ABSTRACT
The Islamic West is a convenient term, parallel to the Arabic Maghrib, to designate Islamic Spain and North Africa. The whole region tended to constitute a single unit, with Spain as the senior partner. Since Spain was the point at which Islamic culture exerted the greatest influence on that of Western Europe, and since the history of Moorish Spain is part of the history of Spain, European scholars have devoted much attention to this portion of the field of Islamic studies. Spain at first followed Damascus in legal and other religious matters, but in course of time the Malikite rite came to be the dominant one. Though in the east there was some connection between Malikite law and Ash'arite theology, there is hardly any trace of Ash'arism in the west before the Almohad movement. It was during the Almohad period in Spain that there took place a great flowering of philosophy.
