Concepts of Conquest and Occupation: Different views of the Muslim rule in Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

In the past era, earlier before establishing the modern international law and the United Nations, both conquest and military occupation were worldwide happening all over the world. This includes the period of the existence of Islamic power in the Iberian Peninsula, which some describe as an occupation of other countries territories, while others describe it as a conquest for those territories. However, the word ‘conquest’ almost disappeared on describing wars for long time but reappeared in some news about wars of recent era, while the word ‘occupation’ continued and did not disappear from our modern world. Approaching the two concepts and explaining the similarity and difference between them can clarify the indications of applying each concept and the intentions behind this. In Arabic language, the language of Muslims holy book of Quran, the indication for the two concepts of ‘conquest’ and ‘occupation’ is totally different, in a way that many arguments can arouse to prove which of the two concepts give the right description for some cases. However, both of the two concepts have similarity in meaning on the point that both of them refer to an action using the force (usually military force) to control another country. In Arabic the difference indications of the two concepts is very obvious to show that one has a positive meaning and the other implies a negative sense of hostility. This can be clear seeing that the Arabic word for conquest (fatḥ ﻓﺘﺢ) is only used to express Muslim rule of other countries, while the Arabic word for occupation (iḥtilāl) is used to describe foreign rule for Muslim countries. In this sense, there are Arabic writings defending the Muslim rule of Iberian Peninsula (Andalusia) calling it conquest and refuse to call it occupation. This paper will try to discuss the difference between these two concepts (conquest, occupation), and on the other hand, it will try to apply these terms onto the case of Muslim rule in Iberian Peninsula, to determine whether it was a conquest or an occupation for the territories.