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ABSTRACT
The origins of al-Andalus have been traditionally a highly controversial issue in Spanish historical writing, mainly because of ideological reasons. The most fanciful version of this historical process was formulated by Ignacio Olagüe, an amateur Spanish historian who came to prominence by claiming that the origins of al-Andalus were not related to the Islamic conquest of 711. Questioning the Islamic conquest is currently being presented as a challenge to the notion of Reconquista, the main conceptual pillar of traditional National Catholic approach to Medieval Iberia. By doing so, Olagüe’s followers claim to be the only possible alternative to the conservative (National Catholic) reading of Spanish past, something that helps to explain much of their current success. However, negationist and National Catholic readings of the past are much more similar than they differ. On the other hand, taking into account the highly ungrounded and biased nature of negationism, both Olagüe and his current followers must be considered merely as a historiographical fraud.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributors
Alejandro García-Sanjuán earned a PhD in Medieval history from the University of Seville in 1998 and is currently Profesor Titular (Senior Lecturer) of Medieval History at the University of Huelva (Spain).
Notes
1 See the recent and, in my opinion, insightful reflections in this regard by Fierro, “¿Qué hacer con al-Andalus?.”
2 García-Sanjuán, La conquista islámica de la península ibérica. This book was reviewed, among others, by Guichard, “Retour sur le problème historiographique de la conquête arabe de l’Andalus,” Manzano, “De cómo los árabes realmente invadieron Hispania,” Martín-Viso, “Review of A. García Sanjuán,” Wolf, “Negating negationism,” Filios, “Review of A. García Sanjuán” and Lorenzo, “Review of A. García Sanjuán.”
3 García-Sanjuán, “La tergiversación del pasado.”
4 Molina, “Review of A. García-Sanjuán,” 459. See also the reaction of the Moroccan historian Tahiri, “Antes de olvidar, ¿Islamología o la tela de araña?”
5 García-Sanjuán, “La creciente difusión de un fraude historiográfico”.
6 See the slight reference by Hoyland, In God’s Path, 147, footnote 8 (he wrongly mentions that La revolución islámica en Occidente was published in 1966).
7 Wolf, “Negating negationism.” See also his contribution to this special issue .
8 Manzano, “Did the Arabs really invade Hispania?.” English translation by I. D. Morris of a text published previously in Spanish under the same title, “¿Realmente invadieron los árabes Hispania?.”
9 Specter, Denialism.
10 A comprehensive study of Olagüe’s negationist project in García-Sanjuán, “Ignacio Olagüe y el origen de al-Andalus,” mostly drawing on his personal archive, preserved since his passing away in Casa de Velázquez (Madrid).
11 Manzano, “Did the Arabs really invaded Hispania?.”
12 García-Sanjuán, La conquista islámica de la península ibérica, 87–90.
13 The idea of decadence is a long-running concept in Spanish historiography since the 18th century: see Ladero, “La ‘decadencia’ española como argumento historiográfico.”
14 Fierro, “Al-Andalus en el pensamiento fascista español.”
15 Monroe, “Review of I. Olagüe, Les arabes n’ont jamais envahi l’Espagne,” 347.
16 García-Sanjuán, “Ignacio Olagüe y el origen de al-Andalus,” 180. José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1903–1936) was the founder of Falange Española (1933), main Spanish fascist political party.
17 Wolf, “Negating negationism.” See the Spanish version of this article: Wolf, “La conquista islámica. Negacionar el negacionismo,” and my reply, García-Sanjuán, “La tergiversación del pasado.”
18 Website of the Andalusian Parliament: http://www.parlamentodeandalucia.es/opencms/export/portal-web-parlamento/elparlamento/historia/blasinfantepadredeandalucia.htm (Accessed July, 2018).
19 Acosta Sánchez, Historia y cultura del pueblo andaluz, 28–9. José Acosta Sánchez (1937–2015) was a Law professor, not a historian. He was elected member of the Catalan Parliament in 1980 in representation of Partido Socialista de Andalucía, a leftist Andalusian Nationalist political organization.
20 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Ándalus.
21 Pimentel, Personal interview, El País Semanal.
22 Opus Dei, “Una comprometida pasión por la persona.”
23 González Ferrín acts frequently as guest speaker at Opus Dei school “Guadaíra”, in Seville: http://cmguadaira.es/acto-de-apertura-del-curso-academico-2014-2015/ (Accessed July, 2018).
24 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Ándalus (Foreword, 3rd edition).
25 See the Website of the Fundación: http://fundacionblasinfante.org/la-fundacion/ (Accessed July, 2018).
26 Pimentel, “El Al-Andalus que llevamos dentro.”
27 Pimentel, “Medina Azahara y el secuestro de nuestra historia.”
28 On the Islamophobic bias of this author see Bravo López, “Islamofobia y antimusulmanismo en España.”
29 The original English version of that book was published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a highly conservative American think-tank founded in 1953 by Frank Chodorov (1887–1966). See the excellent reviews by Pearce, “Paradise Lost” and Fierro, “Review of D. Fernández-Morera.”
