ring. You can bribe me in party rings, Fatia. That's what I like those. Okay, question eight. In Seville, what were Hispa manuals? They're market inspectors, like the market manuals, market inspector manuals. Question nine. Which dynasty came to power in El Andalus and taking over from the Mayad in the late 11th century? Oh, this one I don't know. It was the Amaravids. Okay, I would have never got that.

This for 9 out of 10, so this would be a really good score. Can you name two trends that apparently were introduced by the famed Ziriab? Was it haircuts? Yep. And clothes, fashion, I think. You know what, I'm giving you 9 out of 10. I think that's a brilliant score. Well done.

I know that people can't see us at home, but I am viciously swinging my hijab around with joy. Okay. You did really, really well. I mean, that was a hard quiz. And well done to Amira as well. Thank you for teaching Fatiha and myself all that lovely history. Yes, thank you.

And Lister, if you want to hear more from Professor Amira, you can check out our episode on Ibn Battuta and his African travels. That was a really fun one. For more Islamic history, you can check out our episodes on Mansa Musa or on Golden Age Istanbul. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review, share the show with your friends, make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sound

so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me to say is a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we had the amazing Professor Amira Benison from the University of Cambridge.

Thank you, Amira. Oh, thank you. Fun as ever. And in Comedy Corner, we had the fantastic Fatia El Ghori. Thank you, Fatia. Thank you for having me.

I loved it. Thank you so much. And thank you to Amira as well for all the knowledge. Thank you. I'm going to use it. Thank you so much. And thank you to Amira as well for all the knowledge. Thank you. I'm going to use that knowledge, pretend it's all mine, and impress everybody, you know? Absolutely.

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we conquer another historical subject with two different party kings. But for now, I'm off to go and play my heavy metal guitar with an eagle talon in your face, Ziriab. Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. heavy metal guitar with an eagle talon in your face, Siri App. Bye! as Isla Matthews, and the audio producer was Steve Hankey. I'm Anita Arnand, and over the next ten episodes for BBC Radio 4, we're going to be exploring a somewhat tricky title, Princess. Join me as I speak to guests like the comedian Sharpat Korsandi

and presenter Charlene White about their favourite princesses. We're going to be unpacking scandalous and fabulous legacies, sharing the stories behind some of the most incredible princesses in history. Join me, Anita Arnand, for Princess on BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds. you