The Fall of Al-Andalus and the Rise of Iberian Maritime Expansion: Political Consolidation and the Origins of Global Exploration

Abstract

This article contends that the fall of Muslim Spain, or Al-Andalus, contributed significantly to the political consolidation, economic reorientation, and ideological transformation that facilitated Iberian maritime expansion, culminating in the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, not only marked the end of centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia but also completed the Reconquista, enabling the emergence of a centralized Christian monarchy with renewed fiscal and military capacities. This consolidation redirected surplus military resources and crusading zeal outward, while the disruption of long-standing Mediterranean trade networks, partly linked to shifting Islamic and Ottoman control over eastern routes, encouraged the search for alternative maritime pathways to Asia. Furthermore, the intellectual and navigational knowledge transmitted through centuries of interaction with Andalusian scholars, including advances in cartography, astronomy, and navigation, indirectly supported overseas exploration. By critically examining these political, economic, and intellectual transformations, this study investigates whether the rise of European global expansion, and consequently the foundations of the modern world order, were partially contingent upon the fall of Islamic Spain.