30 Acosta Sánchez, Historia y cultura del pueblo andaluz, 44–5: “La línea progresiva del Sur se quiebra: por primera vez en su historia una cultura inferior derrota a otra superior”. Obviously, the “higher culture” is al-Andalus, defeated by Christians (the lower culture).
31 González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 144, 237, and 321.
32 García-Sanjuán, “Rejecting al-Andalus, exalting the Reconquista”; García-Sanjuán, “Cómo desactivar una bomba historiográfica.”
33 Torres, “Al-Andalus, la herida que sangra.” La Comuna is a digital publication which claims having “a commitment to the people, to the working class and to those who fight”, http://www.revistalacomuna.com/comuna-que-es/ (Accessed July, 2018).
34 Martínez, El Salto (May 23, 2018): https://www.elsaltodiario.com/historia/cuando-fuimos-arabes (Accessed July, 2018).
35 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Andalus, 81.
36 A member of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Torres was arrested during Salazar’s dictatorship and had to flee from Portugal, living on exile for many years in Rabat and Bucarest: Torres, “Cláudio Torres,”.
37 “A arqueologia tem uma linguagem diferente da história escrita. A história escrita é escrita por aqueles senhores que sabem escrever, enquanto a arqueologia vai buscar os restos dos que não sabem escrever. São coisas habitualmente contraditórias. Hoje sabemos, por causa da arqueologia, que não houve nenhuma invasão em 711, não vieram exércitos nenhuns”: Sábado, February 2, 2018, https://www.sabado.pt/vida/pessoas/detalhe/claudio-torres-d-afonso-henriques-nao-conquistou-lisboa-aos-mouros-foi-aos-cristaos?fbclid=IwAR1N9IrOlIROaJ7Dyz2pUWXpty8XsNWzQ_LsvS56Fi7nXXmRdHxWI92GPk4 (Accessed November, 2018).
38 According to recent polls, a third of Americans aged 18–24 are unsure of the shape of our planet: “Flat Earth rising: meet the people casting aside 2,500 years of science,” The Guardian February 5, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2019/feb/05/flat-earth-rising-meet-the-people-casting-aside-2500-years-of-science-video.
39 González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 235.
40 Cuesta Francisco, “Cuando fuimos árabes. Nuevo libro de Emilio González Ferrín.” Colete Moya, “Review of Cuando fuimos árabes”; Bermúdez, “Review of Cuando fuimos árabes”; De Diego, “Review of Cuando fuimos árabes.”
41 The last example is Fierro, “Al-Andalus, convivencia e islam: mucho ruido y pocas nueces.”
42 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Ándalus, 259; González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 316, 322. This disdainful expression is very telling about his conception of the role played by the sources in historical writing.
43 Belausteguigoitia, “González Ferrín niega la invasión islámica del año 711 en Historia general de Al Ándalus.”
44 García-Sanjuán, “Ignacio Olagüe y el origen de al-Andalus,” 192–6.
45 Serrano Velázquez, “Las llaves de la memoria, un documental que niega la conquista árabe del 711 y busca la raíz de la identidad mestiza en Andalucía.”
46 http://www.almutafilm.com/es/las-llaves-de-la-memoria/ (Accessed July, 2018).
47 Lucas, “Al-Andalus o los ocho siglos de historia mutilada de España.”
48 Manzano, “El mito de al-Andalus.”
49 González Ferrín, “El 11-M fue un atentado de ETA”. Attribution of the terrorist attacks in Madrid to ETA was initially promoted by the conservative government led by J. Mª Aznar.
50 González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 162–3, gave rather unlikely and unconvincing excuses to subscribe these “fake news”.
51 This is, in fact, what González Ferrín claims when saying that all those rejecting his ideas are just simply followers of National Catholicism: “La construcción del relato nacional católico, de la que se hacen paladines todos los adversarios míos”. See López Astilleros, “González Ferrín.”
52 Both books have been recently published in French in a single volume: Al-Andalus, l’invention d’un mythe. La réalité historique de l'Espagne des trois cultures (Paris, 2017). See the review by García-Sanjuán, “Review of S. Fanjul”.
53 García Sanjuán, “La persistencia del discurso nacionalcatólico.” Sánchez Saus is currently an activist of a major Spanish Catholic lobby (Asociación Católica de Propagandistas) and was previously Senior member of Falange Española: see Rodríguez Jiménez, La extrema derecha en España, 26.
54 In his radio show “Federico a las 8” (broadcasted March 5, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_inK86z86_U (min. 7:56) (Accessed July 28, 2018) he describes Cuando fuimos árabes as “intellectual excrescence and detritus” and its author as “merluzo” (silly, idiot). Information about El País article and Jiménez Losantos’ reaction was also echoed by Libertad Digital (a digital plaftorm founded by himself): “El País publica un artículo que niega la invasión musulmana de la Península y la Reconquista,” https://www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2018-03-05/el-pais-publica-un-articulo-que-niega-la-invasion-de-la-peninsula-y-la-reconquista-1276614918/ (Accessed July 28, 2018).
