An enjoyable, informative, yet scholarly history of Islamic Spain. It also represents a good example of the objective Middle ground, not showing undue bias towards one side or the other, nor shying away from controversial issues (such as the treatment of female slaves).

Recommended read.

Grateful thanks to the Publisher for allowing me to read a PDF of this title. I was not required to write a positive review.

Highly informative, scholarly work (for the most part) that is accessible to the lay student of history. For those about to embark, it is a worthy starting point - a springboard - that will lead the reader on a journey covering hundreds of years of complexity, diplomacy,suppression, treachery, betrayal, conquest and assimilation - the melting pot that would ultimately become modern Spain.

I received a free eBook copy via NetGalley for a true and honest opinion.

Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain written by Brian A. Catlos writes about the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists.

Overall, 3 stars

Having read similar books about the history of Islamic Central Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, I found this to be by far the best. Firstly, it presents the reader with a clear account of events spanning the entire period from the initial Muslim conquest of Spain to the Christian reconquest, leading ultimately to the forced expulsion of Moriscos. Secondly, it links these events to larger forces at work in the greater Muslim and Christian worlds. Finally, it challenges earlier accounts which present the struggle between rival Muslim and Christian kingdoms in Spain as a primarily religiously motivated phenomenon. The author provides compelling evidence for his view that the main force at work was territorial gains in pursuit of dynastic power. The rhetoric of holy war was invoked by Muslims and Christians to further primarily political and not religious ambitions.

I am obsessed with learning more about Islamic Spain and this would be the book i would recommend to everyone to read. It is a sweeping epic that is painstakingly research and I felt it was a wonderful book. i read this while travelling to spain and felt it added to my experience even more.

Mr. Catlos has created a very thorough history of Al-Andalus from its conquest by the Umayyads to the fall of Granada in 1492 (and a bit beyond to cover the fate of those Muslims left in "Christian" Spain). He paints a very captivating picture of medieval Spain, not as either a clash of civilizations apocalyptic destruction or as a peaceful paradise where all faiths lived in harmony. It is much more of a gray area, where faiths would fight among themselves as much as each other and cooperation depended more on convenience than tolerance.

As the above mentioned gray area suggests, "Islamic" Spain was quite complex, with plenty of court intrigues, coups, and civil wars. Since the book covers the better part of a millennium of history, there are hundreds of actors involved. While Mr. Catlos certainly knows who these figures are and is very knowledgeable about this time period, his efforts at conveying this to the reader are not always successful. So many of the characters have similar names, or in the case of royalty the same name, and often get only a short introduction before diving into their interactions with other individuals. This is compounded by jumping back and forth in the timeline a bit without much of a segue. These two difficulties combine to occasionally leave the reader a bit lost, about who betrayed who to serve who until wazir A hatched a plot to overthrow concubine 4. Mr. Catlos does admit at one point late in the book that a certain time period is poorly documented, but overall this book should have probably been a good deal longer to elaborate these historical figures or a bit shorter and a more general overview.

One last thing before I finish the review is that Mr. Catlos inserts some odd sentences, completely out of the blue, that through of the tone of the work. The one I thought worked the best was a discrete reference to Monty Python, but the others were just odd tonally, the following being the most egregious that stopped me in my tracks when I read it:
"The masculine culture of the Andalusi elite was ninth-century “gangsta”—a testosterone-driven culture revolving around bling, bros, and biyatches, of biting free-style wordplay and conspicuous consumption."
This is just such a weird line that seems out of place with the rest of the work.

Overall, this is generally a good book covering the history of Al-Andalus, unfortunately marred by some poor elaboration and odd turns of phrase.

Great book with a vast amount of insight into a complex subject. I would recommend this to friends and would have no problem using it in an advanced course for World History, Comparative religion, or whatever...

Considering how for literally hundreds of years Spain was a changing patchwork kingdoms and shifting alliances, It would be quite the understatement to say that the history of Muslim Spain and the Reconquista is not easy to get a handle on. This is why I personally found Catlos to be such an absolute delight of a read. While his Middle Ages-spanning work reveals a time and land that is undeniably and fascinatingly complicated above all else, he does so in a clear narrative that makes this formative period on the Iberian Pensinsula easily accessible for anyone who wants to know more.