Medieval al-Andalus in the Age of Populism

In the eleventh century, al-Andalus, or Muslim Iberia, transitioned from a unified caliphate to almost two dozen fractious city-states. Over the next two centuries, Christian kings and Muslim leaders from North Africa conquered each of these competing states and fought one another for control of al-Andalus. The Andalusi leadership meanwhile was kept from the halls of power, save for the occasional short-lived emirate or rebellion, until the rise of Nasrid Granada. These two-hundred years of disunity create a historiographical problem in which scholars are haunted by the existence of Andalusi unity and struggle to explain the inability or unwillingness to regain it. Medieval and modern explanations for the disunity center on a populism at work in al-Andalus and highlight incidents where Andalusis seem to follow any charismatic leader. However, these interpretations do not define populism, but instead they assume centralized monarchies as a standard and betray a modern preference for political pragmatism. Moreover, they discount how Christian and Muslim kings and leaders in Iberia and the wider Mediterranean used populism and political adventurism as methods for legitimating their rule. This paper provides a definition for Andalusi populism and moves this maligned topic from the periphery—a sign of something wrong—to the center in order to describe the methods behind the displays, symbols, and actions of thirteenth-century Andalusi leaders. It also compares these methods to other forms of populism across the medieval Mediterranean world in order to demonstrate how Andalusi politics reflects the wider milieu rather stands apart from it.