55 Manzano, “Review of S. Fanjul.”
56 Martínez, “El mito de al-Andalus.”
57 Fierro, “Idealización de al-Andalus.” See the reply by Fanjul, “El paraíso perdido” and the counter reply by Fierro, “¿De quién es el paraíso?.”
58 Rodríguez-Mediano, “Review of S. Fanjul.”
59 Manzano, “La construcción histórica del pasado nacional”; Rodríguez-Mediano, “Culture, Identity and Civilization.”
60 García Sanjuán, “Al-Andalus en la historiografía del nacionalismo españolista”; García Sanjuán, “Al-Andalus en el nacionalcatolicismo español”; García-Sanjuán, “Rejecting al-Andalus”; García-Sanjuán, “El origen de al-Andalus en el discurso españolista.”
61 García-Sanjuán, “Al-Andalus en la historiografía nacionalcatólica.”
62 González Ferrín, “Cuando fuimos árabes.” See my reply: García-Sanjuán, “Al-Andalus y Narciso.”
63 Sánchez-Albornoz, Del Islam de España y el Occidente, 113.
64 Martínez Enamorado, “Review of A. García Sanjuán,” 207. Hoyland, In God’s Path, 147, correctly points out the connection between Olagüe’s approach and the idea that the conquest “occurred slowly by steady immigration and social interaction”.
65 García-Sanjuán, “La creciente difusión de un fraude historiográfico,” 185–90.
66 González Ferrín, Historia general, 148 (‘lo islámico en Hispania –del mismo modo que en la mayor parte de los rincones del llamado espacio islámico- partía de una amalgama previa y secuenciales movimientos migratorios en un siglo difícil, el del 700’) and 150 (‘los que ordenan acuñar las monedas citadas pasan por ser ya los invasores musulmanes. Lo que ocurre es que aún no saben árabe, ni se saben religión diferente’).
67 Manzano, “Nuevas consideraciones y puntualizaciones de la conquista árabe de 711.”
68 González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 59–60.
69 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Ándalus, 179.
70 García Sanjuán, La conquista islámica, 247.
71 Bell, “Translations of the Greek Aphrodito Papyri in the British Museum,” 279, núm. 1350.
72 Scott, “A Hundred Years.”
73 Ortega, La conquista islámica de la península ibérica. Una perspectiva arqueológica.
74 Sénac and Ibrahim, Los precintos. Much of these lead seals are available through the Tonegawa Collection Website: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html. Showing his rather peculiar sense of professional ethics, González Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 206, hints that these lead seals are being fabricated in order to provide the necessary evidence proving the military conquest: “Se trata de una serie de precintos de plomo que han ido apareciendo, y que se están reuniendo a espuertas, últimamente, dada la completa inexistencia de pruebas materiales sobre la llamada conquista de Alándalus (sic), y la necesidad de reunir cualquier conjunto de elementos que salve los muebles de semejante compuesto ideológico, la conquista.”
75 Balaguer, Las emisiones transicionales, 72.
76 González Ferrín, Historia general de Al Ándalus, 194: “Debe destacarse asimismo que en la moneda bilingüe que acuña sólo aparece la proclamación unitaria –tawhid en árabe: no hay más dios que un Dios. En latín y árabe, y sin referencia alguna al profeta Mahoma” (“It should be noted however that the bilingual coin he minted bears only the unitarian proclamation -tawhid, in Arabic: there is no god but a God. In Latin and Arabic, and without any reference to the Prophet Muhammad”). Emphasis mine.
77 Grierson, The Monetary Reforms of ‘Abd al-Malik; Treadwell, “Abd al-Malik’s Monetary Reform.”
78 De Miguel Ibáñez, La maqbara de Pamplona.
79 Gutiérrez González and others, “La maqbara medieval de Tauste.”
80 Fuertes Avellaneda, “Carrer del Rio Galligants.”
81 González García and Martínez Chico, “Cuatro hallazgos aislados.”
82 González-Ferrín, Cuando fuimos árabes, 230: “si no hay islam ni Islam hasta después del 800, ¿en nombre de qué pasó lo que pudiera pasar noventa años antes, a miles de kilómetros de Bagdad, en Hispania?”. According to the most recent revisionist scholarship about Early Islam, “during the late first century AH/seventh century C.E. and early second century AH/eighth century C.E., the Believer’s movement evolved into the religion we know as Islam”: see Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, 194–5. Negationism, therefore, has nothing to do neither with classical nor with modern revisionist academic literature.
83 Hoyland, In God’s Path, 147.
84 Sénac and Ibrahim, Los precintos, 30.