7 SESSION: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Historically, which was the great Spanish muslim city, comparable to
Rome during the IX and X centuries AD?
Cordoba (SEE PLAN IN P. 41 DOWN)

2. Which ones replaced it?Sevilla, Almeria, Murcia, Badajoz, Zaragoza, during the Taifas. CHART P. 41 UP.
3. What was the reason for a fortified Medina?It enclosed the two main features and functions of the city: the seat of Rule and of religion.
4. Which were the Medina three main parts? Main zoco, Mosque (TXT 40 DWN), and Alcazaba or Palace.
5. And the main public services? Inns, religious schools (madrasas), and public baths.
6. Which four elements could one find outside the walls of an andalusian city?Noble villas or palaces (almunia: IMG AND TXTS P. 41), parks, the cemetery and new neighborhoods which were also walled (TEXT 40 CTER).
7. How were streets organized? Gates to the Medina, and also based on races or trades.
8. How did muslims plan their day to day life? How did this reflect in their house building? Because of the weather and the importance given to family, their day to day life was inside houses, which had rich gardens, no exterior signs and few openings in windows and doors.
9. Was islamization as deep as Romanization? Why? No, not all of the territory was conquered and it varied extraordinarily with time.
10. Islamic culture was eclectic . What about this eclecticism was essential to our western civilization? Name an example. The transmission of the wisdom from classical Antiquity. Medicine and Chirurgy (SEE IMAGE 42 UP).
11. Name ways in which arabic influenced spanish. Many Spanish words come from Arabic, especially when starting with –al (particularly present in eastern and southern toponymy). SEE TEXT 42 DWN.
12. Cordoba was during the Caliphate an important center of cultural transmission. Name an example.
The diffusion of Arabic numbers, an innovation from India.

13. Explain how did all this splendour come to an end.
With the arrival of northern African empires after the XI century, which resulted to be more intolerant.
14. Do you know why are Averroes and Maimónides (TEXT 42 CTER), muslim and jew, are extraordinarily important to western culture? * They studied and translated Aristotle, and this was of the outmost importance, since among other ideas, this put forward the idea that the visible world is also a work of god, and in consequence, should be studied and measured (Science), and represented realistically (Art).
15. Whose support was essential to fleeing visigoths in the cantabrian mountain range? The asturs, who finally elected Pelaius, a noble Visigoth, it seems, as their chief.
16. How was it that resistance against muslims started? This small group had a victory in the battle or skirmish of Covadonga,, in 722.
17. Between the middle of the VIII and the IX centuries, this group built a kingdom. Name its capitals and main leaders. Cangas de Onís, Oviedo. Pelaius, Alfonso I and II (IMG 50 UP).

18. State the reason or reasons why they could resist the emirate.
Divisions between muslims and the fact, remember, that berbers felt discriminated and could not establish that north.
19. In the next 50 years more or less, the new kingdom expanded. Name leaders. Ramiro I (IMG 50 UP), Ordoño I and Alfonso III.

20. How and where di they expand?
They got their border to the river Duero and took the capital to Leon, thus renaming the realm (KINGDOM OF LEÓN). MAP P. 50. IMAGE 51 UP.
21. How did kings from León use andalusian immigration? Mozarabes came to repopulate the Duero basin.

22. How did Leon justify their warmongering towards muslims? With the mozarabe ideal of the Reconquest of the lost kingdom of Toledo. TEXT P. 5O

23. The caliphate was the strongest state in western Europe along the IX and X centuries, if you remember. Militarily, how did this affect Leon? They had to pay tribute or endure terrible raids like those of Almansur. On the east frontier, they built castles and thus the region, then a county, came to be known as Castile (Castilla).
24. What happened to Castile inside the kingdom of Leon? Clue: it can be compared to the Caliphate´s end. It was segregated and became an independent under Fernan Gonzalez (927).