One of the first written references is from an anonymous 13th-century North Africa / Andalusian cookbook, Kitāb al-tabǐkh fǐ al-Maghrib ( North Africa ) wa ' l-Andalus ( Arabic ) " The cookbook of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus ", with a recipe for couscous that was ' known all over the world '.

Al-Andalus was rife with internal conflict between the Islamic Umayyad rulers and people and the Christian Visigoth-Roman leaders and people.

The introduction of Arab scholarship from European relations with the Muslim empire ( in particular Al-Andalus ) renewed interest in Aristotle and Classical thought in general, leading to what some historians call the 12th century renaissance.

The Crusades which started late in the eleventh century only exacerbated the religious ideology of reconquest, confronted at that time with a similarly staunch ideology found on the Muslim actors strong in Al-Andalus: the Almoravids and, more, the Almohads.

Tariq ibn Ziyad, the first governor of the newly conquered province of Al-Andalus, was recalled to Damascus and replaced with Musa bin Nusair, who had been his former superior.

This was the case with the Almoravids of Morocco and Al-Andalus, and was also the case with the jihad of Nasir al-Din in the 17th century and the later Qadiriyyah movement of the Kunta in the 18th century.

In addition to its three provinces, Aragon is subdivided into 33 comarcas or counties ; all with a rich geopolitical and cultural history from its pre-Roman and Roman days ; and from the four centuries of Islamic period as Marca Superior of Al-Andalus or kingdom ( or taifa ) of Saraqustah, and as lands that once belonged to the Frankish Marca Hispanica ; and counties that later formed the Kingdom of Aragon and eventually the empire or Crown of Aragon.

His death coincides with a change in the culture of Al-Andalus.

Arabic literature, which was read widely in Spain in the time of Al-Andalus and possessed a literary tradition with similar themes, is another possible formative influence on the picaresque style.

Some proponents of this theory argue, only on cultural grounds, that both etymologies may well be correct, and that there may have been a conscious poetic exploitation of the phonological coincidence between trobar and the triliteral Arabic root TRB when sacred Sufi Islamic musical forms with a love theme first spread from Al-Andalus to southern France.

Half of the Christians in Al-Andalus are reported to have converted to Islam by the 10th century, with more than 80 % by the 11th century.

The first historical reference appears in the Arabic chronicle « muluk Akhbar Al-Andalus », history of the kings of Andalus, written between 887 and 955 by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Razi, known among the Arabs with the nickname Al-Tariji ( the Chronicler ) and between Christians as the Moor Rasis.

Moroccan and other North African Jews ( sometimes known as " Maghrebi Jews ") are closely associated with the Sephardim proper ( Jews of Iberian descent ), both because the Jewish community of Al-Andalus was itself partly of Maghrebi Jewish origin and because many Sephardim settled in North Africa after their expulsion from Spain.

The armillary sphere was introduced to Western Europe via Al-Andalus in the late 10th century with the efforts of Gerbert d ' Aurillac, the later Pope Sylvester II ( r. 999 – 1003 ).

While philosophy did indeed decline in the western Islamic world ( Al-Andalus and the Maghreb ), recent research has shown that philosophy continued long after in the eastern Islamic world ( Persia and India ), where the Avicennian, Illuminationist and Sufi schools predominated, until Islamic philosophy reached its zenith with Mulla Sadra's existentialist school of transcendent theosophy in the 17th century.

The Iberian Peninsula and Spain especially has from the time of Al-Andalus had to come to terms with balkanization, with several separatist movements existing today including the Basque Country and Catalan independentism.

The Treaty of Granada ( 1491 ), as negotiated at the final surrender of the Muslim state of Al-Andalus, issued clear protection of religious rights, but with the Alhambra Decree ( 1492 ) the reversal began.

From the Yemeni tribe of Ghafiq, he relocated to Ifriqiya ( now Tunisia ), then to the stretch of the Maghreb that is now Morocco, where he became acquainted with Musa Ibn Nusair and his son Abdul Aziz, the governors of Al-Andalus.

On land, these wars combined some European methods with techniques from Muslim bandits in Al-Andalus.

Christian Mozarabs from Al-Andalus had come north to populate the deserted frontier lands, and the traditional view of Spanish history has been that they brought with them the remains of Visigothic and Classical culture, and a new ideology of Reconquista, a crusade against the Moors.

