Archive · Summer 2025
Summer 2025 — Al-Andalus
Published August 21, 2025 · 5 articles
Each issue gathers original scholarship and articles from contributors working across the Islamic intellectual tradition. Browse the table of contents below.
In this issue
- History
Al-Andalus: The Golden Age of the West
Shaykh Hammad Mustafa al-Madani al-Qadri, Editor-in-Chief, Renaissance · Al-Nahda
Between 711 and 1492, Islamic Spain embodied the pinnacle of civilisational splendour — a golden age that laid the foundations for the European Renaissance while standing as one of the great intellectual achievements of the Muslim world.
- Spirituality
Al-Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn ʿArabi: The Mystic Scholar
Dr Samra Mursaleen, Contributor, Renaissance · Al-Nahda
Born in al-Andalus in 1165, Ibn ʿArabi shaped the trajectory of Islamic mysticism, theology, and philosophy. A study of the life, thought, and enduring legacy of the Greatest Master.
- Science
Al-Zahrawi: The Father of Surgery
Dr Abdullah Raja, Contributor, Renaissance · Al-Nahda
The tenth-century Andalusian surgeon Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī compiled Kitab al-Tasrif — a medical encyclopaedia that shaped surgical practice in Europe for five hundred years. A study of the man who taught the West how to operate.
- History
Córdoba: The Jewel of Al-Andalus
Aisha Ahmed Khan, Contributor, Renaissance · Al-Nahda
A close reading of the urban genius of tenth-century Córdoba — the largest city in Europe alongside Constantinople, where private residence, public space, and climate-sensitive design met in an Islamic vision of harmony.
- History
The Rise and Fall of al-Andalus
Ahmad Mustafa al-Arabi al-Qadri, Contributor, Renaissance · Al-Nahda
A reading of Islamic Spain's eight-hundred-year arc through the lens of Ibn Khaldun's cyclical theory of sovereignty — and the erosion of asabiyya that brought al-Andalus from beacon to ruin.
