The Wonderous City of Cordoba!!!

In all places, the rulers wants to improve on their city in order to get successful, powerful, and well known. Abd-al Rahman had escaped the ambush commited by the Abbasids in which they were trying to kill the Umayyads and fled to Spain with hope to re-establish the Ummayad dynasty. Once Abd-al Rahman took power, he made Cordoba his capital located in Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) With that, he made a few political changes to improve Cordoba. First of all, he built a huge standing army which is something we still have in the U.S. today. Furthermore, they also had mercenaries (soldiers paid to fight) In order to win wars and defeat other countries, they need as many soldiers as they can get, so they would have to pay some people to fight in order to keep their city or country strong. Also, Christman forces launched attacks on the northen border. This is somewhat like how thousands of troops are sent to Iraq to fight the war. They fought between both political and govermental issues. However, when Abd-al Rahman died, Cordoba was powerful place that everyone had heard of. This, of course was the first step of the path that led to their golden age.


Cordoba was truly a splendid place with a great economy. For starters, it was the largest city in Western Europe with a population of about 500,000 people which was larger that the major cities including London, Paris, and Rome. Its streets were paved, and by night, were lit by lamps. A water system fed the 900 public baths and the many fountains located around the city. Citizens could wander through dozens of beautiful gardens. Cordoba's increase of population could have been because it was so well known and many people visited the city because of its glory. Cordoba was also the center of trade which brought in lots of goods and prosperity to al-Andalus. In the marketplace, there were manylittle shops in which they sold various things from carpets to oranges. This may be compared to what we have today like the outdoor farmer's market where they sell fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. It may also be compared to the flea market where we can also get what we need with a variety of choices. Not only do they sell practically the same things, but they're also both outdoors. Just between these two economic aspects, Cordoba has becaome a prosperous city. In my opinion, al-Andalus thrived for years because many people had jobs so they had money coming in and they had wonderful trade from all over Europe.


The atmosphere of Cordoba helped develop the culture in al-Andalus. By the 900's, they had about 70 libraries in which the largest contained about 400,000 books. This was alot compared to other country's libraries with only a few hunded manuscripts. The history of libraries has grown and now even today practically everywhere around the world even here in the U.S. where it contians thousands and thousands of books depending on the size of the library. In order to have knowledge, we read books and that's what they probably did back then, as well. There are various types of books that cover everyone's interest. Scholars back then studied mathematics, astronomy, geography, philosophy, medicine, etc. Today, we have something somewhat like scholars majoring int hese subjects along with others, too. The scholars who were in those subjects embrace their greatness creating a new technique that we even use today. Jews has lived in Spain since the Roman times. Nevertheless, even when the Umayyads took power, they welcomed the Jews instead of driving them out of the city. Unlike most groups, the Umayyads were a nice one. As in all, Cordoba carried many cultures that contuine to grow today benefiting us in many different ways.


Cordoba has created many technologies to help them out. For starters, they sold many goods to people that improved trade throughout many countries. Unlike Cordoba, we don't really trade these days. If we need something,we got out to get it in either a store, shop, or marketplace instead. They also had water wheels irrigating the field. This was a good idea because then the farmers are allowed to tend their crops withougt having to strain themselves and will illiminate going back and forth to get the needed water. Now they can grow corn, potatoes, wheat, barley, fruits, vegetables, rice, etc. easier. Lastly, they had water systems to feed the 900 public baths and the many fountains around the city. Many people could have gone to the public baths for many reasons including to socialize with one another. Instead of having public baths here in the U.S. we do have public pools in which some of us goes there to get a swim as well as to socialize. These are only a few of the various technologies to help make people of the Muslim Empire's life easier as well as ours today. As you can see, the city of Cordoba expanded greatly creating a strong golden age or the people of Cordoba dn al-Andalus that lasted a long time.