The history of Madrid began in the ninth century, when the Umayyads decided to build fortifications in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula to defend the borders of Andalusia.

In our age of Islamophobia, it has become imperative to rediscover this hidden heritage of the Spanish capital.

There are new studies indicating that Madrid was not just a military fortress to protect the city of Toledo.

Only a few parts of the wall built by the Emir of Cordoba, Muhammad I, remain, perhaps the oldest existing buildings in this city. In the past, it represented part of the fortress that protected the city, thanks to which the urban area of ​​Madrid developed.

Maria Jesus Bigera, a Spanish historian, professor of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Arts at the prestigious Complutense University in Madrid, said that there are many historians and researchers in this country who have published a lot about the Islamic history of Madrid, but she did not find an explanation for the public's ignorance of it.

Madrid history

In an article published by the French website Orian 21, the Spanish writer and Arabist Daniel Khil bin Umayya said that Madrid is characterized by the presence of a small square where the memorial to Abu Al-Qasim Muslim bin Ahmed Al-Majriti (338 AH - 398 AH), an astronomer, chemist and mathematician.

His fame extended beyond the borders of Andalusia to spread also to Christian Europe.

He gained his fame not only for his contribution to the development of science but also for authoring the book Ghayat al-Hakim which focuses on advanced esoteric astrology, primarily astrology and exorcism.

In Madrid today, many are ignorant of its existence, even those who bear its name, as there is no written reference documenting the group of celebrities who preceded the Christian patron saint of the city, San Isidro, who was born at the end of the 11th century.

Following in the footsteps of his father, the historian and writer Daniel Khel Bani Umayyah went ahead, presenting his book “Islamic Madrid,” in which he deals with the Islamic origins of this European capital, which bears an Arabic or Berber name (Majarit from Megary) and features that have been folded by layers of history since the establishment of Prince Muhammad I bin Abd al-Rahman III As a fortress belonging to Bani Umayyah.

The Spanish writer, journalist and Arabist Khel bin Umayya (1901-1975) descended from a Granada family of Moorish origin, and was famous as one of the most important activists calling for Andalusian nationalism in his country. The intellectuals of Morocco and Egypt, where he worked academically in Tetouan and Cairo.

Banu Umayyah fort

The Umayyads decided to build a line of fortifications at the foothills of the mountains that crossed the middle of the Iberian Peninsula to defend the borders of Andalusia.

Madrid was founded as a fortress, but soon historical sources began referring to it as a city.

Then it became a center of attraction for the civilian population, as well as the capital of a small region.

The Maghreb (Sicilian) geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi wrote in the 12th century, "Among the towns with a pulpit at the foot of these mountains is Majrit, which is a small town... in Islamic times there was a large mosque where sermons were given regularly."

There are indeed many Arabic sources that mention the development of Islamic Madrid.

Some of them, like the writings of Al-Idrisi, mention this at a time when the city no longer belonged to Andalusia, due to its occupation and annexation to the Kingdom of Castile at the end of the 11th century. As for others, contemporary with the existence of Andalusian Madrid, it provides us with a lot of information about the city and its various lands, its rulers, scholars, and residents.

The only Christian source that mentions Madrid before the Castilian domination in the 11th century is a chronicle of Bishop Sampero de Leon, in which he tells how King Ramiro II of Asturias, in one of his campaigns against the land of the "Chaldeans" (a way of referring to Muslims) attacked the walls of "the city they call Majrit" “And they destroyed it.

"Madrid" was the medieval Latin and Castilian way of writing the Arabic "majrit", the origin of the city's present name.

Madrid is the only European capital of Islamic origin.

In fact, it is older than many important Arab cities today.

During the first two and a half centuries of its existence, it was located in the far north of the classical Islamic world, which at that time stretched from the Duero River to the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China.

Christian capture of the city

After its conquest by King Alfonso VI of León and Castile around 1085, the city maintained for more than 400 years a Muslim minority who controlled public works and maintained good relations with the authorities and a Christian majority.

The "Catholic Kings" Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon had decided to put an end to the religious diversity that characterized the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages.

This diversity was alien to the modern state they set out to build, as well as to their new European allies.

Antoine de Lalling says that the prince was amazed "by the large number of white Moroccans living in Spain. The Muslims of Madrid, like those in Castile, were forced to convert to Christianity in 1502 and change their Arabic names to Castilian names. When the crown finally decided a century later to expel All the "Moors" (descendants of these Muslim converts) from his kingdoms, he could not do this in Madrid, because he was not able to revolt against them because he "had a lot of people to help them and cover them up".

fake historical legacy

To understand why most Madrid residents today are ignorant of almost everything about the city's Islamic past, we have to go back to Emperor Philip II, the grandson of the person who despised the "Moors" and who decided in 1561 to make Madrid the capital of his empire.

At the time, Madrid was a small city that benefited from its central location on the Iberian Peninsula, but it did not have a huge historical heritage.

They then decided to invent history and rebuild it from scratch to make Madrid a more famous and older city than Rome, the seat of Catholic power, and Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, the former capital of the Byzantine Empire, and the seat of Orthodox Christianity.

The emperor and his successors destroyed almost all the medieval buildings of the city.

Then they ran out of money to build the mega-city they dreamed of, but they reinvented history and the Spanish court distorted and falsified the role of the "Moors" so that it seemed like a secondary role, they were no longer the founders, but simply portrayed as invaders who occupied the city for a brief period before finally expelling them from it.

The history of Madrid is in keeping with the idea that most Spaniards have of Andalusia, which is still transmitted today in schools, in popular culture, and through historical television series.

Since the days of the Habsburgs (one of Europe's most important royal families of German origin) who presented themselves as the great defenders of Catholicism against Protestants and Islam, the Spanish state has been built as predominantly Catholic and European.

Long-term "foreign domination"

The eight centuries of Andalusia's existence are still excluded from the Spanish heritage, and it is considered an unfortunate page in history that was closed once and for all with the conquest of Granada in 1492 and the expulsion of the last Muslims in 1609.

For this reason, it is not surprising that out of the approximately 10,000 names that appear on the street map of Madrid, only 3 enshrine 800 years of Andalusian history and civilization: a Muslim square, a small street dedicated to the philosopher Averroes, certainly because of his influence on the school More Christian, and a garden named after Prince Muhammad I, the founder of the city.

This is largely due to the political circumstances of the late 1980s and the existence of a period of relative sympathy for Islam.

Discover the ancient heritage

Over the past century, many remains of Andalusian Madrid have resurfaced, such as a 1,000-year-old wall fragment, artifacts associated with everyday life, and a massive Islamic cemetery.

But it is not advertised, and few people know of its existence, even though it is the oldest cemetery in the city.

Besides material remains, there is also intangible heritage.

Recent research indicates that the patron saint Isidore, a mythical figure whose origins date back to the time of the Christian conquest, is in fact a syncretic figure created from the memory of the Sufi guide, Yunus al-Azdi.

However, all this is still unknown, because there have been very few initiatives aimed at highlighting and interpreting this heritage.

The restoration of Madrid's Islamic heritage serves a double function.

On the one hand, it is the preservation and promotion of awareness as an essential element in the history of the city.

On the other hand, contributing to the perception of diversity as a component of Madrid since its founding, and as not an imported phenomenon or a recent trend.