Muslim mob sacks Cordoba

1145

As Almoravid authority in al-Andalus collapsed, riots and factional fighting broke out in the city that had been the ornament of the Islamic West. The great library of al-Hakam II, already reduced by earlier civil wars, lost thousands more volumes to fire and looting. The destruction marked the end of Cordoba's preeminence as a center of Islamic learning, a role that shifted permanently to other cities in the Almohad domains.