The Convivencia and Cross-Confessional Philosophical Exchange

The term convivencia, literally "living together," was popularized by the Spanish historian Américo Castro in España en su Historia (1948) to describe the centuries of coexistence among Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities in medieval Iberia under successive Muslim dynasties, from the Umayyad emirate and caliphate of Córdoba (756–1031) through the taifa kingdoms, Almoravids, Almohads, and finally the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, which survived until 1492. Under the legal status of dhimmi, non-Muslim monotheists — Christians and Jews as "People of the Book" — were guaranteed protection of life, property, and freedom of worship in exchange for payment of the jizya poll tax and acceptance of certain social and legal restrictions, a framework of structured, unequal but institutionally stable coexistence rather than either full equality or systematic persecution, and one that fluctuated considerably in practice depending on the specific dynasty, ruler, and period in question.