Applying Islamic sources in Spain’s medieval histories: a case study of the Historia Arabum and Historia Gothica emphasizing the conquest of Andalusia and the life of Muhammad (PBUH)

Historia Gothica and Historia Arabum written by the Spanish prominent bishop, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, are of the most outstanding medieval historical works. Historia Arabum is the first Western work on Islamic history due to attention to Islamic history, which led to the importance of Rodrigo Jimenez among historians. The main question of the article is to what extent Islamic sources have influenced the written histories of medieval Spain? This article tries to find out the extent of Rodrigo's reliance on Islamic sources by the comparative study of Rodrigo's works and Islamic texts. Historia Gothica also has interesting points about the Arab attack to Spain, which helped a lot in correcting the information of medieval Europe about the fall of Spain. The information in both of Rodrigo's works about the events of the Middle East and the Islamic world until the 13th AD century is surprisingly different from the stereotypical information found in Latin histories before itself and contains new and important points.