Sack of Cordoba begins

1009

Berber mercenaries rampaged through the Umayyad capital in a struggle over the caliph's throne, burning the palace-city of Madinat al-Zahra and ransacking its libraries. The dazzling Andalusian metropolis never fully recovered. Within twenty years the caliphate would dissolve into petty taifa kingdoms across the south. Manuscripts looted from the royal library scattered across the Mediterranean, turning up for centuries in collections from Fez to Cairo.