Professor Bilal Sarr’s conference will address the situation of medieval archeology in Morocco, from its beginnings to the modern day, at a time when notable projects have arisen in Morocco with a focus on the main cities.

It will also present the latest advancements in research regarding the connection between Maghreb region and Iberian peninsular cities, analyzing issues such as defensive structures, coastal settlement and the development of certain building complexes from a comparative perspective, all focused on the Rif region but with multiple references to other areas in the Maghreb. 

Organized with the cooperation of the Bachelor’s degree program in History, the Master’s degree on The Medieval Iberian World: Hispania, Al-Andalus and Sepharad, the Bachelor’s degree in Archeology and the Master’s degree in Archeology and Heritage at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Representing that program, the speaker and session will be introduced by Santiago Palacios Ontalva, Vice-Rector of Bachelor’s Degree Studies and a Medieval History professor at the UAM, with an initial commentary after the conference by María Teresa Casal García, a professor of Archeology at that university. The event will be moderated by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics Coordinator. 

Bilal Sarr 

A professor of Medieval History at the University of Granada, Bilal Sarr holds a PhD in Medieval History (2009), with a thesis on “La Granada zirí” (“Zirid Granada”), as well as a Master’s Degree in Archeology (2006) and a bachelor’s degree in History (2004) and Arabic Philology (2007) from the same university. He is a specialist in the history, archeology, and culture of Islamic societies in the Middle Ages. During his post-doctoral studies, from 2011 to 2015, he was awarded a scholarship from the Casa de Velázquez (2011) and a post-doctoral contract from the Ministry of Education, with research stays at Toulouse II Le Mirail and the Sorbonne University in Paris. He then worked as a contract professor (ATER) at the University of Paris 8. He has completed several stays in Morocco as part of his research projects, notably at the IRCAM (Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture) in Rabat in the summer of 2019.

His research focuses on three main thematic areas: 1) the Berber or Amazigh settlement in Al-Andalus; 2) the history and archeology of the region known as the Surco Intrabético (Granada, Medina Elvira, Guadix, and Baza); and, in recent years, in relation with the first theme, 3) the history and archeology of the Maghreb and Black Africa. 

Some of his most notable publications include the co-authored book Estructuras, dispositivos y estrategias defensivas de las sociedades humanas (Structures, Devices and Strategies for Defense Among Human Societies, Granada, 2023), and Arabización islamización y Resistencias en al-Andalus y el Magreb, with Mari Ángeles Navarro (Arabization, Islamization and Resistance in Al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Granada, 2020), having been the scientific coordinator of the catalogue La Granada zirí y el universo beréber (Zirid Granada and the Berber Universe, PAG, 2019), and the editor of Tawā’if. Historia y Arqueología de los reinos de taifas (Tawā’if: History and archeology of the Taifa kingdoms, Alborán, 2018). 

He has translated works on history and archeology from French into Spanish, including The seals of the Umayyad conquest and the formation of al-Andalus by Philippe Sénac and Tawfiq Ibrahim (EUG, 2017) and the second extended edition thereof (EUG, 2023), as well as one by Pierre Toubert, In the Middle Ages: Sources, structures, crisis (EUG, 2016), in addition to others. 

He has participated in and directed various projects, such as the “Pimalboran” R&D&I Challenges, in which he studied the coastal archeological sites of the Rif and the coast of Granada and Malaga, a project of the Bilad al-Sudan Plan, and its interactions with the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. He is currently directing two projects, one in conjunction with Fátima Palma, awarded by the Ministry of Culture for the archeological research and study of the Portuguese site Cercas das Alcarias in Mesquita (Mértola, Portugal) (IACAM project), where the goal is to study the transformations which took place in rural areas during the transition from Hispania to Al-Andalus. And the R&D&I project implemented by the Ministry of Innovation and Science known as Maqbara: Arabization, Islamization and Resistance based on the cemetery spaces in southeastern Al-Andalus (MAQBARA).