#ummayad

[catratcat]

El-Fatiha for all those muslim souls they found in Zaragoza, Spain. They weren’t Morroccan, they weren’t Tunisian or Arab. They were Spanish muslims who lived there for centuries. Spain can never deny there muslim roots, no matter how much they try.

[twelvewp]

Mosaic floor of an Ummayad house found during excavations of Tell Jawa, at Yadoudah, Jordan. This floor was later completely dug up by looters, who found nothing.

June, 1994

Ektachrome 100

[travelling-the-unknown]

The Ummayad mosque in Damascus is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. It was built on the site of a Christian basilica in 634 and it's where Muslims believe that Jesus (عيسى) will return to Earth at the end of days. #damascus #damascene #ummayad #mosque #islamic #old #old_damascus #oldworld #history #jesus #christianity #islam #syria #syrian #syriatourism #syriatrip #syrian #syria2019 #architecture #beauty #دمشق #الشام #عيسى #سوريا #سورية #سوري #أموي #الجامع#الأموي #الأمويين #الشرق (at Damascus, Syria) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2zrnPEoyl0/?igshid=1w0u3pgewh3jm

[cykragnostic]

Khilafat al-Hijra al-Sarmadiyya -- how Ladino speaking wizard paladins ended up beyond Samarqand

I once limned a chivalrous or at least armigerous order paladins trained in wizardly arts, the better to battle otherworldly menace; inspired by David Eddings Pandion Knights of his Elenium trilogy*, and charged with the exhileration surrounding the earliest GURPS Dungeon Fantasy; I seem to recall I imagined these fellows as Ladino-speaking Iberian Muslims now living on the other side of a central Asian gateway to a magical world. This world had been discovered & colonized by many peoples with motivation to flee the Iranian and Silk Road part of the Old Oikumene, id est:

Buddhist adventurer-ascetics and princes looking for new lands to defend the Dharma;

Zoroastrian refugees from Islam;

Manichaean refugees from everybody, as well as true Elect in touch with the purer air of an unpeopled world;

Medean Magi, disenchanted with the whole Achaemenid fiasco prior to their putting on the role of priestly caste;

any number of Mesopotamian magicians and star-cultists in search of stars not yet depleted by ritual, nor their intelligences and spirits rendedered sullen;

Greeks of all stripes, gnostic Syrians, Hermetic & Egyptian Judaeans, Judaizing & Gnosticizing Christians, radical Hedonists & Stoics;

Judaean mercenaries and engineers, Judaean thaumaturges;

and surely some of the Terrestrial dragons, manticores, harpies, giants, titans, etc., made their way to a world of more sustaining magic and fewer bloody humans.

Part of my interest was in seeding a fantasy world with real religions and magical traditions and not dealing with orthodox Christianity. But…how did Ladino speakers make it through the Gate beyond Samarqand, Samarkándê?

The Khilâfa al-Hijra al-Saramdiyya (the Succession of the Semptiternal Migration). Descended from partisans of an Umayyad lesser prince --some grandson or grand nephew of Saqr Quraysh, that Falcon Abd al-Rahman I who fled Abbassid knives to the end of the world. Said prince grew up with a head full of dashing violence and intrigues prosecuted amidst rose gardens. He tried to strike out on his own deep in the northern forests of the Peninsula, but his recruitment of chivalrous companions turned into a palace rebellion, for the Caliph, God's Shadow on Earth, took a dim view of splitting off without his decree. The prince kept his neck a few months through the skills of his chance-won allies: Jewish thaumaturges and questionably monotheist Hermetists, who found young Zayd's head full of just the right nonsense to finance their magics. They had long made common cause against the unwashed Franks' aggressive Order of Hermes (a typical piece of Rumi cant; those wizards have no truck with Egyptian or Roman Hermes, and fight only for their own love of fire and earthquakes, and that they might maim the bodies of fallen Magi, the magical power in their blood, heart, eyes, or as much as the ghouls can drag away!).

The Wise of Iberia knew of ancient reserves of power in sites in northern valleys, in caves and shrines and cyclopean carvings upon mountain faces. A prince in search of a new kingdom would not scruple at one defended merely by winter snows and the rumor of ghosts? Saracens don't even believe in ghosts! But the Order of Hermes beat the Wise to the vis-rich sites of Taraconensis, and took their fight all the way to Qurtuba. Zayd was killed; his fate at the hands of the Franks is a story for another time. The rebel's three sons, now tempered hard and sharp by two years of attrocity and sorcerous battle, could expect no quarter from the Franks nor pardon from the Commander of the Faithful. In counsel with the most powerful and otherwordly survivors of the Wise of Ibera, the Three Princes lead the escape of their companions and retainers, all family and children, aged relatives and as many children orphaned by Zayd's folly.

