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(a.) “that which is round”, has given, under the form almodovar , the name to a small river of the province of Cadiz which flows from the south-east into the Laguna de la Janda, and also to several places in Spain and Portugal: Almodovar del Rio, below Cordova; Almodovar del Campo (or de Calatrava), to the south-west of Ciudad Real; Almodovar del Pinar, in the province of Cunenca; and Almodovar to the west of Mértola in southern Portugal. (C.F. Seybold)

, whose full name was S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Faraḥ b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Lak̲h̲mī al-Is̲h̲bīlī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , born in 625/1228 at Seville (Is̲h̲bīliya [ q.v.]), was taken prisoner in 646/1248 by the Franks (al-Ifrand̲j̲), i.e., the Spaniards under Ferdinand III the Saint, of Castile (1217-52), at the conquest of Seville, but escaped and afterwards went, between 650 and 660/1252-62, to Egypt; after hearing the most celebrated teachers of Cairo, he studied under those of Damascus, where he settled and gave lectures …

, or Nahr Yāna/Āna , the classical Anas, Span. Guadiana, Port. Odiana, a great river of the south-central and southwestern parts of the Iberian peninsula. It rises in the southeastern part of the central Meseta, in the Serranía de Cuenca [see Ḳūnka ], as the Záncara and Gigüela rivers, and flows westwards and then southwards to the Adantic, with a course of 578 km/360 miles. Its last part, below Pomarâo, forms part of the modern boundary between Spain and Portugal; only this section, and a little further upstream t…

, Arabic al-Munakkab, a little town in Spain to the south of Granada on the Mediterranean, is known through the landing of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I (756) with 1000 Berber horse-men; in 1489 it surrendered to the Catholic kings. (C. F. Seybold)

, French Cordoue, English, Italian and German Cordova (Kordova), Arabic Ḳurṭuba, Latin Cordŭba (370 feet above sea-level) on the right (north) bank of the central course of the Guadalquivir (from the Arabic Wād al-Kabīr “the great river”), the ancient Baetis, with 60,000 inhabitants, is at the present day the capital of the province of the same name which lies on both sides of the river in the heart of Andalusia. The southern and smaller half of the province, practically the famous La Campiña ( Iḳlīm al-Kanbāniya, Idrīsī, Arabic text, p. 174), rising in the south east to a heigh…

b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sanchol Abu ’l-Ḥasan, grandson of the great Al-manzor (al-Manṣur). ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz became prince of Valencia in 412 (1021), and in the year 429 (1038) when Zuhair, the prince of Almeria, had died, he took possession of the latter’s principality. Through this action, however, he came at loggerheads with Mud̲j̲āhid, the prince of Denia, and therefore in the year 1041 he installed his brother-in-law Abu’l-Aḥwaṣ, who soon made himself independent [see Ṣumādiḥ], ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who, like his grandfather, also bore the surname of al-Manṣūr, continued to rule…

(by its fnll name Nuestea Señora or Santa María de Alarcos) is the name of a holy shrine (santuario, ermita) onelegua(6.687 kilometre) west of Ciudad Real. It is situated on a hill, formerly the site of the ancient town called al-Ark and al-Arkuh in Arabic, which was destroyed by the Almohades after the great victory which under Yaʿḳūb they gained here over Alphonse VIII of Castile. On historical maps the situation of al-Ark is always erroneously displaced towards the south, down into the Sierra Morena. I…

, the capital of a district in the Spanish province of Granada on the northern slopes of the Sierra Nevada ( Ḏj̲ebel S̲h̲ulair = Solorius Mons, Ḏj̲ebel al-T̲h̲ald̲j̲ = “snowmountain” like Hermon), the ancient Iberian Ācci (Colonia Julia Gemella, which was however 7 miles N. W. [Baedeker wrongly S. E.] of the modern Guadix and is distinguished as Guadix al Viejo), one of the oldest bishoprics in Spain ( Sedes Accitana), with 13,000 inhabitants, on the left bank of the stream of the same name which rises to the south (Rio de Guadix), with a Moorish castle (Alcazaba), in Arabic called Wādiās̲h̲, m…

