۹ فروردین ۱۴۰۳ |۱۸ رمضان ۱۴۴۵ | Mar 28, 2024
 The hidden Islamic history of Madrid revealed

Muslims, campaigners and tour companies are revealing a heritage too long denied in Spain's capital

Hawzah News Agency (Madrid, Spain) -    Hachim Oulad Mhammed was reading an Arabic book on ancient history when he first learnt that Madrid had Islamic origins.

It piqued his curiosity and he began investigating. What he found was, at first, striking: now it evokes pride, weighed down by sadness.

Spanish society, as a whole, says Oulad Mhammed, 36, a Madrid community activist, doesn’t know much, if anything, about the city’s Islamic heritage.

“The past was much more diverse than people can imagine," he says.  "It was not all conflict and bloodshed.

"It was also a period of cooperation, commerce, and a lot of interesting things that are not very present in the collective imagery that Spanish people have of Al-Andalus.”

Al-Andalus was the territory under Muslim rule for more than seven centuries, from 711 and 1492. At its greatest extent, it covered most of the Iberian peninsula, including modern-day Spain and Portugal.

Founded around 865 by Umayyad emir Mohamed I, Mayrit  - as Madrid was first known - was one of a chain of fortified military enclaves along the frontier between Muslim Al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms to the north.

The city was named after the subterranean water channels - the Arabic word is mayra - that Mohamed I ordered to be constructed.

In the late 11th century, Christians conquered Mayrit, although a sizeable Muslim population continued to live in the city until the expulsion of Spain's Muslims in 1609.

The capital is now home to an estimated 300,000 Muslims. Spain's Muslim population has grown to around two million in recent decades due to migration, with most coming from Morocco, along with others from Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and Pakistan. Many eventually go on to become Spanish citizens.

La Moreria, the quarter where Muslims lived following the Christian conquest, is now a vibrant neighborhood, a maze of narrow, winding streets full of terraces, tapas bars, cafes, restaurants, and the city's oldest churches and museums.

The Royal Palace, for example, stands on the site of the Moors' ninth-century Alcazar (citadel), which was destroyed by fire in 1734.

For Madrileno Aurora Ali, 39, spokesperson for the Madrid-based Muslim Association for Human Rights, restoring the historical memory of the city’s Islamic origins is a cause of joy and optimism.

“We are here. We see it in the architecture, but we are somehow not acknowledged, and we’re treated as foreigners, so this is a really nice counter-narrative,” she says.

The influence of the Muslim founders is hinted at in the city’s oldest standing mudejar buildings and the vestiges of a ninth-century wall preserved in a quiet park named after the city’s first ruler, Parque Mohamed I.

The mudejar style is a cultural hybridization that incorporates Islamic tradition and Moorish influences and decorative elements into European architectural styles, characterized by its refined brickwork and glazed tiles.

But otherwise, few visible clues remain of the city's Muslim past.

 

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