Las Navas de Tolosa, the urban transformation of the Maghrib, and the territorial decline of al-Andalus

Author's Department

Arab & Islamic Civilizations Department

Find in your Library

https://doi.org/10.1080/17546559.2012.677165

Document Type

Research Article

Publication Title

Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies

Publication Date

3-1-2012

doi

10.1080/17546559.2012.677165

Abstract

The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa occurred in the context of a major transformation of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib. This article foregrounds the urban transformation of the Far Maghrib, with the emergence of large-scale state formation, and argues that the displacement of Muslim political and military power from the peninsula to the Far Maghrib was a key reason for the marginalization and territorial decline of al-Andalus during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Viewed in this context, the loss at Las Navas de Tolosa was but one of the results of larger socio-historical processes. These included the intensification of commercial contacts-across the Sahara, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Christian-Muslim frontier-the militarization and solidification of the frontier in the social imagination of Muslim and Christian societies, and the appearance of new popular religious movements. © 2012 Taylor & Francis LLC.

First Page

27

Last Page

32

This document is currently not available here.

Find this item online

Share

COinS