, the name of five Spanish Umaiyads: 1. ʿAbd al-raḥmān I B. Muʿāwiya b. His̲h̲ām escaped from the slaughter which the ʿAbbāsides in 750 perpetrated on his family, and after long wanderings in North Africa came to Spain, where in 756 he founded the independent Emirate (subsequently also Sultanate) of the Umaiyads at Cordova. By his statesmanlike cunning and restless energy, which with all his determination and strength of character yet for the most part never degenerated into the often so useless cruelty and b…

(Arabic al-k̲h̲andaḳ = “the moat”) was the scene of the crushing defeat of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III of Cordova by king Ramiro of Leon and Queen Tota of Navarre, in the year 939. The name is, at the present day, only found in Fresno- and Torre-Alhándiga, south of Salamanca and Alba de Tormes. (C. F. Seybold) Bibliography Dozy, Hist. des Musulmans d’Espagne iii. 62 et seq. the same, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne (3rd ed.) i. 156—170 Madoz, Diccionario geográfico-estadístico-histórico ii. 184 (“Alóndiga ó Alhóndiga”).

, Greek ΒαλιαρεĩΣ, Latin Baliares, which form has more authority than Baleares, usually but falsely derived from βάλλειν “to throw”, because the ancient inhabitants were good slingers and as such served in the Roman and Carthaginian armies, earlier called Gymnesiae Insulae after the almost naked horsemen, a group of islands in the western Mediterranean. The name includes in the narrower sense, ¶ the two principal islands, lying to the north-east: Mallorca (Insula Major, since the time of Procopius Majorica, Majorca) and Minorca (Insula Minor, Minorica) wi…

The Banū Ḏj̲ahwar were an oldestablished influential A r a b family in Cordova, which produced numerous scholars, jurists and particularly viziers. After the fall of the Umaiyads the shrewd vizier of the last of them, Abu ’l-Ḥazm Ḏj̲ahwar b. Muḥammad b. Ḏj̲ahwar made himself President of the republic or Regent ( Raʾīs) of Cordova 422—435 = 1031—1043. Dozy ( Histoire, iv. 298) makes his son Abu ’l-Walīd Muḥammad b. Ḏj̲ahwar reign from 1043—1064, while Lane-Poole, Mohammadan Dynasties gives his date as 435—450=1043—1058 and his son Abd al-Malik’s correspondingly 1064—1070 …

(Portuguese: Albuera, variants Albufeira, Albuera; from Arabic al-buḥaira, small sea, lake) is the name of a lagoon near Valencia, the Palus Naccararum of the ancients. Part of it has been drained both with the alluvium and by artificial means, and is now used for growing rice. (C. F. Seybold)

The Bānū Ḏh̲i ’l-Nūn were an influential Berber family of the Huwāra tribe, who migrated into Spain at quite an early period where, during the rebellions against Muḥammad I. (238—273 = 852—886) and ʿAbdallāh (275—300 = 888—912) Amīrs of Córdoba, they played a part as leaders of a robber band of rebels, northeast of Toledo in S̲h̲antaberīya (Santaver on the Guadiela), Webd̲h̲a (Huete) and Uḳlīs̲h̲ (Uclés). After the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the first quarter of the xith century the first independent king of Toledo of the new dynasty, Yaʿīs̲h̲ b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿīs̲…

