Not many Sevillians know that in the 9th century the city was attacked several times by the Vikings. During the emirate of the Umayyads in Córdoba, a Viking fleet arrived in Seville on Guadalquivir on September 25, 844. The Vikings sacked the city, killed many of its citizens, although they couldn’t burn the Great Mosque that had been built recently.
The emir of Cordoba Abd ar-Rahman II, the most important of the Iberian Peninsula, quickly assembled an army under the command of Isa ibn Shuhayd who camped at the Aljarafe, some hills located west of the city, near the river.
On November 11, Muslims faced the Vikings in a great battle on the esplanade of Tablada on the banks of the river. The Muslims won a great victory and ended the lives of more than 1,000 Vikings, made about 500 prisoners and destroyed 30 of the Viking ships.
Some of the prisoners converted to Islam and settled on farms in Aljarafe where it seems they were engaged in cheese making. Apparently the cheese of the Vikings was made only with goat’s milk and without adding rennet, a form of elaboration unknown in Al-Andalus until then.
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