Missive #78 – Al-mansur

Missive #78 - Al-mansur
Missive #78 - back
sent from: Waterloo Station, London, UK. destination: Bombay, India

The postcard reads:

The highest peak in Gredos, El Almanzor, was named after Al Mansur, who reigned in the Abbasid empire in the early 700s AD. His mother was African, name unknown. During his reign he increased converts to Islam and literature flourished. He set up his palace at the core of what is now Baghdad and is widely credited with the creation of that city.
He died in 775 on his way to Mecca for haj, and was buried there along the way in a grave designed to be hidden from the Umayyads.

I’ve climbed to the top of El Almanzor three times, but the last time was almost 20 years ago (gulp!).  Whenever I went to Spain I would buy a stack of postcards and write them over the summer. As this has declined over the years I’ve still kept a bunch of postcards of the Sierra, so it’s possible this card goes back to the mid-80s.

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