Casa Árabe has organized a day of events titled ”The history of Al-Andalus on the medieval Iberian Peninsula: An homage to Prof. Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón,” held under the scientific direction of Alejandro García Sanjuán, a professor of Medieval History at the University of Huelva; Bilal Sarr, a professor of Medieval History at the University of Granada, and Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, a professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Cordoba.

The purpose of the event is to introduce the advancements made in the main areas of research carried out by Prof. Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón, the dean of Spanish Arabists and a professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Zaragoza, highlighting his personal contributions while also showing what great challenges are being faced by Al-Andalus studies based on his work, while also publicizing other current projects which continue the work already begun by this well-known Arabist.

The day of events will be held along with an a digital display of books and publications by Prof. Pedro Chalmeta.

Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón is one of the pillars on which Spanish Arabism is based. His contributions on Al-Andalus have been decisive in understanding the conquest, Arab historiography, society and economics, as well as the early historical periods of Al-Andalus’ political formation. His influence has been reflected in multiple specialties, all of which are essential for understanding Al-Andalus. It was therefore considered appropriate to organize a multidisciplinary meeting in which specialists from different fields and backgrounds could discuss the contributions that Professor Chalmeta has made to each of their fields, whether directly or indirectly. Thus, numismatists (Ruth Pliego and Tawfiq Ibrahim), epigraphists (María Antonia Martínez Núñez), historians (Adela Fábregas García, Alejandro García-Sanjuán), archeologists (Bilal Sarr) and, of course, Arabists (Juan Martos, J.P. Monferrer) will be taking part in an open afternoon session that will be ending with a speech by Pedro Chalmeta himself, along with an exhibition of the author’s work.

Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón
Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universities of Zaragoza and Complutense in Madrid, Pedro Chalmeta was born in Madrid in 1935, where he studied and earned his doctorate in Semitic Philology. He lived in Egypt for five years and then in Iraq as a professor and director of the Hispanic-Arabic Institute (IHA) in Baghdad, before beginning to teach at the Universidad Complutense in 1967.  

He has been a scientific collaborator at the Hispanic-Arabic Institute of Culture and the CSIC, professor of “Muslim Institutions” and “History of Islam” at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, a correspondent member of the Iraqi Academy, a visiting professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, Associate Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and a professor at the Collège de France in Paris.  

Professor Chalmeta focused his research on the economic and institutional history of Al-Andalus, which represented a new and unique orientation within the traditional framework of Spanish Arabism. His most notable recent publications include El libro del buen gobierno del zoco de al-Saqaṭī (The Book of Good Governance of the Al-Saqafi Souk, Madrid, 1969; Almería, 2014), with editing of the Arabic text in collaboration with Prof. F. Corriente; El señor del zoco en España: edades media y moderna (The Lord of the Souk in Spain: Middle and Modern Ages, Madrid, 1973; new expanded edition, Almería, 2010: El zoco medieval / The Medieval Souk), which has an extensive foreword by Maxime Rodinson; an edition with Prof. F. Corriente of Al-Muqtabas V de Ibn Ḥayyān (Madrid, 1979), Kitāb al-waṯā’iq wa-l-siǧillāt li-Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (Madrid, 1983); Invasión e islamización. La sumisión de Hispania y la formación de al-Andalus (Invasion and Islamization: The submission of Hispania and the formation of Al-Andalus, Madrid, 1994; Jaén, 2003); with M. Marugán Formulario notarial y judicial de Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (Notarized Documents and Court Record of Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār, d. 388/1009) Study and translation (Madrid, 2000); Ibn ʿAbd al-Ra’ūf. Córdoba a mediados del siglo X (Ibn ʿAbd al-Ra’ūf: Cordoba in the mid-tenth century, Almería, 2019); Historia socioeconómica de Alandalús: Historia socioeconómica de al-Andalus (desde la conquista hasta el final del califato) (Socio-economic History of Al-Andalus [From the conquest to the end of the caliphate], Almería, 2021, with a contribution by Tawfiq Ibrahim, and La conquista de Alandalús (The Conquest of Al-Andalus, Almería, 2025).