How, then, did at last they arrive beyond ancient Samarqand? Magic, dear sister; magic, courage, cunning, shipwreck, pursuit by Frank, pursuit by Greek assassin… the escape seemed without hope of final refuge from the malice of their enemies and the envy of wicked beings who scented the aroma of wizardry within the stench of desperation and exhaustion. The Hijrat al-Khilafa lasted a generation, then two; and with the third generation, the alloy of Qurayshi valor and Iberian wizardry gave strength to a life of flight with no earthly ally. The piety and fervor of the partisans grew with their cunning and secrecy, and they witness for themselves that God is with the migrant who flees not for wordly aims but for the sake of God alone. Martial virtue, magical art, and the true patience of the faithful: these clothed the backs of the Succession of the Perennial Migration as they won the knowledge of the Gate beyond Samarqand, and this combination has given strength to the best of the Succession in its new world. Wa-llahu a`lam -- God knows better...

[travelling-the-unknown]

The city of Damascus, Syria, is one of the most beautiful I've ever been to. With bustling markets, stunning architecture, and some of the world's most hospitable people, the city surely took me by surprise. I spent three days here in November 2018, and I was able to see a beautiful side of a country whose image has been largely damaged in recent years. I've got a vlog/documentary regarding my trip, which I'll soon put up on my YouTube channel. I travelled there with @chad122 and we met up with locals once there. Please don't comment saying "you're crazy to go there", as the city is safe (especially when with locals). Think what you want, but please keep it to yourself. #damascus #syria #tourism #ummayad #souq #markets #mountains #adventure #old #adventure #unusual #middleeast #travel #travelling #hospitality #arab #syrians (at Damascus, Syria) https://www.instagram.com/p/BquGLnoDQp0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=uw82w0r6esp1

[notyourbusinessanyway]

Speaking about historical accuracy in The Musketeers

As a spaniard I think I need to clarify some points about the moors. First a little of Spanish History:

The Umayyad were a family from Mecca and closely related to Mahoma itself. They ruled an empire, the Ummayad Caliphate. In the VIII century they invaded Spain and Portugal, all the peninsula except the northern coast, and called it Al-Andalus. The Caliphate those days comprehended the nort of Africa, the arabic peninsula, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and almost all those countries ended in -stan. And a bit of Turkey.

Well, they weren't black. The noble ones were arabs, and were only a few. The rest were moors, inhabitants of Nort Africa, and they weren't black either. The Umayyad Caliphate didn't include any country with a high population of black people.

The Iberic Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) before the moors came weren't a country, but a buch of little kingdoms, pretty much like any European country those days. They slowly expeled the moors, recovering their territories, but it took seven centuries. The muslims remain in Spain for seven centuries, and they never sent settlers from north africa: the troops just married spanish women and settled. That's it. And it wasn't an open war, just a bunch of noblemen fighting each other. Sometimes a christian noble formed an alliance with a muslim noble against another random noble. And there were a lot of mixed marriages even between noblemen, and conversions into Islam.

So, after seven centuries christians miraculously managed to recover the whole peninsula excepting a little bit in the south, the Emirate of Granada. Well, as you could easily suposse, the moors those days didn't look so different than the christians. In fact, the founder of the last dinasty of sultans of Granda was called Muhammed I ibn Nasr The Red (Al-Ahmar) because of his hair colour. So a moor was just a random spanish who happened to be a muslim and had an arab name. But their faces were as white as anyone else.

And the last muslim king of Spain was defeated and expeled in 1492, the same year Columbus "discovered" America. Then, all muslim population (and jews) were forced to convert into catholicism or expeled. A huge miskate that almost destroyed the country, done to be on well terms with the Pope. 

Now, back into the Musketeers. The age is 1631. Spain has been fully catholic for more than a century. No muslims allowed. The descendants of the few moors that remained in Spain are catholic now, and have catholic names (they had to). No noblemen with arab names. Alliances between christians and muslims were common a few centuries ago, but now Spain is a fully catholic (furiously catholic if you ask me). The ruler of Spain, King Philiph IV is the grand grand grand grand grand son of the King who expeled the moors. Maybe his grand x 7 father could have had a muslim noblemen in his court, but Philiph IV of Spain, the brother of Queen Anne of France, was a very catholic man. VERY.

But there where black people in Europe, and they were called "moors", as in the Shakespeare play "Othello". All African people were called mooors those days, I don't know why. So:

Moors as black people: wrong.

Black people being called "moors" in Europe: right.

Spanish Moors as black people: wrong.

Spanish Moors as mixed race: kind of right.

A moor in the Spanish King's Army: wrong century

Muslims in spain being prosecuted: wrong century again.

And that's it.

[historyonweb]

Life under Umayyad rule

Under the rule of the Umayyad family in Damascus there werefour classes of citizens: Arabian Muslims; new converts; Christians, Jews and Mandaeans(a Persian sect); and slaves. The new converts included people from Egypt,Syria, Persia and Asia Minor. They adopted Arab ways, and brought to the Arabsa wealth of new learning in philosophy, medicine, art and science.

[arabswagger]

Abū ʿImrān Mūsā bin Maimūn bin ʿUbaidallāh al-Qurṭubī or "Maimonides" was a leading Ummayad Jewish Scholar that specialized in Talmudic Law which inspired Jews from Spain to Yemen.

His works codified Talmudic law through his Fourteen-Volume book "Mishneh Torah". He was born in the AlMoravid Empire which was the Golden Age of Jewish Culture and Intellectualism in Cordoba, Spain. At the time leading Muslim and Jewish Scholars had led the world in terms of Medicine, Law and Science and that eventually lead to the Renaissance of Europe.