The notion of Reconquista is the product of 19th-century Spanish Nationalist
thinking. Although developed as an academic concept, it played, at the same time,
a crucial political and ideological role, thus holding a very powerful and potentially
toxic ideological burden, chiefly consisting of the idea that Spain is a nation shaped
against Islam. Its dual academic and ideological nature makes it a highly problematic
concept that greatly contributed to produce a largely biased and distorted vision of
the Iberian medieval past, aimed at delegitimizing the Islamic presence (al-Andalus)
and therefore at legitimizing the Christian conquest of the Muslim territory. Over the
last years and in the framework of the Clash of Civilizations doctrine, conservative
and far-right scholarly and political outlets reignited the most ideological version of
the Reconquista, thus raising a major challenge for academic historians.