Today we had our first presenter. We learned that Cordoba was one of the most important city during Islamic-Spain in the year 1000. This is because during about 400, the Roman Empire fell. The year 711 was the beginning of the Umayyad Dynasty and ended in 1492, the year that Columbus went on his search for India. Abd ar-Rahman was one of the rulers to go to Spain, he made himself Emir and established Cordoba as an Emirate.
One thing that I found very interesting is when Christianity started to come back during the reconquista and the leaders started to kick Jews and Muslims out of Spain. I took so well to this because last semester I had a class called the European Witchcraze, and during the beginning stages of it they would also tell Muslim and Jews to leave or convert. When the Jews converted they were suspicious of them still practicing their religion in their hoses and labeled them as crypto-Jews. I found it interesting that our presenter touched on the subject.
on the subject.
We also talked about the art and architecture such as in mosques there is a niche called the mihrab that always faces Mecca and the use of old Roman pillars as foundation for the mosques.
Picture Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque–Cathedral_of_Córdoba