[swarthyguy]

Well, well, let's start a dialogue. Funny timing, after that brouhaha over the islands with Spain.

[swarthyguy]

Cheeky and inyourface too, don't you think?

[aristeides]

The Islamofascists are all hot and bothered about the loss of Andalusia in the Reconquista. Maybe the Moroccan government has decided to burnish its credentials for rule if and when Moslems take over Spain again.

[B Knotts]

At the opening ceremony, he announced the center's plan to institute an international annual prize for best research on Andalus.

Like, maybe, the best attack plan for retaking Grenada?

[Black Agnes]

ping!

[RightWhale]

the Andalusian culture

Sure it was a bright spot on the planet at one time. Even Rome had its day. But these bright spots move, and the Andalusian culture has moved. Where is the bright spot today? Possibly the Internet, I suggest.

[onedoug]

The best thing about Al Andalus was its end, marking the global rise of western culture and civilization.

What can say of the Muslim "nation" with no future but to revel in those perceived "glories" of its past?

[wallcrawlr]

Next time dumb down that title a little so I'll understand what it says.
</sarcasm>

[Kermit]

"He said that those who link Islam with terrorism are totally ignorant of the divine religion."

He doesn't need to convince the West of this, he needs to convince Bin Laden, the Saudi Royal Family, Wahhabis idiots everywhere, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbollah, the Iranian Ayatollahs and Islamic Jihad. How studying Spain and dialoging between civilizations is going to do that, I don't know.

[denydenydeny]

the Center for Andalusian Studies and Dialogue between Civilizations.

In AD 700, the Muslims conducted this "dialogue" with scimitars and arrows.

This is all about the eventual reconquest of Iberia.

[ccmay]

Paging Mr. Martel, Mr. Charles Martel, there's a Mr. Ferdinand de Aragon on line 2...

-ccm

[livius]

At the time that Islamic forces conquered Spain, Islam was a very young religion. Many of the newly Islamic peoples had been, until only decades before, Christians or members of very developed Near Eastern pagan societies. Islam coasted along on this for a while, and the religion itself had nothing to do with the cultural developments in al Andalus. The fact that the conquerors were from Baghdad and other places with very highly developed cultures was actually what was responsible for this. Islam itself was at taht point so unconsolidated that it was moderately liberal; figurative art is found in the Islamic Spain of that time, for example.

The Caliphates brought their highly developed urban life into a place that had been disrupted by the fall of the Roman Emprire and the attacks of the barbarians. It was a region sunk in wars between local kings. Arianism had also made a great impact on Spain, and the Spanish kings had only recently begun to return to orthodox Catholicism.

The liberal regimes were soon subject to attacks from more radical North African warrior tribes (actually, more like Mohammed himself). Several times during Spain's Islamic captivity, moderate and sophisticated Near Eastern rulers were replaced by primitive and savage Muslims from North Africa.

This seems to be a pattern in Islam, and I think, personally, that the reason for this is that Islam actually is a blood thirsty totalitarian cult. Christianity has certainly caused its share of bloodshed; but only when its teachings are distorted or ignored. Islam, on the other hand, is bloodiest when it is really practiced. So the North Africans were actually a truer reflection of Islam than were the sophisticated and tolerant rulers of Baghdad.