Gibraltar as a "Western Constantinople"?

If a Muslim power remained in control of both Morocco and parts of Iberia for long enough, could:

1) The capital of this power be Gibraltar.

2) Gibraltar be a city with as much prestige as an economic gateway as Constantinople?
 
Gibraltar has neither the space nor the water supplies for a major city- a fantastic fortress yes, but not a major city.

I think you could have Algeciras chosen as the site of a new capital, with Gibraltar as a heavily fortified stronghold and perhaps home to the government buildings or a Royal Palace, but it's not quite so advantageous to have your capital on the Straights as it is the Bosphorus due to it being harder to control both sides.

That's probably the closest to what you want though.
 
Gibraltar is also quite small and both it and the bay of Algeciras sit beneath a steep range of hills so I don't think it would offer the same benefits of the Horn.
 
Okay, so what would a good, central alternative be? Perhaps Tangiers? It's quite near the straits is it not?

You'd need a much more powerful Morocco for that. Plus basically all Moroccan civilisations have had their capitals/powerbases inland. It's also too vulnerable to attack from Morocco's main competitors in Spain and Portugal.

You'd probably need Atlantic-focused Morocco plus having solid control of the other side of the straits for Tangiers to make sense as a capital.

Maybe a neo-Roman kingdom in Morocco (Mauretania) would be able to do something with it. It would make sense, since the region had strong links to Hispania and would probably seek to control the other side of the straits against whatever barbarians wound up in Iberia. Ceuta might work too, since it was heavily fortified by the Byzantines. Even then, the capital would shift elsewhere (probably Volubilis) once threatened enough by the Iberians.
 
You'd need a much more powerful Morocco for that. Plus basically all Moroccan civilisations have had their capitals/powerbases inland. It's also too vulnerable to attack from Morocco's main competitors in Spain and Portugal.

You'd probably need Atlantic-focused Morocco plus having solid control of the other side of the straits for Tangiers to make sense as a capital.

Maybe a neo-Roman kingdom in Morocco (Mauretania) would be able to do something with it. It would make sense, since the region had strong links to Hispania and would probably seek to control the other side of the straits against whatever barbarians wound up in Iberia. Ceuta might work too, since it was heavily fortified by the Byzantines. Even then, the capital would shift elsewhere (probably Volubilis) once threatened enough by the Iberians.


Well as stated in the OP, the very basis of this discussion is on the assumption that there is a significant Muslim power on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. Whether that power is Moroccan based or based in an alternate Muslim Iberia does not matter. The point is to see if the Straits of Gibraltar could ever have as much economic importance as the Dardanelles. The supposition is that Muslim power in Iberia never wavered. There may be Christian kingdoms in the north of the peninsula, there may not be, but whatever the case a strong, stable Muslim power controls a significant chunk of both Iberia and Morocco.
 
Gibraltar is too cramped, and its communications into Spain are also too restricted by geography.... Tangiers has a better harbor and more room, but really Barcelona is the only city in Spain big enough and with the proper communications

The other issue is that that the Sub Saharan trade doesn't generate the wealth that the Mideast trade via Turkey generated for Constantinople, while the east / west trade is pretty brisk, but there are plenty of alternative avenues (down the Rhone for example to Marseilles).
 
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