1

The Al-Andalus included territory that is now part of Portugal. What is commonly known as Spain was created 20 years after the Reconquista itself ended, when King Ferdinand II of Aragon (and Castile and Leon) conquered Navarre.

Therefore, I hereby request that the powers that be take appropriate action and revert this rollback.

8
  • @LаngLаngС - For starters we don't have an "Iberian Peninsula".
    – T.E.D. Mod
    Dec 18 '20 at 18:33
  • 1
    @LаngLаngС Either both or none. I am happy to remove spain and create tag iberian-peninsula, provided that my edits are not reverted, and that all questions on Roman Hispania, Islamic Hispania, Portugal and Spain eventually have that tag.
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    Dec 18 '20 at 18:38
  • Looking at it, the question talks about both post Islamic-Spain and about al Andalus, but seems chiefly concerned over events in the latter, particularly interested in contrasting the two. None of the specifically mentioned locations (eg: Grenada) have ever been part of Portugal. So I don't see where Portugal enters into it at all.
    – T.E.D. Mod
    Dec 18 '20 at 18:42
  • So you are arguing it belongs because it existed on the other side of a border it shared with one of two nations actually being discussed?
    – T.E.D. Mod
    Dec 18 '20 at 18:53
  • @RodrigodeAzevedo - The question specifically talks about the Alhambra decree of 1492, which it seems fair to consider an act of Spain. I'm pretty sure Portugal had little to do with it (and has no desire to claim it).
    – T.E.D. Mod
    Dec 18 '20 at 19:02
  • @RodrigodeAzevedo - It feels a lot like there's a root issue here of "I don't think the tag Spain should be used geographically, particularly in a context that implicitly includes the modern borders of Portugal". If that's the real issue, please open a meta Q saying that. I'm probably even on your side. But please let's not try to fight this out with passive-aggressive tag edit wars.
    – T.E.D. Mod
    Dec 18 '20 at 19:15
  • @LаngLаngС The question mentions the period 756-1009 AD, before Castile and Portugal became kingdoms. Note that Spain was created in 1512 Ad. Hence, in the context of the Middle Ages, "Spain" is a synonym for Iberian Peninsula.
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    Dec 18 '20 at 19:20
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    @LаngLаngС If "Spain" is to be used as a synonym for "Iberian Peninsula", then its tag description should be updated. At the moment, in the question under discussion, "Spain" is used to refer to something that did not exist during the Medieval Era, which is the era of interest. In fact, in Medieval times, all Christians in Hispania — whether Portuguese, Galician, Leonese, Asturian, Navarran, Aragonese, Catalan or Castilian — considered themselves Spanish. Here is one example: Pedro Hispano. How about tag hispania?
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    Dec 18 '20 at 19:51
7

This got a bit much in comments, so I'll try to post my analysis on this here.

Why this question is legitimately tagged :

  • All the sentences ending with a ? are talking about the actions and behaviors of Islamic-controlled areas of Al-Andulus, which that tag was designed to cover.
  • That tag also covers Almoravid-controlled parts of the peninsula, which was mentioned in the 2nd paragraph to provide the required contrast for a relative concept (intolerance).

Why this question is legitimately tagged :

  • Contrast is also made with the Aragon-Castilian Alhambra Decree.
  • Spain is mentioned 3 times in the first paragraph.

These are arguably weaker reasons, but tags do get thrown onto questions for weaker reasons sometimes.

Things that would not be good reasons to tag the question with :

  • Some of the specific places mentioned (eg: Toledo) eventually became Spanish territory.
  • Some of the of the territory of Al Andulus eventually became Spanish territory.

If those two were the only reasons, then I'd agree that the tag perhaps should be removed too. This goes for any other country tags that might today cover some territory that used to be part of Al Andulus, but wasn't otherwise mentioned in the question, such as and .

An astute person might notice there's an inherent principle in here I'm glossing over, which is that I don't think should be used geographically. Its probably OK to talk about an area that was at the time ruled by a state that later became Spain (like Aragon or Castile), because there were a few of those and making tags for them all probably wouldn't be feasible.

If this means that we ought to have something like to cover the need for a geographic term, well I don't think I'd argue against it. I would ask that nobody go on a retagging-spree without discussing it in meta first.

3
  • The strangely reversed temporality remains: Alhambra Decre from body is after Andalus (which I read is what the Q is about), while Q ask how Andalus became XY. Could you elaborate the diff between "legitimate" for 'term is in body' and 'Q is about'? (The current tag definitions for the existing ones seem indeed not really covering this A? "Spain is a country…")
    – LаngLаngС
    Dec 18 '20 at 20:46
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    In the Middle Ages, Spain was a synonym for the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, counting occurrences of the word "spain" is strange. When historians mention Medieval Britain, they are not referring to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are they?
    – Rodrigo de Azevedo
    Dec 18 '20 at 22:59
  • @RodrigodeAzevedo: That's an absurd claim, and flatly contradicted by the O.E.D. (1928) where the first attestation of "Spain" occurs only in 1205 as that portion of the European south-west peninsula not Portugal. Given the long history of military assistance and alliance between England and Portugal, dating from the 1147 Siege of Lisbon and then the 1347 Treaty of Windsor, your claim becomes farcical. Spain and Portugal have never been conflated in English even during the brief personal union of the two countries.
    – Pieter Geerkens
    Dec 20 '20 at 19:35

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