Creative forces in Judaism have emerged in North Africa and especially in Muslim Spain.

The tolerant Arab rulers who have conquered southern Spain have been generally reasonable in their treatment of the Jewish communities who, present in Iberia since Roman times, had nearly been exterminated by the Christian Visigoths.

With the establishment in 950 of the Academy at Córdoba, Spain becomes the most prosperous Jewish center in the Mediterranean.

Hasdai Ibn Shaprut becomes doctor and adviser to the powerful Umayyad caliph 'Abd ar-Rahman III, Caliph of Córdoba.

Abd ar-Rahman receives in Córdoba an embassy in 950 from count Borrell II of Barcelona, by which the northern county recognizes the caliphal supremacy in exchange for peace and mutual support.