A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
I cannot recommend the book enough! The societies that he describes feel magical, enlightened, inspiring, thoughtful, advanced and romantic.
I often wonder, 'how inspirational was Al-Andalus for contemporary Europeans?' The discovery and founding of America by Europeans itself has many parallels to the much earlier establishment of Al-Andalus. It too was an idealistic colony. Coincidentally, the word California - which symbolically marks a 'boundary of the west' of sorts - has an Arabic root!
I have to find the letter (possibly a Jewish reader can dig it out?) but I remember reading and being amused by a letter penned by Maimonides to iirc Jews in Arabian peninsula. Apparently they had written to him having heard of the paradise of tolerance in Muslim Spain and his letter poo pooing it, telling them it’s no better than their locale. I always read that letter as a sort of rabbinical wisdom on his part: he knew they wouldn’t be able to get there so he painted a dismal picture.
Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) is considered religiously tolerant by modern historians in the context of the experience of Jewish citizens, especially when compared to contemporary parts of Western Europe.
As an example, it seems there was an expulsion of around 100,000 Jews in Christian France in 1306 and in England in 1290 of several thousand. I've not come across any such comparable events in my readings of Al-Andalus.
As a direct point, if Maimonides thought that France and so on would have offered more freedom or a better quality of life, then he could have moved there when Cordoba was experiencing political turmoil. He instead migrated through the Maghreb, towards the Middle East - it seems he was employed by Saladin at some point.
That event along with similar events in Italy and elsewhere was what truly triggered the Renaissance but historians in the West won't ever acknowledge it using that phrasing.
Today, people are taught that Leonardo Da Vinci was hiding in a room somewhere and suddenly the Renaissance happened. That caliber of nonsense is necessary to explain the gap without recognizing the merit of other civilizations.
Then you read this and realize that everything you have been taught about medieval times are fake feel-good stories about how the West is the light
https://web.archive.org/web/20051210130856/http://umcc.ais.o... (book written in 1160 CE)
A brief extract:
> Now 'tis established in the exact Sciences by precise demonstration, that the Sun is a Spherical Body, and so is the Earth; and that the Sun is much greater than the Earth; and that part of the Earth which is at all times illuminated by the Sun is above half of it; and that in that half which is illuminated, the Light is most intense in the midst, both because that part is the most remote from Darkness, as also, because it offers a greater surface to the Sun; and that those parts which are nearer the Circumference of the Circle, have less Light; and so gradually, till the Circumference of the Circle, which encompasses the illuminated part of the Earth, ends in Darkness.
After the fall of Islamic civilization in the Iberian peninsula and the middle east, the world took many centuries to reach the same level of scientific progress from centuries earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snell%27s_law
If the Mongols had not burned the Grand library of Baghdad you would be in a flying car right now talking with your friends on Mars.
The Mongols opened the door to fundamentalism, but it didn't have to go that way. The sack of Baghdad is a simplification
Read up on Al Ghazali, it is eye-opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali
That trend, that lasted a long time, ended with the help of the Islamic civilization influence, with the arrival of paper and translated copies of the works you are talking about.
They were studying them. We were not. Our copies come from them, and the technology to distribute those copies also comes from them.
Our scientific tradition is a direct continuation of theirs, as they are the first advisors to the first doctors in the West.
A big influence for sure, but that claim is a stretch.
Look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books#Middle_Ages
What’s way more interesting is events that could’ve completely changed human history. Like if Julius Caesar lost in Gaul or the Persians had defeated the Greeks or the Mongols had invaded Europe.
On that list had to be what if Islam had spread throughout Europe? It very much could’ve at different points. Not just the Moors but later the Ottomans.
For much of Europe, it did. If you take a look at the maps of various Islamic empires, there remains a fairly small part of Europe that was never ruled by them. Practically speaking, what is called 'Europe' today are just the parts that were never conquered, or were later retaken. The rest we call e.g. Turkey.
