Session Abstract

The Muslim conquest and settlement of Iberia created an experimental laboratory of relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews on the Iberian Peninsula.  Historians have long been fascinated by the ways that these individuals and communities interacted with one another, both peacefully and violently.  Islam's presence in medieval Iberia also contributed to a constant shifting and at-times fluid negotiation of political boundaries, identities, and power relations.  Its hold on Iberia additionally meant that this peninsula in western Europe would be connected to North Africa as well as the Islamic world of the eastern Mediterranean.  Papers in this session consider the unusual dynamics created by Islam’s entry and development in Iberia.