I am sorry if I misunderstood your point, nor was I trying to defend the Islamic Empire. I am in fact very glad of your erudite reply, its nice to see someone who knows their stuff so to speak and is another history scholar.
I, personally, as a history graduate, buff and European, sometimes find it surprising and frankly shocking that some people here (not you) think that the post-Reconquista behaviour of the Spanish and the Inquisition in general was a positive period of history. That it was necessary and justified. I cannot ‘get my head around’ such thinking.
It is no lie to say the Jews were better tolerated by the Moors than by the Reconquistas. The Reconquista may have been a positive and necessary step, but what followed it was at times shameful. And the Inquisition(s) was/were a stain on European history. An appalling period that no decent human being can defend.
As to Islam, whilst I share everyone’s hatred of radical Islam and the fear of what we are becoming, I, as a history lover, am well aware, that like any group of people, Muslims are neither all saints nor devils. I do not susbribe to the idiotic ‘everything I needed to know about Islam I learned on 9-11’ idea. The history of Islam is one of intolerance and brutality, but it is also one of tolerance and genius. It has given us both the Moors and suicide bombers, Islamic science and Bin Laden. I have been to Spain, Southern Europe, Turkey and N Africa and seen the brilliance of Moorish/Islamic culture. Places like Granada and Moorish Spain are astounding: the art and architecture is beautiful and breathtaking. Islamc has also given us great art, literature and science (despite post 9-11 revisionism).
All this makes what Islam today has become all the more tragic. It is a faith capable to genius and beauty, yet it has degraded into hatred. I like the theory of British historian Dr David Starkey, who believes that islam is going through its own violent reformation as we did, that this is the time frame comparable to Christianity (around 1400-1500 yrs after its birth) and that Islam will pass through this turbulent time a better and less violent faith.
BTW, Thank you for the bibliography included in your post. Makes for my Christmas reading. LOL
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.