The Central March or Middle March () was the central of the three

marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diffe ...

along the northern frontier of the

Emirate An emirate is a territory ruled by an emir, a title used by monarchs or high officeholders in the Muslim world. From a historical point of view, an emirate is a political-religious unit smaller than a caliphate. It can be considered equivalent ...

and (after 929)

Caliphate of Córdoba A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

between the 8th and 11th centuries. It lay roughly along the Tagus valley, between the Lower March to the southwest and the

Upper March The Upper March (; Spanish ''Marca Superior'') was an administrative and military division in northeastern al-Andalus, roughly corresponding to the Ebro valley and adjacent Mediterranean coast, from the 8th century to the early 11th century. It ...

to the northeast. Its administrative centre was at first Toledo, later

Medinaceli Medinaceli () is a municipality and town in the province of Soria, in Castile and León, Spain. Built on a hilltop at about 1210 metres above sea level, the town oversees the Jalón valley. The municipality includes other villages like Torralba ...

. The concept of '' al-thughūr'' (الثغر), the frontier zones or marches between the ''dār al-ḥarb'' and the ''dār al-islām'', was found throughout the Islamic world. The marches were not fixed, but fluctuated with the fortunes of Islam. The stability of the frontier in Spain between the late 8th and the early 11th centuries is responsible for the outsized role and relatively well-defined nature of the ''thughūr'' there. The tripartite division was certainly in existence by the 9th century. The Central March extended east as far as the edge of the territory known as Bārūsha, which was part of the Upper March and lay south of Daroca, covering Molina. Late in the reign of the Emir Muḥammad I (852–886), there was a chain of fortresses stretching from Bārūsha to Toledo at

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Talamanca, Canales, Olmos and Calataifa. In the reign of

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam al-Rabdī ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dākhil (; 890–961), or simply ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, was the Umayyad Emir of Córdoba fro ...

(912–961), the classical tripartite division disappeared. The Central March and the Lower March were combined under the name of the latter but with the character of an enlarged Central March. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān moved the capital north from Toledo to a fortress he constructed at Medinaceli. This expanded march included the Sierra de Guadarrama north of Madrid and a string of fortresses along the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

. According to Aḥmad al-Rāzī, its northern extensions towards the

Duero The Douro (, , , ; ; ) is the largest river of the Iberian Peninsula by discharge. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in the Spanish province of Soria, meanders briefly south, then flows generally west through the northern part of the Meseta ...

comprised the districts of Santaver, Racupel,

Zorita Zorita is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2006 census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population ...

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( ; ) is the capital and the most populous city in the western Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco, as well as the most densely populated municipality in Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population ...

and Medinaceli with their fortresses, including Castejón de Henares, Uclés, Cuenca, Huete and Huelamo. Towards the former Lower March were the fortresses of Talavera, Madrid, Coria,

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

. The ''thughūr'' persisted in name through the first ''

taifa The taifas (from ''ṭā'ifa'', plural ''ṭawā'if'', meaning "party, band, faction") were the independent Muslim principalities and kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain), referred to by Muslims as al-Andalus, that em ...

'' (faction) period following the collapse of the caliphate in the 11th century, but by the 12th they were gone. The ''

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

'' (Christian reconquest) of the northern lands of

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () 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 o ...

(Islamic Iberia) had rendered the old system of fortresses and districts impossible.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * {{coord missing, Spain Subdivisions of al-Andalus Marches (country subdivision) 8th-century establishments in the Umayyad Caliphate

See also

Notes

Bibliography