Fearsome dilemma of Spain's Muslims

The Telegraph ^ | 17 April, 2004 | Isambard Wilkinson

[nuconvert]

Think you have a theme going here today, Euro.

[marron]

"The Moros [the pejorative word for the Moors]

"Moros" can't be a pejorative unless "Moors" is a pejorative.

[Eurotwit]

Yeah, It sure seems that way :-)

[Mears]

The Cathedral is built INSIDE the mosque in Cordoba,if I recall.Very strange,but the mosque is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.

[nuconvert]

Moors pong

[rogueleader]

The region of Andalusia gives the lie to bin Laden's most recent statement in which he suggested he would offer a truce to European states surrendering their alliance with America.

Of course they're going to offer a truce. A truce is only temporary.

They're just not going to offer a peace.

[Polybius]

Afterwards, they retreated to the Alpujarra mountains. Rebellion first erupted in 1499 to resist forced mass conversions. They rose up again in what is known as the Second Revolt of the Alpujarras in 1568 under an aristocratic scion, Aben Humeya, after edicts were passed forbidding Arab-style dress and speaking Arabic.

The article conveniently fails to mention that Islamic raiders from North Africa made a habit of attacking Christian towns on the Mediterranean coast of Spain with the help and cooperation of the local Moriscos who were in full sympathy with the Ottoman Empire whose goal was as much conquest in Christian Europe as possible.

Spain knew that such a Fifth Column would not bode well for the future of Spain and they tried to assimilate this alien culture into Spanish society by giving them a few years to learn Spanish and asking then to dress as Spaniards just as the French are asking Muslim students to dress like the French in public schools.

The Muslim response was an orgy of viloence where entire Christian towns were destroyed with the men murdered and the younger Christiam women were sold as sex slaves into the North African Christian slave trade.

With much of Spain's military might stationed overseas, the response was slow. However, the Islamic revolt was crushed under the leadership of Philip II's half-brother, the young Don Juan of Austria who later went on to defeat the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.

[Cicero]

According to a website on the mosque and cathedral of Cordoba, the Emperor Charles V gave orders not to tear down the mosque when the cathedral was built, as a gesture of tolerance and reconciliation. That is in marked contrast with the invariable Muslim practice of destroying or converting ALL Christian churches (or Buddhist temples, etc.) wherever their conquests extend. From the website:

---

Complex Cathedral - Mosque

A patrimony to the World and a jewel of art of all times, it is the exponent of the conciliation and tolerance, the Mosque - Cathedral of Córdoba owes its miracle of survival to the sensibilities of the local government, that contradicting a bitter order to destroy it by the chapter, and in accordance to the willingness of King Charles V, that lamented the destruction that other chapters blinded by sectionalism did not weighted the Imperial objection: "You carry on what it is found in many other places, and destroy that which is unique in the world." In fact, the Mosque of Cordoba is the only one in the world.


General View of the Mosque and the Cathedral

In this aerial view of the mosque of Córdoba, the viewer can appreciate the different renovations which it has undergone through the centuries: the Christian Cathedral erected exactly at the center of the great nave of columns that was expanded under the different reigns, is surrounded by battlements cut by buttresses which provide the façades with the view of a fortress, as it is typical of the arab-hispanic architecture. The minaret was built by Ab al-Rahman III to substitute another one built by Hisam I.

[Migraine]

Islamic terrorists believed to be responsible for the Madrid train bombings on March 11 blew themselves up to evade arrest

So, technically (and briefly), Muslim blood ran uphill, too! Unfortunately, though, what blows up must come down.

[Paul_B]

>Spain's Muslims have faced a fearsome dilemma. Should they celebrate their history and culture or hide it?

You think _they_ have a fearsome dilemma, what about the Christian folk who see this threat returning once again?

[Malesherbes]

Yes, 90 percent of Spain's Moslems are from Morocco, and the bombs in Madrid were set off by Moroccans. That's "moderation" for you.

[genefromjersey]

Muerto a los Moros.

[B Knotts]

He said that at present many of Spain's mosques are financed with Saudi funds which tend to promote the more radical Wahhabi form of Islam. "Ninety per cent of Spain's 500,000 Muslims are from Morocco, not from Saudi Arabia, and we need to teach a moderate form of Islam that reflects that," he said.

I do think he has a point about this. All Western countries need to find a way to stop the Saudi financing of radical Wahhabism. Other strains of Islam may still be dangerous in part, but seriously, when was the last time you heard of a group of Shi'a plotting terrorism in a mosque in a Western country?

[daybreakcoming]

Morrocans have been coming in by the boatloads for several years into Spain's Med ports such as Alicante. I doubt Spain even knows for certain how many are there.

[expatpat]

Yeah, I travelled back from Tangiers on the ferry to Algecieras one Sunday evening, and 90% of the passengers were Moroccans.

[Defiant]

The Cathedral is built INSIDE the mosque in Cordoba

Are they going to give us back the one in Constantinople that they turned into a mosque? And don't forget the mosque they built on top of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

[sheik yerbouty]

There are many towns named "Matamoros".

[CzarNicky]

"Are they going to give us back the one in Constantinople that they turned into a mosque?"

I thought the same thing when I read that line.

[jordan8]

Spain's Muslims have faced a fearsome dilemma. Should they celebrate their history and culture or hide it?

Yeah, that is a dilemma. For the locals there is no dilemma because dilemma implies choice. For them there is no choice: it's colonization and cultural genocide (followed inevitably by physical genocide).