Al-Andalus was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern-day Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain, and Southern France. The name describes the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and part of present-day southern France (Septimania) under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed constantly through a series of conquests Western historiography has traditionally characterized as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.
19th-century portrait of Abd al-Rahman I, from Estoria de España.
Interior of the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, the former Great Mosque built by Abd ar-Rahman I in 785, later expanded by his successors
Abd al-Rahman III receiving ambassador John of Gorze of Otto I the Great at the Medina Azahara, by Dionisio Baixeras Verdaguer, 1885.
A silk textile fragment from the last Muslim dynasty of Al-Andalus, the Nasrid Dynasty (1232–1492), with the epigraphic inscription "glory to our lord the Sultan".
Arabic is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).
Safaitic inscription
The Namara inscription, a sample of Nabataean script, considered a direct precursor of Arabic script.
Arabic from the Quran in the old Hijazi dialect (Hijazi script, 7th century AD)
The Qur'an has served and continues to serve as a fundamental reference for Arabic. (Maghrebi Kufic script, Blue Qur'an, 9th–10th century)