(or algeciras), Arabic: al-Ḏj̲azīra al-Ḵh̲aḍrāʾ, “the green island” (named after the Isla Verde lying in front of it), sometimes called Ḏj̲azīrat Umm Ḥakīm, the first Spanish town taken by Ṭarīf, in Ramaḍān 91 (Juiy 710). It lies on the bay of Algeciras or of Gibraltar, and, together with the latter place, served the Arabs as a harbour and dockyard. The first governors, and after them the Umaiyads, the petty kings, the Almoravids, the Almohads and the Naṣrids all used to cross to the African coas…

is the chief town in the northeastern district of the Spanish province of Alicante, the most southerly of the three modern provinces (Castellón de la Plana, Valencia, Alicante) which make up the ancient kingdom of Valencia, with 14,000 inhabitants, situated almost at the southeast end of the Gulf of Valencia (Sinus Sucronensis) north of Mongo (2196 feet high), in Arabic Ḏj̲ebel Ḳāʿūn = Mon(t)gó, was on account of its good harbour, northwest of the ancient Promontorium Artemisium, Ferrarium or T…

(from Arabic al-ḳāḍī = judge) is a Spanish name for “mayor”, not to be confused with alcaide (from al-ḳāʾid = leader, general) which in Spanish means “commandant of a fortress”, “steward of a castle”. (C. F. Seybold)

, the capital of the Spanish province of the same name, on the plateau (2000 feet high) of northeastern Castile, with 12,000 inhabitants, is the ancient Arriaca (from arri, Basque “stone”) on the left (eastern) bank of the Henares, which the Arabs called Wādi ’l-Ḥid̲j̲āra “Stone-river” ( amnis lapidum in Rodericus Toletanus), whence the name Guadalaxara, ¶ the modern Guadalajara, which was then transferred to the town and used particularly of it; the latter was also called Madīnat al-Farad̲j̲, which might be translated “city of joy”, if a note by al-Yaʿḳūbī did not inform…

(from Arabic al-Ḥamma and al-Ḥāmma, “the hot bath”) is the name of various places and of a few streams in Spain, the best known being (1) Alhama, south-west of Granada at the northern foot of the Sierra de Alhama and on the Rio Alhama; in 1482 it was surprised and taken by Ferdinand the Catholic of Aragon, the prelude to the conquest of Granada 1492, cf. the well-known popular ballad); on December 25th 1884 it was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake. (2) Alhama on the upper Jalón, south-west of Saragossa, the ancient Aquae Bilbilitanae. (3) Alhama between Murcia and Lorca. (C. F. Seybo…

b. Mūsā b. Nuṣair, a governor. When his father, the famous conqueror of Spain, left this country in the year 95 (713), he remained behind as governor and married the widow of the Gothic king Roderick, named by the Arabs Eyilo, Ailo (Egilona), or Umm ʿĀṣim after her son. According to al-Wāḳidī and other Arabian chroniclers, it was the arrogance of this woman which caused the Arab troops to murder him in the year 97 (715) in the monastery of Santa Rufina near Seville, to day known as the Convento Cap…

, a ruined mountain fortress in Andalusia. After Casiri and Conde Bobastro had been confused with the Babastro in Aragon and also with Huéscar in the extreme north east of the province of Granada Dozy thought ( Recherches I, 323—327 and Histoire des Musulmans II, 195), that it ought to be identified with the ruins of the ancient Municipium Singiliense Barbastrense (Singilia Barba), the modéra el Castillon near Teba, west of Antequera in the upper Guadalhorce valley. Simonet more correctly seeks to connect it with Estébanez Calderon betwe…

, a small Spanish town in the north-west of the present province of Valencia, on the eastern slopes of the Guadalaviar-Turia valley, in Arabic al-Būnt, al-Bont, al-Font; after the fall of the Umaiyads of Cordova it had a dynasty of its own, the Banū Ḳāsim: ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḳāsim al-Fihrī Niẓām al-Dawla till 1030, his son Muḥammed Yumn al-Dawla and his grandson Aḥmed ʿAḍud al-Dawla till 1048-1049, and his brother ʿAbd Allāh II. Ḏj̲anāḥ al-Dawla 1048-1049 till 1092; then it fell to the Almoravids and…

