Caliphate of Cordoba effectively ends

1023

The last Umayyad caliph, Hisham III, held on to a nominal throne while Andalusia splintered into taifa kingdoms ruled by Berbers, Slavs, and Arab notables. Cordoba's marble palaces stood empty; its libraries were dispersed. The cultural capital of western Islam became one provincial city among many, though the taifa courts that replaced it would paradoxically produce some of the finest Arabic poetry ever written.