During the first week of May 2012, Chris and I were in Andalusia, Spain. We visited Malaga, Cordoba, Granada and a few smaller towns. For a long time I have wanted to see the Mezquita Mosque/Cathedral in Cordoba and the Alhambra in Grenada.
This is the roof of the Mezquita Mosque in Cordoba.
I was not disappointed; they were both stunning. Right there at the top of the list of most beautiful and impressive cultural sites I have ever seen. On reflection. I find the Mezquita most impressive, its construction being started in 781 AD and the Alhambra the more beautiful and younger (1100 AD) of the two.
I have read a lot about the Islamic rule in Spain which lasted from 711 AD till 1492 AD, the very same year Columbus set sail from Andalusia to discover what was later called America. For 781 years the Moors ruled over varying parts of the Iberian peninsula. Indeed, were it not for a legendary battle in the middle of modern France, the Battle of Tours/Poirtiers in 732 AD in which Charles Martel (grandfather of Charlemagne) defeated the Moors, modern Europe could have easily been Islamic instead of Christian.
How come, the Moors were able to conquer the Christian kingdoms so quickly? Well, part of the story is that they had the stirrup. This made possible the concept of heavy cavalry. A fully armoured ‘knight’ could wield a heavy sword or lance while bracing himself using the stirrup. European countries had no such heavy cavalry. It was the sheer military genius of Charles Martel which allowed an army of foot soldiers to beat the heavy cavalry of the Moors (plus a little luck and the element of surprise). They were no ordinary foot soldiers by the way, it was the first full time year-round professional army in Europe and they were very good at the tactic of "Holding the Line". It won them the battle. It is said that Charles himself studied the stirrups after the battle and quickly adopted them for use in his own army. Next time, I am in Paris, France, I will want to visit the tomb of Charles Martel in the Saint Denis Basilica and contemplate the words of the historian Edward Gibbon: “Christendom ... delivered ... by the genius and good fortune of one man, Charles Martel.”
Was Islamic rule in Spain a bad thing in it self? It seems this is a matter of perspective. Obviously this issue is likely to hit a nerve because of the current animosity between Christianity and Islam.
For one thing it is not simply a matter of the Moors conquering Christian lands and oppressing the righteous and faithful. The Moors were invited by some wealthy Christian Visigoth overlords to help settle a land dispute; all 7,000 of them. Some of the locals saw them as liberators and converted to Islam willingly. In the course of over 700 years a lot of native Spaniards converted willingly to Islam. This is a little fact often overlooked in history. This made the Reconquista more of an ugly civil war than anything else. In modern terms, think of Northern Ireland and you will get the picture.
The Moors in Andalusia spent more of their wealth on culture and architecture than defense. When they were cornered by the Christian armies they called for help from their Moroccan Berber friends: The Almohads. Now these were a different people. In today's terms we would call them Islamic Fundamentalists. The Almohads were appalled by what they saw in Spain. The Moors of Andalusia had clearly strayed off the path in their view by absorbing Christian values into their Moorish culture. A disgrace! A lot of the destruction of Cultural artifacts in Andalusia was done on orders of the Almohads. The more popular view of barbarous Moors occupying Spain thus really better suits the Almohads than the Moors as such. Al the more an excuse for the Christians to kick the Moors out. And that they did. The job was finally and conclusively done in 1492. For a hundred years or so after that, laws were passed to protect the Muslim and Jewish population. Until in the 16th century the Spanish Crown, busy fighting wars all over the known world, decided it could no longer afford a large minority Muslim population right in their own heartland. In an unprecedented act of ethnic cleansing all the native Spaniards adhering to the Muslim faith were forcibly removed from Spain. That or killed.
Depending on were you look you will find very different versions of this tragic story.
The British Channel 4 documentary “When the Moors Ruled in Europe,” by Bettany Hughes basically argues the point that Christian Europe was inferior in all the aspects in which the Moors were excelling. The Moors had a high regard for learning, even the common people were encouraged to become literate and study. The Moors had irrigation, sewer systems, water closets and a successful agriculture. Their cities were pleasingly laid out, with harmoniously proportioned buildings and exotic and fragrant fruit trees to delight the senses. They even brought hairspray and deodorant to Spain.
The Partal(garden) at the Alhambra in Grenada.
Bettany Hughes shows us their leadership in translating and keeping alive the Greek and Roman classics, science, medicine, marine navigation, and astronomy, and reminds us that many words in our vocabulary approach from the Arabic. She touches upon the fact that they welcomed Jews, and their knowledge. Most indispensable of all, she reminds us that we currently use Arabic numerals, and that the substantial leaps forward in bookkeeping that underlay the businesses that bankrolled the famous Renaissance of the 16th century, could never have occurred if clerks were still struggling with those clumsy Roman numerals. Nor, of course, could Europe have rediscovered the Roman and Greek classics, another major ingredient of the Renaissance, had the Moors not preserved them.
The extreme other point of view can be read at a conservative blog in the USA commenting on a conference held at the Virginia Military Institute in 2011 called “East meets West.” and commemorating the Moorish invasion of Spain.
www.theblogmocracy.com/2011/02/06/bigotry-on-display-at-vmi/Reza Aslan is scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “‘Al-Andalus’ – an ageless Model of Tolerance“, but it is doubtful that Aslan and his co-panelists will be discussing the widespread persecution of Christians and Jews under Muslim rule that led to the establishment of an entirely new class of Roman Catholic martyrs, “the Cordoba martyrs“, or the 1066 massacre of Jews and crucifixion their leader Joseph ha-Nagid in “tolerant” Cordoba. The great Jewish scholar Maimonides and his family fled “tolerant” Cordoba after the Muslim conquest of the city in 1148, when the new occupiers gave Jews the option of converting to Islam, death or exile. A similar persecution emulating the Almohad’s “model of tolerance” prompted Maimonides to write his famous Epistle on Forced Conversion to the Jewish community in Yemen. Restoring ‘“Al-Andalus’ – an ageless Model of Tolerance” has been the stated goal of Al-Qaeda. In September 2007 Ayman al-Zawahiri issued an audio tape calling for the reconquest of “Al-Andalus” and more recently called for the “cleansing” of North Africa of Spaniards and the French as preparation for the reoccupation of “Al-Andalus”. An al-Qaeda-linked cyber-jihadist group that targets US companies with hacks and computer worms styles themselves as “The Brigades of Tariq ibn Ziyad”, named after the invader and occupier of Spain…
So what to think of all this?
For more than 700 years the Moors had a civilization going in Spain which was without a doubt more advanced than anything else seen in Europe at the time. More advanced in terms of its science, agriculture, economics and law. Was it also tolerant and benign? Again compared to the norm at that time in Europe, probably yes. Compared to today’s norms, certainly not. Were there pogroms and massacres committed by the Moors (more likely the Almohads) against the Jews? Yes, but they are of rare occurrence in Islamic history. The latter cannot be said of the treatment of Jews and Muslims by Christians in Europe.
My photos of 2012 trip to Andalucia