(rarely also in an older form Cáliz), written Cadix in French, Portugese and German, but pronounced Cádiz, Cadice (whence Cadissen, Spanish Gaditano, German Cadizer) is at the present day the capital of the province of the same name, the most southern of Spain, with 70,000 inhabitants, lying on the Bay and Gulf of Cádiz on the Atlantic Ocean northwest of the straits of Gibraltar. It was founded about 1100 B. C. by Phoenicians from Sidon as a depot for the tin which was brought from the Cassiterides (B…

, the capital of a district in the eastern province of Seville in Spain with 25,000 inhabitants, is picturesquely situated on the left bank of the lower course of the Genil, which is navigable below it, in a torrid valley, — whence it is called el Sarten de España “the bakehouse of Spain”; its streets are narrow and its church towers (formerly minarets) covered with azulejos. It is the ancient Iberian Astigi of which the Arabs made Istid̲j̲a, Estid̲j̲a (rarely Essid̲j̲a in this period) whence is derived the Spanish Écija (st > c, z, as in Basti, Basṭa, Baza; Caesaraugusta, …

(also Abencerrages), an Arabian noble family, whose name occurs only in the mythical history of the last days of Granada, and who are said to have been treacherously murdered by Boabdil in the Alhambra. The myth no doubt refers to executions under Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī (1461—1482); comp. Müller, Der Islam im Morgen- und Abendland, ii. 672, 676, who, however, also endeavors (as does Schack, Poesie und Kunst der Araber in Spanien und Sicilien, 2d ed., ii. 135: Ibn al-Sarrād̲j̲) to derive the name from Ibn Sarrād̲j̲, “the son of the saddler“ (as the name of a former vizier)…

, situated at the foot on the north east of the Iabalcuz (= Ḏj̲abal Kūz), west of the Guadalbullón, is the capital (1700 feet above sea level; 30,000 inhabitants) of the Spanish province of the same name (300,000 inhabitants), the area in which the Guadalquivir-Baetis takes its rise in Upper Andalusia; Andalusia in ¶ the narrower use of the word (el Andalucía) comprises the whole basin of the Baetis and its tributaries and from west to east includes the five modern provinces of Huelva, Cádiz, Sevilla, Córdoba and Jaén, while Andalusia in the wider…

, capital of the modern Spanish province and of the former kingdom of Granada, which, besides the present province, included in addition practically the province of Málaga in the west and that of Almería in the east, has at the ¶ present day 80,000 inhabitants, while at the end of the Moorish period it sheltered half a million within its walls. It lies 2200 feet above sea-level at the foot of the northwestern spurs (Sierra del Sol) of the Sierra Nevada (Cerro de Mul(a)hacén 11,600 feet high, called after ʿAlī Abu ’l-Ḥasan 1461—1485) on the right (north) bank of the Genii (Jenil, Latin Singilis, A…

, Ḏh̲u ’l-Wizāratain (holder of the two vizierates, wizārat al-ḳalam, vizier of the pen, secretary of state, and wizārat al-saif, vizierate of the sword, generalissimo = Grand Vizier, Prime Minister, cf. Dozy, Supplement) Lisān al-Dīn ( laḳab) Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmed al-Salmānī (from the clan of the Yemenī Murād, Salmān, with an allusion to the name of Salmān al-Fārisī [q. v.]) a member of a family, which had migrated from Syria to Spain, Cordova, Toledo, Loja, Granada, and which had for…

is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name, which forms the north-western part of the ancient kingdom of Murcia, south-east of the Mancha and the province of New Castile. It is situated on the south-eastern slope of the central Iberian Meseta, at an elevation of 2300 ft. The modern name comes from Arabic ¶ al-Basīṭ, “lugar ancho y estendido y llano y raso”, not from al-Basīṭa, “the plain”, as one still often reads. The place and its name are found for the first time in al-Ḍabbī of Cordova and in Ibn al-Abbār of Valencia, who both wrote in the 13th century; they mention it in connect…

, Alguazil, Alguazir, Aguazil, Aguazil, Alvazil, Alvazir etc., from Arabic al-wezīr, was originally used in Spain to denote a minister of state, the Prime Minister being called ḥad̲j̲ib (chamberlain; e. g. al-Manṣūr, ḥād̲j̲ib of the Umaiyads al-Ḥakam II and His̲h̲ām II). It was further applied to a governor of a city, and to the chief or even to the usher of a court, in which sense it is still in use in modern Spanish: see Dozy and Engelmann, Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais (2nd ed.) p. 129-130; Gayangos, History i. XXVIII et seq., 102, 397. (C. F. Seybold).

