Search

Valencia is an important port on the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The city was founded by the Romans in 138 B.C.E. with the Latin name of Valentia.  After the Muslim conquest in 714, it was known in Arabic as Balansiya (some scholars read this form of the name in a kharja preserved by Moses ibn Ezra: Hebrew series XIX).The town was of relatively minor importance during the Umayyad period, but in 1010 it became the capital of one of the taifa kingdoms that emerged on the disruption of the caliphate, ruled by two freedmen of the ʿĀmirids, al-Mub…

Guadix (Ar. Wādī Āsh) is a small city in northeastern Granada Province, less than 64 kilometers (40 miles) from the city of Granada, on the left bank of the river Guadix, a subtributary of the Guadiana Menor. In Roman times it was called Acci (Accitum); two Roman legions were garrisoned there to guard the surrounding mountains. In the second century it was the seat of one of the first bishops of the Peninsula. Asenjo Sedano maintains that a Jewish community was already established in the city in the second or third century, or at least before the Council of Elvira.After the Muslim conquest in…