The Memory of Al-Andalus in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

This chapter explores the ways in which al-Andalus was thought about and understood in early modern Spain. Instead of insisting on the well-known model of the Reconquista (and consequently in the “otherness” of al-Andalus in relation with a certain Spanish identity), what is underlined is how al-Andalus became a tool for Spanish and European modernity in several ways: as a laboratory for an imperial expansion that developed the means for managing new political subjects; as a historical point of reference for a confessional society that generated the experience of modern subjectivity; and as a way of thinking about the relationship of Spain with the Orient, and the very possibility of writing a sacred history of Spain.