Did they know from the start that Andalusia would only be a passing dream? Those young Arabs and their Berber comrades who crossed the water barrier found an extremely fertile and defenseless land before them, whose hills were covered with dense greenery that gave them shade. This is the meaning of the word Al-Andalus, the name they gave to this strange place. It was an unknown and unfamiliar scene for those men coming from the expansive desert, where everything was brilliant and clear. They did not believe that a land with such characteristics could be a permanent reality. In spite of the passage of seven centuries, they always felt that their residence there was temporary, a dwelling-place without permanence, standing on the edge of imagination and a dream. Perhaps the Arab and Muslim inhabitants of Al-Andalus were the only people who continued to anticipate their terrifying collapse for more than 200 years as if it were a destiny that they could not ward off or find any escape from it