love affair, facilitate conception and childbirth,
induce trees to bear fruit, combat the evil eye,
cast out evil spirits, or bring harm to an opponent.
There are even amulets that are believed to offer
protection from bullets and troublesome govern-
ment officials. Amulets and talismans are usually
obtained from a shaykh or some other person
claiming specialized knowledge for making ones
that are effective, and they are used by Muslims
and non-Muslims.
See also children; Women.
Further reading: Eleanor Abdella Doumato, Getting
God’s Ear: Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and
the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000);
Joyce B. Flueckiger, “ ‘The Vision Was of Written Words:
Negotiating Authority as a Female Muslim Healer
in South India.’ ” In Syllables of Sky: Studies of South
Indian Civilization, edited by David Shulman, 249–282
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Edward W.
Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Mod-
ern Egyptians (New York: Dover Publications, 1973).
Andalusia
Andalusia (al-Andalus) is the name given to
regions of Spain and Portugal under Muslim rule
between 711 and 1492. It also evokes romantic
memories of a “golden age” in that land when
culture, learning, and the arts flourished and
Muslim, Christian, and Jew lived together in har-
mony. The word Andalusia is thought to originally
come from the name of a Germanic tribe, the
Vandals, who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula
and North Africa in the fifth and sixth centuries,
before the Muslim conquests. At its greatest
extent, Andalusia reached from the Mediterra-
nean shores of southern Spain northward almost
to the Pyrenees Mountains. Its northern borders,
however, were never secure, as European Chris-
tian armies drove southward in what is called the
Reconquista, or the “reconquest,” of Spain. This
started in the 11th century and ended with the
fall of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold, to
the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the
same year Columbus landed in the New World.
Muslim armies first crossed from North Africa
into Andalusia by way of the Strait of Gibraltar
in 711. They soon established themselves in the
peninsula’s major cities: Malaga, cordoba, Toledo,
Barcelona, and Zaragosa. The new postconquest
society that subsequently arose was dominated
by an arab Muslim elite and berber allies from
North Africa who had only recently converted
to islam. The Muslims of Andalusia came to
be called the Moors by Europeans, but that is
not what they called themselves. Most remained
loyal to their tribal, family, and regional identi-
ties, which contributed to the factionalism that
characterized much of the political history ofLa Giralda, the minaret for the 12th-century Almohad
mosque of Seville, converted into a bell tower for the
city’s cathedral in the 16th century (Federico R. Campo)Andalusia 41 J