Name of Andalusia
The toponym al-Andalus (الأندلس) is first attested in inscriptions on coins minted by the Umayyad rulers of Iberia, from ca. 715.[1]
The etymology of the name has traditionally been derived from the name of the
The Spanish form Andalucía was introduced in the 13th century.
Vandal theory
The oldest theory has it that Andalusia derives from the name of the
That derivation goes back to the 13th-century De rebus Hispaniae.[8] In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun derived the name from al-Fandalus, the Vandals.[7] Reinhart Dozy (1860) recognized the theory's shortcomings but still accepted it[9] and suggested that geographically, it originally referred only to the harbour (Iulia Traducta, probably present-day Algeciras) from which the Vandals departed Iberia in 429 for North Africa, where they would establish the Vandal Kingdom (435–534). The first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam in 1913 adopted Dozy's view, and it became the mainstream account in 20th-century scholarship.[10]
Werner Vycichl (1952) tried to put the Vandal theory on a firmer footing by suggesting that the form Wandalus, as used by the Berbers, was mistaken by Arabs for the Berber definite article w- and andalus, which with the Arabic definite article becomes al-Andalus.[7][11]
Atlantic theory
Another proposal is that Andalus is an Arabic-language version of the name of the
Vallvé writes:
Arabic texts offering the first mentions of the island of Al-Andalus and the sea of Al-Andalus become extraordinarily clear if we substitute this expressions with "Atlantis" or "Atlantic". The same can be said with reference to Hercules and the Amazons whose island, according to Arabic commentaries of these Greek and Latin legends, was located in jauf Al-Andalus—that is, to the north or interior of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Island of al-Andalus is mentioned in an anonymous Arabic chronicle of the conquest of Iberia composed two to three centuries after the fact.[12][13] It is identified as the location of the landfall of the advance guard of the
Gothic theory
Halm (1989) proposed a Gothic etymology. Drawing attention to the term Gothica sors, a
See also
- Visigothic kingdom
- Umayyad conquest of Hispania
- Reconquista
- Andalusia
References
- ^ Classical Numismatic Group, Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1804. Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006 (sold for USD 15000). Jeff Starck, "Rare Spanish Muslim coins among highlights of Morton & Eden auction", Coin World, 25 March 2014: "One of two known examples of an Umayyad dinar with the mint name al-Andalus (the Arabic name for Spain) and dated A.H. 106 (A.D. 724) highlights Morton & Eden’s April 10 auction in London."
- ^ ISBN 978-84-00-06295-8.
- ^ S2CID 161971416.
- ISSN 1861-4302. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 27, 2008. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
Only a few years after the Islamic conquest of Spain, Al-Andalus appears in coin inscriptions as the Arabic equivalent of Hispania. The traditionally held view that the etymology of this name has to do with the Vandals is shown to have no serlous foundation. The phonetic, morphosyntactic, and also historical problems connected with this etymology are too numerous. Moreover, the existence of this name in various parts of central and northern Spain proves that Al-Andalus cannot be derived from this Germanic tribe. It was the original name of the Punta Marroquí cape near Tarifa; very soon, it became generalized to designate the whole Peninsula. Undoubtedly, the name is of Pre-Indo-European origin. The parts of this compound (anda and luz) are frequent in the indigenous toponymy of the Iberian Peninsula.
- ^ Federico Corriente Córdoba (2008), "Coptic loanwords of Egyptian Arabic in comparison with the parallel case of Romance loanwords in Andalusi Arabic, with the true Egyptian etymon of Al-Andalus", Collectanea Christiana Orientalia, 5: 59–124, at 115–118.
- ISBN 978-84-472-0485-4.
- ^ a b c Alejandro García Sanjuán (2017), "al-Andalus, etymology and name", in Kate Fleet; Gudrun Krämer; Denis Matringe; John Nawas; Everett Rowson (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill, retrieved 11 April 2020.
- ^ Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus vol. 2 (1788), p. 387.
- ^ Reinhart Anne Pieter Dozy (1881). Recherches sur l'histoire et la littérature de l'Espagne pendant le Moyen Age. Vol. I. pp. 301-3.
- ^ Bossong 2002, p. 150. R. P. Dozy, Recherches sur l'histoire et la littérature des Arabes d'Espagne pendant le Moyen-Age (1881), p. 303.
- ^ Werner Wycichl, "Al-Andalus (sobre la historia de un nombre)", Al-Andalus 17 (1952), pp. 449–450.
- ^ Majmū'ah Akhbār; Emilio Lafuente y Alcántara (1867). Ajbar MachmuØa: Coleccion de tradiciones ; Crónica anónima del siglo xi, dada á luz por primera vez. M. Rivadeneyra. p. 255.
- ^ Bossong: The document in question is the Akhbar Majmu'a fi fath Al-Andalus, "Collection of traditions on the conquest of al-Andalus". It was published in Spanish translation in 1867 by Emilio Lafuente y Alcántara. Its subtitle indicates it dates from the 11th century, but several historians today say the 10th century instead, during the rule of caliph 'Abd al-Rahman III.