The Ḥammūdids are the successors of the two sons of the descendant of the Prophet Ḥammūd b. Maimūn b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. ʿUbaid ʿAllāh b. ʿOmar b. Idrīs b.ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, who are connected with the Idrīsids of Morocco (172—375 = 788—985) through Idrls b. ʿAbd Allāh [q. v.] founder of the dynasty. In the confusion of the civil war that preceded the fall of the Umaiyads ¶ of Cordova, the elder brother, al-Ḳāsim, obtained the governorship of Algeciras [q. v.] and his ambitious younger brother ʿAlī that of Tangier and Ceuta. After conquering Mal…

, Arab. Wādī or Nahr Yāna or Āna or Ānā (s. Yāḳūt), river Āna = Anas of the ancients, the Portuguese Odiana, the second most southerly of the four great rivers of the Iberian peninsula flowing into the Atlantic Ocean after parallel courses from N. E. to S. W., only navigable for 40 miles from its mouth, rises in the mountains of the eastern Iberian border of the central tableland (Meseta) in the Serrania de Cuenca, as, according to more recent geographers (notably Theobald Fischer), the Záncara (in the N. E.) …

, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad b. ʿAmīra (not al-Ḳurṭubī), a Spanish Arab scholar of the vith (xiith) century, was born at Vélez (Rubio, Blanco) west of Lorca, as appears practically certain from references to himself and his family in his work, and began his studies in the latter town when not yet 10 years of age: except for his journeys to North Africa — Sebta (Ceuta), Marrākus̲h̲, Bid̲j̲āya (Bougie), and Alexandria — he seems to have spent most of his life in Mursiya (Murcia) and to have died at the end…

(from Arabic al-ḳalʿa = castle, fortress, citadel) is the name of numerous Spanish towns. The most famous are: Alcala de Henares, the ancient Complutum, taken in 1118 from the Arabs by the Archbishop of Toledo, and afterwards in vain attacked by the Almohades; Alcalá la Real, northwest of Granada, in Arabic called Ḳalʿat Banī Saʿīd or Ḳalʿat Yaḥsib because this family, which owes its fame to the learned Ibn Saʿīd, was descended fromYaḥṣib of Yemen; Alcalá del Rio; Alcalá de Guadaira (near Seville). [Cp. cala…, cal(a)ta…]. — Cp. Maḳḳarī i. 681. (C F. Seybold)

, a town in Andalusia, 25 miles east of Seville with a population at the present day of 17,000, is the ancient Roman Carmo (probably previously an ancient Iberian town of the Turdetani, but the name is not to be derived from the Phoenician kerem, vineyard, as some fanciful etymologists have proposed). As a strong fortress on a height commanding wide plains, it played a part on Caesar’s side and afterwards had the right to strike its own coins. In 712 it was taken by Mūsā b. Nuṣair and henceforth bore the Arabic name Ḳarmūna (pronounced Ḳa…

, Abu ’l-Walīd al-Raḍī or al-ʿĀdil, son of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I [q. v.], was the second Umaiyad Emīr of Cordova (172—180 = 788—796). Although more humane, just and pious than his energetic, cunning father, he was able to maintain himself against his rebellious brothers and to carry the Muslim arms once more, after an interval of several decades, into the Christian lands to the north and even into southern France, as far as Astorga, Oviedo, Gerona, and Narbonne. It was he who first gave a stimulus to the …

