![Califato de Córdoba - 1000-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Califato_de_C%C3%B3rdoba_-_1000-en.svg)
The Central March or Middle March ( ar, الثغر الأوسط, al-Thaghr al-Awsaṭ) was the central of the three
marches
In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diff ...
along the northern frontier of the
Emirate
An emirate is a territory ruled by an emir, a title used by monarchs or high officeholders in the Muslim world. From a historical point of view, an emirate is a political-religious unit smaller than a caliphate. It can be considered equivalen ...
and (after 929)
Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba ( ar, خلافة قرطبة; transliterated ''Khilāfat Qurṭuba''), also known as the Cordoban Caliphate was an Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 929 to 1031. Its territory comprised Iberia and parts o ...
between the 8th and 11th centuries. It lay between the
Lower March
The Lower March ( ar, الثغر الأدنى, ''al-Ṯaḡr al-ʾAdnā''; ) was a march of al-Andalus. It included territory that is now in Portugal.
As a borderland territory, it was home to the so-called ''muwalladun'' or indigenous converts a ...
to the southwest and the
Upper March
The Upper March (in ar, الثغر الأعلى, ''aṯ-Tagr al-A'la''; in Spanish: ''Marca Superior'') was an administrative and military division in northeast Al-Andalus, roughly corresponding to the Ebro valley and adjacent Mediterranean coa ...
to the northeast. Its administrative centre was at first
Toledo, later
Medinaceli
Medinaceli () is a municipality and town in the province of Soria, in Castile and León, Spain. The municipality includes other villages like Torralba del Moral.
Etymology
Its name derives from the Arabic 'madīnat salīm', which was named afte ...
.
The concept of ''al-thughūr'' (الثغر), the frontier zones or marches between
the ''dār al-ḥarb'' and the ''dār al-islām'', was found throughout the Islamic world. The marches were not fixed, but fluctuated with the fortunes of Islam. The stability of the frontier in Spain between the late 8th and the early 11th centuries is responsible for the outsized role and relatively well-defined nature of the ''thughūr'' there. The tripartite division was certainly in existence by the 9th century.
The Central March extended east as far as the edge of the territory known as Bārūsha, which was part of the Upper March and lay south of
Daroca
Daroca is a city and municipality in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, situated to the south of the city of Zaragoza. It is the center of a judicial district.
It is located in the basin of Calatayud, in the valley of the Jiloca river. N ...
, covering
Molina. Late in the reign of the Emir
Muḥammad I (852–886), there was a chain of fortresses stretching from Bārūsha to Toledo at
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
,
Talamanca,
Canales,
Olmos and
Calataifa.
In the reign of
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III
ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Rabdī ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dākhil () or ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (890 - 961), was the Umayyad Emir of Córdoba from 912 to 92 ...
(912–961), the classical tripartite division disappeared. The Central March and the Lower March were combined under the name of the latter but with the character of an enlarged Central March. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān moved the capital north from Toledo to a fortress he constructed at Medinaceli. This expanded march included the
Sierra de Guadarrama
The Sierra de Guadarrama (Guadarrama Mountains) is a mountain range forming the main eastern section of the Sistema Central, the system of mountain ranges along the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. It is located between the systems Sierra de G ...
north of Madrid and a string of fortresses along the
Tagus
The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...
. According to
Aḥmad al-Rāzī, its northern extensions towards the
Duero
The Douro (, , ; es, Duero ; la, Durius) is the highest-flow river of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province, central Spain, meanders south briefly then flows generally west through the north-west part of ...
comprised the districts of
Santaver,
Racupel,
Zorita
Zorita is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2006 census (INE
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center
* Instituto N ...
,
Guadalajara and Medinaceli with their fortresses, including
Castejón de Henares
Castejón de Henares is a municipality located in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. According to the 2004 census (INE
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear resea ...
,
Uclés
Uclés is a municipality of Spain located in the province of Cuenca, Castilla–La Mancha. The municipality spans across a total area of 64.61 km2 and, as of 1 January 2020, it has a registered population of 212.
History
The fortress and town w ...
,
Cuenca,
Huete and
Huelamo. Towards the former Lower March were the fortresses of
Talavera, Madrid,
Coria,
Coimbra
Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of .
The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...
.
The ''thughūr'' persisted in name through the first ''
taifa
The ''taifas'' (singular ''taifa'', from ar, طائفة ''ṭā'ifa'', plural طوائف ''ṭawā'if'', a party, band or faction) were the independent Muslim principalities and kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain), re ...
'' (faction) period following the collapse of the caliphate in the 11th century, but by the 12th they were gone. The ''
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
'' (Christian reconquest) of the northern lands of
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
(Islamic Iberia) had rendered the old system of fortresses and districts impossible.
See also
*
Wāḍiḥ al-Ṣiqlabī
Wāḍiḥ al-Ṣiqlabī (; died November 1011) was a Slavs, Slav general of the late Umayyad dynasty, Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba. He served as governor of the Central March, Middle March and as the ''ḥājib'', effectively prime minister, of t ...
, governor of the march c. 997–1010
Notes
Bibliography
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Subdivisions of Al-Andalus
Marches (country subdivision)
8th-century establishments in the Umayyad Caliphate