Matt Quinn said:
Anthony,
Were there many holy wars and pirate raids launched from Muslim Spain? I was under the impression that most of them were launched from Northern Africa.
During the early days, the armies of Muslim Spain regularly went raiding points north (initially in true warlike style, later as tribute-gathering operations with a military veneer). ESpewcially the Christian states in the north of Spain were frequently the target. Of course, counter-raiding was equally popular, but for the first centuries the Christians were, net, on the receiving end, unable to mount a credible military challenge to the Muslims. Some early Emirs and Caliphs collected most of their revenues through such racketeering, and this is occasionally called 'Jihad state' by less friendly commentators (a similar situation once obtained along the Byzantine-Muslim frontier, with akritai and ghazi fighting each other and looting each other's populations).
Later, Muslim Spain settled down into a more self-contained form of existence and generally did not launch many raids. the murabitun (sp) reinstated military aggression against the north, but that wasn't jihad or raiding, it was straighforward warfare over control of territory. As to piracy, that declined sharply post-900, and most European slaves brought to al-Andalus actually were sold there by Christians (Germans, mostly).
The raids of the Barbary pirates are a development of the Renaissance (there always was some privateering in the course of war, but they built their states on it). I assume it was as much based on the conditions of the time (mutual decision to stop co-existence, religious warfare, increased sea traffic, better navigation, and richer pickings in Europe) as Dieppe's and New Providence's pirate economies were. You could, however, make a case for these raids being Spanish in origin as many early 16th century inhabitantrs of the Maghrebin cities were ethnically cleansed Muslims who had originally lived in Spain, and i am convinced that had something to do with the added aggressiveness.