Murcia

Murcia, independent Muslim (Moorish) kingdom centred on the city of Murcia (Arabic: Mursīyah), Spain. It came into being on two occasions: first in the 11th century, following the disintegration of the Spanish Umayyad caliphate; and again in the 12th century, as part of the Spanish Muslim reaction against the rule of the North African Almoravids. The kingdom’s first ruler, ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn Ṭāhir, declared himself independent in 1063, though to preserve the fiction of the...