ABSTRACT
[175] Following the line which some have called of the Banū Codera (Marín, “Arabistas en España”; Monroe), traditional Spanish Arabism has paid little attention to the Almoravid and Almohad periods, for it viewed the North African Berber empires as a foreign domination characterized by religious fanaticism, which brought to an end the culture, supposedly largely indigenous, which flourished in the Iberian Peninsula under the Umayyads and the ṭā’ifa kings. 1 The degree to which the indigenous [176] culture — Hispano-Roman and Visigoth, as well as Christian — survived in al-Andalus varies according to individual interpretation, but almost exclusive preference has been given to the study of the early centuries of Andalusi history. These centuries, considered to be an age of splendor and religious coexistence (Menocal), were more easily accepted when it came to the writing of the national history of Spain (Al-Andalus/España). It was thought to be more difficult to do the same with the political and cultural processes that took place under the Almoravids and the Almohads.
