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To: NYer

They drove the muslim hordes out of Spain around the end of the 1400’s. They need to do it in Holland and call it the Haarlem Renaissance.


16 posted on 04/27/2013 5:03:10 AM PDT by FrdmLvr (culture, language, borders)
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To: FrdmLvr
Spain did two things simultaneously ~ demanded that Moslem and Jewish residents become Christian, and they discovered America.

Within a century Spain had to carve North America up among the European powers of the time, and probably didn't even have enough men at arms in the homeland to defend itself ~ and by 1700 that was demonstrated.

So, you might ask, what happened to all the Moslems? First, there were some who went to other Moslem countries ~ e.g. Morocco, which had been part of a cultural and economic sphere focused on Spain. You can still find European surnames 'buried' in the morass of Moroccan surnames ~ particularly in Belgium which has been a heavy target of Moroccan re-immigration.

Most simply became Christians, that practice having been common over the previous 700 years ~ populations would adopt the religion of the local ruler, so in some centuries they'd be Moslem and in other centuries Christian. Jews performed functions a tad alien to the overwhelmingly rural environment of Spain so they rarely changed, nor were they asked to change ~ the Moslem and Christian civil laws indicate a definite social preference for keeping Jews tied down manufacturing products and conducting trade.

The Moslem environment was not comparable to the Jewish environment in Medieval Spain, nor even at the conclusion of the Reconquista. They'd had military forces and were intermarried with the most powerful noble Christian families. For the most part they simply disappeared as an identifiable separate religious entity. Later on when the Protestant Reformation seemed poised to penetrate even Spain, they became even better Catholics. End of that story.

Spain proves that moslems can be successfully integrated, but you have to use force to help that along. Then, you need to keep newcomers out. It takes a good century to do the job.

23 posted on 04/27/2013 5:26:40 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: FrdmLvr

Haarlem Renaissance

&&&
Too clever.

And a big “amen”, BTW.


34 posted on 04/27/2013 7:01:29 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! -Ps80)
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