Convivencia
Also: coexistence in medieval Iberia, living together
A modern historical label for the coexistence and interaction of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Iberia. It names real cultural exchange, but it does not mean equal citizenship or uninterrupted religious tolerance.
Convivencia literally means living together. Historians use it to discuss the long, changing contact among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Iberia. That contact produced genuine exchange in language, poetry, medicine, philosophy, administration, and daily life.
The word becomes misleading when it is treated as a moral grade for the whole period. Legal status was unequal, conditions changed across dynasties and cities, and the record includes both high office and violent persecution. Mark Cohen’s comparative work rejects an interfaith-utopia story while also showing that Jewish life under medieval Islamic rule cannot be reduced to an unbroken persecution story.