The Roman of the Andalusians

Another story of Al-Andalus

by 'Issâ Meyer, Collection Islâm d'Europe, Éditions Ribât

From the first steps of Tariq ibn Ziyad on the soil of the Old Continent, in 92AH (711) , to the last expulsions of Moriscos, in 1023H (1614) , the Roman des Andalous unfolds a fantastic epic of 900 years of Muslim presence in Europe over convulsions of history and reversals of fortunes, conquests and exiles, triumphs and disasters. A tale of wars and clashing ambitions, therefore, but also of exchanges, encounters, waves of ideas, goods and peoples, at the crossroads of civilizations, identities, continents; and it is a bit of all this that makes al-Andalus a formidable human fresco, populated by great and less great statesmen or men of religion, of the pen or the sword.

From its birth to its extinction, it is the story of the adventures and the life of a people, which is born almost by an accident of History on the borders of the West, of which a fallen prince of the East lays the foundations. , which is shaped not without clashes before reaching its apogee under the Umayyads of Cordoba, which comes close to annihilation several times, which knows the peaks and the lowlands of the era of the great Berber dynasties then which grants itself, against all odds, another quarter of a millennium of existence under the Nasrids of Granada. A people, too, whose cultural golden age will have illuminated the world with its pioneering spirit and its society of excellence – the homeland of urban refinement, agricultural prosperity, the bubbling of knowledge, the arts and letters . It is this people, finally, which we will try to eradicate methodically, ruthlessly, even to the memory that it once existed... Without success - so much the legend of al-Andalus, nostalgic as one wishes, has survived brilliantly on both shores of the Mediterranean.

Second opus of our series on the Muslims of Europe, this great historical fresco will attempt to dispel the many myths that obscure the understanding of this complex era. Beyond that, the Roman des Andalous will be above all an ode to a vanished nation – a nation of freedom-loving warriors and poets, fiercely attached to their faith and aware of being carried by a common destiny strewn with trials.