Researchers
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus: eight centuries of Islamic history on the Iberian Peninsula, from Tariq's conquest of 711 — which gave Gibraltar its name — to Granada's fall in 1492. In it Cordoba flowered until it was Europe's largest city, and her Great Mosque rose with red and white columns; the kingdoms split into taifas then were joined by the Almoravids and Almohads, and Nasrid poets wrote on the Alhambra's walls. She was the bridge of cultures: libraries carried sciences into Latin, farmers carried irrigation and fruits, and Christians and Jews lived under her own rules. Eight centuries left 'algebra', 'algorithm' and a thousand Arabic words in Spanish. That is why Muslims long for her memory: eight centuries proved Islam can flourish on western soil — and that a civilisation can vanish from the map without being forgotten.