Arab Influences In Spain

Spain is a very well-known country, and one of its aspects that makes it different from other countries is that it contains a rich presence of Arab influences on Spanish culture and tradition. The Arab influences in Spain can be dated back to a time before it was one country and under the name of Spain. From 711 to 1492, the Moors, or the Arab Muslims from northern Africa, occupied an area in southern Spain called Al-Andalus, now known as Andalucía. The 800-year period that they occupied this land was a period of rich cultural exchange in agriculture, architecture, the arts, mathematics, and the sciences. In 711, when the first Arab groups began to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and to arrive at the Iberian Peninsula, this area was formed by
The Spanish language contains numerous words that are of Arabic descent, about 4,000 words to be exact. Muslims who were in the region that is now modern-day Spain at the time introduced many important, cultural innovations, such as alchemy, which is what chemistry originates from, algebra, the popular game of chess, the number zero (0), the use of Arabic numbers instead of Roman numerals, and Aristotelian philosophy, which had been lost in the rest of Europe. Spanish music was also influenced by the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula. The instruments and melodies that the Muslims brought to this region would later evolve into flamenco, which is a musical genre that shares many elements with traditional music from northern Africa, and the guitar. Spanish cooking also uses spices and herbs originally from northern Africa. For example, the garbanzo bean is from there. Although this bean is rarely used on the continent of Europe, it is a common feature of Spanish cuisine. Arabic words in Spanish mostly share certain traits: most of them are nouns and names of places, very few of them are verbs and adjectives, and only one of them is a preposition (It is