Trace Elements

In Lisbon and southern Portugal, Sarah Khan seeks out a palimpsest of the region's rich Islamic history

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THE MARIGOLD FAÇADE of the Pousada Convento in Tavira, a town on Portugal's southern coast, gleams in the late-afternoon sun. Refreshing as it is to sip chilled pineapple juice in the AIgarve heat, it's not the promise of shade that leads me into its cloisters. The tranquil courtyard, flanked by cheery yellow walls and weathered colonnades, is a portal to the 16th century, when the structure was built for an order of Augustinian nuns.

While transforming the convent into a hotel in 2006, developers began carving out a swimming pool. "A joke that archaeologists and historians make here is that if you dig a hole, you're going to find something," says João Pedro de Matos, a researcher with a postgraduate degree from Universidade de Évora. The excavations revealed vestiges of a medieval Muslim quarter dating back to the 13th century. The site is now a tiny museum under wthe hotel bar. The cost of my drink covers my entrance fee. The bartender points me toward a staircase with a tiny placard: AImohad (Islamic) Quarter.

Beginning in the eighth century, Arabs from North Africa reigned over much of the Iberian peninsula, until the Reconquista, a movement by Christian kingdoms to expel Muslims from the region, reclaimed Portugal in 1249 and Spain in 1492. "I like to say they brought the light to Europe," a driver in Lisbon tells me, describing how Muslim advancements in mathematics, medicine, engineering, and astronomy ushered the region out of the Dark Ages. In neighboring Spain, it's easy to trace the footsteps of the Moors in Andalusia, formerly the kingdom of AI-Andalus. But in Portugal you have to work a little harder to see what remains of this inheritance in AI-Gharb, modern-day AIgarve.