, al-Muʿtadd, son of the incapable, ephemeral Caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥmān IV al-Murtaḍā (408 = 1018) great great-grandson of the great ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III (912—961), was the sixteenth and last feeble Umaiyad of Cordova, who could not prevent the breaking up of the great. caliphate into smaller and smaller local kingdoms (Span. Reyes de Taifas, arab. Mulūk al-Ṭawāʾif) which had been going on since the beginning of the xith century: 418—422 = 1027—1031 (died 1036). (C. F. Seybold) Bibliography Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne, iii. 131 sq., 177 sqq., iv. 18 sqq. Aug. Müller, Der Islam etc.,…

, Arab. Ḳalʿat Rabāḥ, “Rabāḥ’s citadel”, called after the tābiʿ and dâk̲h̲il ʿAlī b. Rabāḥ al-Lak̲h̲mī (cf. Calatayud (Bilbilis) = Ḳalʿat Aiyūb from the tābiʿ and dāk̲h̲il Aiyūb b. Ḥabīb al-Lak̲h̲mī) was an important bulwark of Arab power (perhaps built on Roman or Iberian ruins?) north-east of the modern Ciudad. Real on the left bank of the upper G u ad i an a just below the union of the three rivers which form it, the Záncara-Gigüela, Guadiana Alto and Bajo-Azuer, one league north of the modern Carrion de Calatrava. Th…

ʿOmar al-Ballūṭī al-Beṭrōd̲j̲ī al-Iḳrīṭis̲h̲ī, of Beṭrōd̲j̲ (= Pedroche) in the Faḥṣ al-Ballūt (i. e. Los Pedroches north of Cordova in the Sierra Morena), leader of the Rabaḍīyūn, who in the year 199 (814) were driven out of the south-west suburb ( Rabaḍ) of Cordova by al-Ḥakam I al-Rabaḍī, and who for a long time held their ground in Egypt, especially in Alexandria. Being driven out of that town by the ʿAbbāsides, they subjugated the isle of Crete in 210 (825). There Abū Ḥafṣ ʿOmar founded a dynasty which held out against the Byzantines till 350 (961). (C. F. Seybold) Bibliography Yāḳūt, Muʿd…

, at the present day, the fortified capital of the province, the largest in Spain of the same name, the southern half of Spanish Estremadura, on the left shore of the Guadiana before its bend to the South on the Portuguese border (31,000 inhabitants). The identification of the town with and the derivation of the name from Pax (Julia) Augusta or Colonia Pacensis is without foundation and has arisen from an error of local patriotism as the latter certainly is Beja in Portugal (Arab. Bād̲j̲a = Bēd̲…

(formerly usually written Edrisi) Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Idrīs al-Ḥammūdī (see above Ḥammūdids) al-Ḥasanī, usually al-S̲h̲arīf al-Idrīsī (as a descendant of the Prophet), was born at Ceuta in 493 (1100), died in 560 (1166) (cf. especially Khed. Libr., Fihrist al-Kutub al-ʿArabīya, v. 166), studied in Cordova, thence called al-Ḳurṭubī ( Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula, p. 610 and the Italian version, ii. 487), while the kunya and nisba, Ibn al-T̲h̲a(y)rī given by Ibn Bas̲h̲rūn in the Ḵh̲arīda of ʿImād al-Dīn is still unexplained, after various travels …

, from Arabic al-ḳulaiʿa (“small fortress, castillejo”), the diminutive of al-ḳalʿa [cp. alcala], is the name of various places in Spain (f. i. at the south-eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada), in most cases with a specifying addition: Alcoléa de Tajo, de Cinca, del Rio, de Calatrava etc. — Alcoléa is also the name of the massive bridge and the old locality 7½ miles above Cordova on the Guadalquivir, which played a part in 1236, 1808 and 28 September 1868 (victory of the insurgents over the troops of Isabella II). (C. F. Seybold)

