“He therefore lumps the golden age of Cordoba, which ended well before 1100, in with the Papal Inquisition, starting in the 1230s...”
If 2nd class citizenship, special taxes, lack of equal legal protection under the law and slavery are a “golden age”, then the Pre-Civil War South was a “golden age” as well.
It was indeed a golden age for Cordoba, or rather for the elite class of that city.
It wasn’t a particularly golden age for their serfs and slaves, or for the non-elite Jews and Christians or indeed Muslims, ruled by the elite.
But that was true everywhere at the time. Life for a non-elite Christian was probably no worse in Cordoban Spain than in the Germany or Poland of the time. And it was a good deal better for the non-elite Jew.
Chief Justice Taney announced in the Dred Scott decision that all persons of African descent weren't just second-class citizens, they were incapable of being citizens of the US at all.
He was of course wrong both factually and legally, and was comprehensively overruled by the war and constitutional amendments his ruling did so much to promote.