Al-AndalusAl-Andalus (الأَنْدَلُس) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern Spain, Portugal and France. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th Century) under Umayyad rule. For nearly 100 years, from the 9th century to the 10th, al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids.
AlmanzorAbu ʿĀmir Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Abi ʿĀmir al-Maʿafiri (أبو عامر محمد بن عبد الله بن أبي عامر المعافري), nicknamed al-Manṣūr (المنصور, "the Victorious"), which is often Latinized as Almanzor in Spanish or Almansor in Catalan (c. 938 – 8 August 1002), was a Muslim Arab Andalusi military leader and statesman. As the chancellor of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba and hajib (chamberlain) for the weak Caliph Hisham II, Almanzor was the de facto ruler of Islamic Iberia.
HammamA hammam (حمّام, hamam) or Turkish bath is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited from the model of the Roman thermae. Muslim bathhouses or hammams were historically found across the Middle East, North Africa, al-Andalus (Islamic Spain and Portugal), Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and in Southeastern Europe under Ottoman rule.
Moorish architectureMoorish architecture is a style within Islamic architecture which developed in the western Islamic world, including al-Andalus (on the Iberian peninsula) and what is now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia (part of the Maghreb). Scholarly references on Islamic architecture often refer to this architectural tradition by a more geographic designation, such as architecture of the Islamic West or architecture of the Western Islamic lands. The use of the term "Moorish" comes from the historical Western European designation of the Muslim inhabitants of these regions as "Moors".
