Chapter 8 A City for Muslim Power: Topography, Spaces, and Administration
In: A Companion to Late Antique and Medieval Islamic CordobaSearch for other papers by Mohamed Meouak in
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Abstract
This study deals with the topography of power during the Umayyad reign in Cordoba. It is based on some historiographical elements and Arabic documentation. First, we will dwell on research on the city of Cordoba as the capital of Umayyad power carried out by historians, Arabists, and archaeologists, who have treated the subject according to specific methodological approaches. Then, we will look over some of Cordoba’s topographical spaces in relation to power in order to remember the emblematic places of the Umayyad state according to the written sources. The next step will be to understand other, what we call “virtual,” spaces of which nothing precise about their true location is known, despite representing fundamental places in the central administration, such as the ḥijāba and the wizāra. Finally, we will briefly comment on the end of the Umayyad dynasty and the transition towards the first Taifas and the Almoravid and Almohad periods.