A few months ago I took a high-speed train from Madrid to Córdoba, and then travelled by bus through the mountains to Granada. My ultimate destination was the Alhambra, the exquisitely designed fort and palace that was the last bastion of Islamic rule in Spain. I wanted to find out what was left of Al-Andalus, the Islamic caliphate that ruled Spain for 800 years from 711 to 1492 and gave its name to Andalusia. The caliphate had once stretched as far north as Zaragoza. I was also intrigued by the rise of Vox, a new far-right party, which is violently opposed to Muslim immigration and has called for the forced deportation of extremist imams.
Islamist groups have compared the loss of Al-Andalus to the dispossession of the Palestinians in the modern era. One jihadi, who went from Spain to join Isis in Syria and called himself El Cordobés (“The Cordoban”), proclaimed in propaganda videos, in fluent Andalusian Spanish, that “the Muslims will take revenge for the Muslim blood spilled in the long war for Al-Andalus”.
Content from our partners
