Naval Power During the Era of the Emirate of Córdoba (711-1031)

Less than a century after the Muslims began to conquer North Africa, the Islamic armies reached the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. With the conquest of Spain and Portugal by Muslims in 711, an Islamic domination lasting eight centuries began in the Iberian Peninsula. For the Emirate of Córdoba, which had been separated from the rest of the Islamic world by the sea, it was a means of protection itself from its enemies in the first centuries, while it became a symbol of being away from the Islamic world during its collapse era. After the Islamic conquests, the Umayyads focused on the conquests on the land and organizing a navy was not seen as a basic target. However, in later times, a navy was created against the Viking and Fatimid threat, and this power became a tool that ensured Umayyad superiority over the Christian states in the Western Mediterranean in the 10th century during the apogee of the state. While the naval bases and shipyards established in many cities, especially in Almería and Seville, formed the physical basis of the naval power, both Muslim and non-Muslim Cordoban Umayyad subjects constituted the human resource of the navy. In our study, the maritime activities in the pre-Islamic and early years of Islam were briefly mentioned, and then we tried to examine the official naval activities that took place after the conquest of al-Andalus in 711 until 1031, when the Emirate of Córdoba was disintegrated. In addition to the activities of the navy, we tried to give basic knowledge about the command and personnel structure of the navy, the ships used in the navy, the leading ports and shipyards, and the maritime knowledge of the era. The naval activities of the states which emerged after the disintegration of the Emirate of Córdoba remained out of our subject. This timespan will probably be the subject of a different study.