{"id":5085,"date":"2024-12-06T13:29:17","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T12:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alandalusylahistoria.com\/?p=5085"},"modified":"2024-12-06T13:37:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T12:37:59","slug":"the-streets-of-al-andalus-second-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alandalusylahistoria.com\/?p=5085","title":{"rendered":"The streets of al-Andalus (second part)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The idea that an irregular layout of streets characterizes the Islamic city has been abandoned because it has been shown that in cities founded by Muslims there is planning with a regular layout and because the labyrinthic appearance is in fact produced by historical evolution.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Maribel Fierro<\/a> y Luis Molina<\/a>
ILC-CCHS & EEA (CSIC)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The Alley of the Heads (C\u00f3rdoba). Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Spanish version<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islamic law distinguishes between the true street, open at both ends, which is a public road where everyone (Muslims and non-Muslims) has the right to circulate, and the alley that most authors consider a private thoroughfare that belongs in co-ownership with the neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public roads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The ruler or his delegates were responsible for establishing a Friday mosque in the urban centers that required one, establishing the location of government and treasury buildings, the souk, the walls and its gates, as well as the public roads that connected all those structures, especially those that went from the political-religious center of the city to the gates. Those were the public roads. Nobody owned them. As Jean-Pierre van Staevel has stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00abThe public road is like a river, something of general utility, which is not susceptible to appropriation but rather to the right of use, of passage and circulation, which is why the law focuses on what causes damage to that right.\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In Late-Empire M\u00e9rida, according to Miguel Alba, it has been possible to detect how members of the elites managed to take over public spaces. In Muslim C\u00f3rdoba we know of an analogous attempt to do so, studied by Christine Mazzoli-Guintard. The chamberlain of the emir \u02bdAbd All\u0101h, Ibn al-Sal\u012bm (d. 914), took over part of the street by incorporating it into his garden and surrounding the space he had stolen from the street with a wall. This happened between 888 and 907. The jurists issued \u2014as was normal\u2014 contradictory opinions about what the chamberlain did. But the majority were against it, and Ibn al-Sal\u012bm was ordered to destroy the wall that gave material expression to his monopolization of a public road. In this case, someone had set himself up as mu<\/em>\u1e25<\/em>tasib<\/em>, denouncing what the chamberlain had done. Some years later, Ibn ‘Abd al-Ra’\u016bf stipulated that no one could benefit in his own interest from roads and tracks. In January 972, the caliph crossed a neighborhood of C\u00f3rdoba with his entourage and was able to see that a street that bordered a moat had become very narrow, so he had the shops that lined that street bought up and then destroyed to ensure circulation through it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gumiel Street of San Pedro (Granada). Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Ibn al-Im\u0101m of Tudela attributes this defense of public space to the Prophet: \u201cWhoever takes possession without right of a piece of land, a field, a public road or the fin\u0101’ <\/em>of a house, God will put on him a collar of the width of seven fields on the day of Judgment.\u201d The tradition \u2014of dubious authenticity\u2014 establishes a punishment of a religious nature (it will take place in the afterlife) and not a legal one. The Maliki jurist of Qayrawan Sa\u1e25n\u016bn (d. 820) condemned all usurpation of public roads, with restitution being obligatory even if twenty years had passed \u00abbecause public roads do not prescribe.\u00bb But he introduces two correctives:<\/p>\n\n\n\n