The Great Conjunction and the rise and fall of kingdoms: a mini-thread on the Caliphate of Córdoba.

In 929 AD, the Emir of Córdoba decided to declare himself Caliph. The Caliphate ultimately comprised parts of Gibraltar, Morocco and vast swaths of Spain & Portugal.

The upper classes of the Caliphate, much to the chagrin of the Islamic orthodoxy, was very much in favor of promoting astrology and having Court Astrologers.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which took place in 1006-1007 (Leo then Virgo), caused much commotion among professional astrologers and also among people.
(They were using Mean, not True Conjunctions, but this chart will have to do).

The Virgo Conjunction, writes the historian Ibn Idhari, was important due to the sign of Virgo being the symbol of the city of Córdoba. Old sages of the city had placed a statue that represented this sign of the zodiac on the south gate of the city, the Puerta de AIcántara.

This statute was probably the effigy of an ancient goddess that Muslims would have identified with the Virgin Mary.

The Spanish today still conserve records of various astrological interpretations of this conjunction and it is agreed that it was considered the premonitory sign of the end of the Caliphate & the beginning of the period of breakup of the kingdom into smaller states (the Taifas).

One of them is attributed to the great astronomer Maslama of Madrid (1007), that heralded a change of dynasty, ruin, massacres and famine.

A second interpretation can be read in the Libro de las Cruces (Book of Crosses), according to which the conjunction marked the end of the leadership of the Arabs in Spain and their replacement by people from the West, both Berbers and Christians.

In any case, the evidence provided by historians shows the existence in Córdoba of a large group of astrologers who discussed the event and its consequences: it does not seem likely that all of them moved exclusively in palace circles, but at the street level as well.

Surely enough, after a 20 year period marked by political instability, in the year 1027, under another Great Conjunction, this time in Fire, rose the Last Caliph of Córdoba, Hisham III. By 1031, the Caliphate was over and the decline that later led to the Reconquista was set.

Later Spanish Christian kings would GREATLY value the intellectual life and achievements of the Caliphs. It this because of this interest that Toledo arose as a great translation center in the 12th Century.

And without Toledo... well... there wouldn't have been any later Renaissance in Italy in the 14th Century and onward.

The End. :)