, Arabic al-maʿdin, mine, and generally speaking a spot where something is found in abundance, e. g. also a (pearl-) fishing place, is especially the name of the ancient large quick silver-mine in the centre of the Pyrenean peninsula, in the South West of the province now called Ciudad Real, the old Sisapon, Arabic al-Maʿdin or Maʿdin al-Zāwūk (pron. azzawḳ in Spain) = Almadén de Azogue (quicksilver-mine). To the east of it, at the northern foot of the Sierra de la Alcudia, is still found the mine Al-madenejos; to the northwest S̲h̲illōn = Chillón mentioned b…

, Arabic dynasty of Seville, which reigned from 414 (or 422) to 484 = 1023 (or 1031)—1091. The ʿAbbādides founded the most important and brilliant principality amongst the numerous little states which arose in the eleventh century on the dismemberment of the Mussulman empire in Spain after the fall of the Umaiyad caliphate of Cordova (422 = 1031). These petty kings were called Reyes de Taifas, in Arabic: Mulūk al-Ṭawāʾif, like the dynasties founded by the successors of Alexander. The founder of the dynasty was the ḳādī Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Muḥammed I b. Ismaʿīl, of the Y…

, from the Arabic Ilbīra (rarely Lebīra and Yelbīra; this should be read in Yāḳūt, i. 348 with Fleischer, v. 40 instead of Belbīra) from old Iberian Il (l) ĭbēri, Ilĭberri, also Elibēri, Elberri etc. = New Town: ili town berri new (Municipium Florentinum Iliberritanum of the Romans) was in the later period of the Arab conquest and under the Umaiyads the name of the province afterwards called Granada, whose Arab capital was at that time Ḳasṭīliya or Medīnat Ilbīra, only incorrectly called Ilbīra alone, and lay 1¼ miles N. W. of Granada, N. of the Genil between the modern Atarf (Arab. al-Ṭarf) and…

, a rocky limestone peninsula belonging to Great Britain in the S. E. of the Spanish province of Cádiz [q. v., i. 810] almost the most southerly point in Spain (3 miles from N. to S., greatest breadth one mile with an area of 2 square miles and greatest height 1439 feet) with a town and harbour of the same name lying along the gentler western slope, with ¶ 28,000 Spanish, English, Jewish and Moroccan inhabitants (including a garrison of 7000 men). Being the key of the Mediterranean it is very strongly fortified and honeycombed with batteries; in the Bay of Gibra…

b. al-Manṣūr Muḥammed, the last ʿĀmiride of Cordova. After the premature death of his brother ʿAbd al-Malik b. al-Manṣūr [q. v.] he became in the year 399(1008) imperial administrator (Ḥād̲j̲ib) with the surname al-Nāṣir for the Umaiyad pretender-caliph, His̲h̲ām II. He was born about 376 (986) of a Christian princess, the daughter of a certain Sancho, for which reason he is also sometimes called Sanchol, i. e. little Sancho. On account of his origin he was but little loved by the Mussulmans, and …

(for the etym. cp. the preceding article) is a Portuguese sea-port town in Algarve. (C. F. Seybold)

(from Arabic al-ḳanṭara, probably a Greek loanword = χέντρον, centrum), Spanish = “bridge” (mostly with stone arches), also “aqueduct”. The town of Alcántara (Arabic Ḳanṭarat al-Saif) on the Tagus, close to the Portuguese frontier, owes its fame to the order of knighthood, which was founded in 1156 for the war against the Moors and from 1213 had its seat in this town, which in 1166 had been captured by Ferdinand of Leon. The order has since been called after it. — The name of Alcántara is also giv…

, the capital (situated close to the site of the old Urci) of the most eastern province ¶ of old Andalusia and the former kingdom of Granada, — in Arabic al-Merīya or Merīyat Bed̲j̲āna, i. e. “the watch-tower of Bed̲j̲āna” (= Pechina; the old capital of the province, farther inland), had an important arsenal and harbour from the time of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I (756-788). After the fall of the Umaiyads it was independent under the Slav Ḵh̲airān till 1028, then under Zuhair till 1038; subsequently under ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Manṣūr of Valencia, next under the Banū Ṣumādiḥ (cf. Dozy, Recherches, 3rd ed., i.…