Nevertheless, even without examining any evidence from that book, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
For this, no other evidence is necessary beyond the fact that even if the non-Muslims might have not "lived in harmony", they certainly had lived there in great numbers, while soon after the reconquest the non-Christians no longer lived there (this is especially obvious from the large number of Sephardim who had to live in other countries after that).
Another thing that is true beyond any reasonable doubt is what is said in the parent article, i.e. that regardless whether the Arab conquest was good or bad for the local people, for Europe as a whole the Arab presence in Spain has been extremely useful, both as the source of improved knowledge in chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, due to their own research of various Arab and Muslim authors, and as the source of many ancient Latin and Greek works that had been lost in Europe.
Yeah, Spain the kingdom didn't really treat Muslims all that great, one just have to look at the "Expulsion of the Moriscos" in 1609 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos). Hard to beat that when it comes to treatment of entire populations.
As a side note, I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto everyone at once, which does not produce a useable model of reality IMO.
Thanks for putting into words something I've been feeling for a long time! It's like people think that conflict is unnatural, when really it is one of the most fundamental aspects of nature.
The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type printing press, when their importance has soon become more historical than practical, due to the rapid advances that have started at that time.
Besides the ancient Latin and Greek books, the Arabs have also passed knowledge that had come from India and Persia and also the results of original research that went beyond what had been transmitted from others, especially in chemistry and mathematics, hence words like alchemy and algebra.
p.s. important to amend this here to note that certainly, Muslim civilization had many towering Arab (and non-Persian non-Arab) intellects as well. In my personal opinion, the correct terminology would be Muslim and Islamic (since it certainly was that) instead of Arab or Arabic. The latter apparently is favored by European “Orientalists” but it is both incorrect and further it is divisive.
However, the works of Avicenna and others like him have reached Europe through Arabs, frequently through Spain.
If you know of another path to Europe for the Persian Arabic works, I am curious to hear which is it.
And “algorithm” too, named after the scientist Al-Khwarizmi
Alabama?
Good guess, but no, it's California from Khalifa.
(And if you look outside that particular imprint the publisher's politics become even more obvious)
The greatest "myth" I'm seeing in this thread is the idea of objective pop history writers (or readers). All of these works are goods being sold to a consumer audience. Perhaps in decades past, many consumers favored works that expanded or challenged their worldviews. But in today's zeitgeist, most consumers want to read things that reinforce how they view the world already.
Or you'll have to explain why this is obvious.
And that's exactly what to expect from a conservative library! There's no left-wing book, at all, in the shelves and that's a pretty clear sign.
We can't know for sure if the “general topics” are themselves conservative, but the complete lack of left-wing PoV in collection, that doesn't bode well.
As an example, there's this biography of William F. Buckley Jr :https://www.regnery.com/9781610171557/william-f-buckley-jr/ whose blurb reads in part "William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement tells the incredible story of a man who could have been a playboy, sailing his yacht and skiing in Switzerland, but who chose to be the St. Paul of the conservative movement, carrying the message far and wide." (and makes it sound more more like a hagiography, but let's leave that aside).
Then there's https://www.regnery.com/9781610171458/just-right/ with this excerpt from the blurb: "This memoir is full of colorful stories from a man who has been present at nearly every major event of the modern conservative movement and has done it all in a remarkable, multifaceted career."
Also in the same imprint is Rick Santorum: https://www.regnery.com/9781932236835/it-takes-a-family/ about whom I don't think I need to say much more.
I said "obvious" regarding the publisher overall, not just their imprint. You'll notice they have a "Political Books" category (https://www.regnery.com/books/political-books/) in which you might find that their 'Featured Books' include "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" (by Ted Cruz, and please refer back to my comment re: Santorum), "Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists Behind the Attack on America's Kids" , "When China Attacks: A Warning to America", "The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy has Destroyed Us", and "Domestic Extremest: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War".
If that's not enough for you, then please consider the publisher's own words: "Want to read conservative books that drive headlines, start debates, and change the course of history? That’s what Regnery books have been doing since 1947." which doesn't leave much room for ambiguity.
specialising in conservative books isn't the same thing as catering primarily to "right wing culture warriors", in the sense that any book from their collection can be assumed as biased.