Taifa in the context of "Parias"

Al-Andalus (Arabic: الأَنْدَلُس, romanized: al-ʾAndalus) was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula as well as Septimania under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed through a series of conquests Western historiography has traditionally characterized as the Reconquista, eventually shrinking to the south and finally to the Emirate of Granada.

As a political domain, it successively constituted a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, initiated by the Caliph al-Walid I (711–750); the Emirate of Córdoba (c. 750–929); the Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031); the first taifa kingdoms (1009–1110); the Almoravid Empire (1085–1145); the second taifa period (1140–1203); the Almohad Caliphate (1147–1238); the third taifa period (1232–1287); and ultimately the Nasrid Emirate of Granada (1238–1492). Under the Caliphate of Córdoba, the city of Córdoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world. Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Jabir ibn Aflah), astronomy (al-Zarqali), surgery (al-Zahrawi), pharmacology (Ibn Zuhr), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abu'l-Khayr al-Ishbili). Al-Andalus became a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

The Reconquista (Spanish and Portuguese for 'reconquest') or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns by Northern Christian polities against Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, which had previously been part of the Visigothic Kingdom before the Muslim Conquest of 711. The Reconquista concluded in 1492 with the capture of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, thereby ending the presence of any Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula.

The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga (c. 718 or 722), approximately a decade after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula began, in which the army of the Kingdom of Asturias achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. By the early 11th century, the Caliphate of Córdoba endured state collapse into a series of petty successor states known as taifas. The northern kingdoms advanced further against these fiefdoms and often made them subject to a protection racket system.

The Emirate of Córdoba, and from 929, the Caliphate of Córdoba, was an Arab Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 756 to 1031. Its territory comprised most of the Iberian Peninsula (known to Muslims as al-Andalus), the Balearic Islands, and parts of North Africa, with its capital in Córdoba (at the time Qurṭubah). From 756 it was ruled as an independent emirate until Abd al-Rahman III proclaimed himself as caliph in 929.

The state was founded by Abd al-Rahman I, an Umayyad prince who fled the defeat and persecution of the Umayyad clan in Bilad Al-Sham (Levant) and across the caliphate after the Abbasid revolution. The polity then flourished for the best part of three centuries, before disintegrating in the early 11th century during the Fitna of al-Andalus, a civil war between the descendants of caliph Hisham II and the successors of his hajib (court official), Almanzor. In 1031, after years of infighting, the caliphate collapsed and fractured into a number of independent Muslim taifa (kingdoms).

The Kingdom of Valencia (Valencian: Regne de València; Spanish: Reino de Valencia; Latin: Regnum Valentiae), located in the eastern shore of the Iberian Peninsula, was one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon.

The Kingdom of Valencia was formally created in 1238 when the Moorish taifa of Valencia was taken in the course of the Reconquista. It was dissolved, alongside the other components of the old crown of Aragon, by Philip V of Spain in 1707, by means of the Nueva Planta decrees, as a result of the Spanish War of Succession.

Stucco decoration in Islamic architecture refers to carved or molded stucco and plaster. The terms "stucco" and "plaster" are used almost interchangeably in this context to denote most types of stucco or plaster decoration with slightly varying compositions. This decoration was mainly used to cover walls and surfaces and the main motifs were those predominant in Islamic art: geometric, arabesque (or vegetal), and calligraphic, as well as three-dimensional muqarnas. Plaster of gypsum composition was extremely important in Islamic architectural decoration as the relatively dry climate throughout much of the Islamic world made it easy to use this cheap and versatile material in a variety of spaces.

Stucco decoration was already used in ancient times in the region of Iran and the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. In Islamic architecture, stucco decoration appeared during the Umayyad period (late 7th–8th centuries) and underwent further innovations and generalization during the 9th century under the Abbasids in Iraq, at which point it spread further across the Islamic world and was incorporated into regional architectural styles. Examples of historic carved stucco decoration are found in Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, and India, among other areas. It was commonly used in "Moorish" or western Islamic architecture in the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and parts of North Africa (the Maghreb), since at least the Taifa and Almoravid periods (11th–12th centuries). In the Iberian Peninsula it reached a creative pinnacle in Moorish architecture during the Nasrid dynasty (1238–1492), who built the Alhambra. Mudejar architecture also made broad use of such decoration. The Spanish term yesería is sometimes used in the context of Islamic and Mudéjar architecture in Spain.

The Abbadid dynasty or Abbadids (Arabic: بنو عباد, romanized: Banū ʿAbbād) was an Arab dynasty from the tribe of Banu Lakhm of al-Hirah, which ruled the Taifa of Seville in al-Andalus following the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 1031. After the collapse, they were the most powerful Taifa and before long absorbed most of the others. Abbadid rule lasted from about 1023 until 1091, but during the short period of its existence it exhibited singular energy and typified its time.