He found himself faced with problems unfamiliar to him, such as appointing and dealing with a Catholic bishop in Toledo and the settling of garrisons in the small Muslim strongholds, the taifas, which were dependent on Toledo and which often bought the king's favour with gold from their trade with Al-Andalus and the Maghreb.

After the pre-Romanesque period, in the architecture of Al-Andalus, important contributions were made by the Caliphate of Córdoba ( the Great Mosque of Córdoba ), the Taifas ( Aljafería, in Zaragoza ), the Almoravids and Almohads ( La Giralda, Seville ), and the Nasrid of the Kingdom of Granada ( Alhambra, Generalife ).

Caliph Al-Walid I had paid great attention to the expansion of an organized military, building the strongest navy in the Umayyad Caliphate era ( the second major Arab dynasty after Mohammad and the first Arab dynasty of Al-Andalus ).

Although lost to Europe since the terminus of the Greco-Roman era, Gerbert reintroduced the astronomical armillary sphere to Latin Europe via Al-Andalus in the late 10th century.

In Portugal there is a city called Alcácer do Sal ( Al Qaşr ), which was an administrative regional seat for the Moors during the Islamic Al-Andalus era on the Iberian Peninsula.

During the Al-Andalus era in Spain, the Maghreb's inhabitants, Maghrebis, were known as " Moors "; the Muslim areas of Spain in those times were usually included in contemporary definitions of the Maghreb --- hence the use of ' Moor ' or ' Moors ' to describe the Muslim inhabitants of Spain by Christian and other Western sources.

* The Al-Andalus era Moorish garden reflecting pool in the Patio de los Arrayanes courtyard, at the Alhambra of Granada, in Andalusian Spain

The internationally renowned Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, built in the Moorish Al-Andalus era, have influenced design for centuries.

The gardens of the Alhambra show the influence of Persian Garden philosophy and style in a Moorish Palace scale from the era of Al-Andalus in Spain.

In the era of the Berber dynasties, coinciding with the flowering of Al-Andalus, there were several important Moroccan writers, especially in the fields of religion and historiography, as well as poets employed in the courts of, for instance, the Marinid sultans.

The 11th and 12th centuries witnessed the founding of several great Berber dynasties led by religious reformers and each based on a tribal confederation that dominated the Maghrib ( also seen as Maghreb ; refers to North Africa west of Egypt ) and Al-Andalus for more than 200 years.

Classical sharia incorporated the religious laws and courts of Christians, Jews and Hindus, as seen in the early Caliphate, Al-Andalus, Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Millet system.

Religious pluralism existed in classical Islamic ethics and Sharia law, as the religious laws and courts of other religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, were usually accommodated within the Islamic legal framework, as seen in the early Caliphate, Al-Andalus, Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Millet system.

The Treaty of Granada ( 1491 ) at the last surrender of Al-Andalus issued clear protections of religious rights ; the Alhambra Decree ( 1492 ) began the reversal.

Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after the Age of Enlightenment, in Al-Andalus, North Africa and the Middle East, in India and China, and in the contemporary United States and Israel, Jewish communities have seen the development of cultural phenomena that are characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious.

Democratic religious pluralism also existed in classical Islamic law, as the religious laws and courts of other religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, were usually accommodated within the Islamic legal framework, as seen in the early Caliphate, Al-Andalus, Islamic India, and the Ottoman Millet system.

Because of religious constraints, the slave trade was monopolised by Iberian Jews ( known as Radhanites ) who were able to transfer the slaves from pagan Central Europe through Christian Western Europe to Muslim countries in Al-Andalus and North Africa.

After his death in 632, much of the expansion of the empire came through conquest, such as that of North Africa and later Spain ( Al-Andalus ), and the Islamic conquest of Persia putting an end to the Sassanid Empire and spreading the reach of Islam to as far East as Khorasan, which would later become the cradle of Islamic civilization during the Islamic Golden Age and a stepping-stone towards the introduction of Islam to the Turkic tribes living in and bordering the area.

* Al-Andalus ( Golden Age of Islamic culture in Spain )

Jewish life had flourished in Spain, and Muslims, Christians, and Jews had coexisted peacefully throughout Al-Andalus ( see Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula ).

When internal dissensions divided Al-Andalus loyalties in the 11th century, leading to an age of smaller Taifa successor states of the Caliphate, the impoverished Christian kingdoms who had been sending tribute to the Caliphate found themselves in a position to demand payments ( parias ) instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion.