Posted on 09/27/2003 1:05:33 PM PDT by quidnunc
Granada, Spain – A dispenser of iced lemonade sits invitingly by the door of the newly whitewashed building — hospitality for summer visitors coming to the first mosque built in Granada in over 500 years.
But looming over the freshly planted garden, seeming to quiver in the furnacelike heat, is another image: the Alhambra, a 14th-century Muslim fortress of red-tinted stone that is everything this mosque is not: ancient, battle-scarred, monumental. It seems at once a reminder of lost glories and a spur for their restoration.
It may also inspire darker sentiments. For it was from the Alhambra's watchtower that Christian conquerors unfurled their flag in 1492, marking the end of almost eight centuries of Islamic rule in Spain. Less than a decade later, forced conversions of Muslims began; by 1609, they were being expelled.
That lost Muslim kingdom — the southern region of Spain the Muslims called al-Andalus and is still called Andalusia — now looms over far more than the new mosque's garden. And variations of "the Moor's last sigh" — the sigh the final ruler of the Alhambra supposedly gave as he gazed backward — abound.
For radical Islamists, the key note is revenge: in one of Osama bin Laden's post-9/11 broadcasts, his deputy invoked "the tragedy of al-Andalus." For Spain, which is destroying Islamic terrorist cells while welcoming a growing Muslim minority (a little over 1 percent of Spain's 40 million citizens), the note yearned for is reconciliation.
The sighs have also included a retrospective utopianism. Islamic Spain has been hailed for its "convivencia" — its spirit of tolerance in which Jews, Christians and Muslims, created a premodern renaissance. Córdoba, in the 10th century, was a center of commerce and scholarship. Arabic was a conduit between classical knowledge and nascent Western science and philosophy. The ecumenical Andalusian spirit was even invoked at this summer's opening ceremony for the new mosque.
That heritage, though, can be difficult to define. Even at the mosque, the facade of liberality gave way: at its conference on "Islam in Europe," one speaker praised al-Andalus not for its openness but for its rigorous fundamentalism. Were similar views also part of the Andalusian past?
-snip-
But as many scholars have argued, this image is distorted. Even the Umayyad dynasty, begun by Abd al-Rahman in 756, was far from enlightened. Issues of succession were often settled by force. One ruler murdered two sons and two brothers. Uprisings in 805 and 818 in Córdoba were answered with mass executions and the destruction of one of the city's suburbs. Wars were accompanied by plunder, kidnappings and ransom. Córdoba itself was finally sacked by Muslim Berbers in 1013, its epochal library destroyed.
Andalusian governance was also based on a religious tribal model. Christians and Jews, who shared Islam's Abrahamic past, had the status of dhimmis — alien minorities. They rose high but remained second-class citizens; one 11th-century legal text called them members of "the devil's party." They were subject to special taxes and, often, dress codes. Violence also erupted, including a massacre of thousands of Jews in Grenada in 1066 and the forced exile of many Christians in 1126.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
All of the evidence currently in front of us suggests that the answer to this question is "no". The western world appears to be committing suicide. The elites in the west have embraced a philosophy which is, in the long run, incompatible with the continued existence of our civilization.
right. one less barbarian than the other.
But more militarily ruthless than the other and, unlike the Visigoths, almost totally destructive of Spain's civilization of the previous 900 years.
The Visigoths of 711 A.D. were not Grandpa's Visigoths that had conquered Roman Spain. By 711 A.D., the descendants of those Visigoths had become complacent, weak and degenerate. It was only a matter of time before they were going to be absorbed into oblivion by Spain's Hispano-Roman population as they indeed soon afterwards were in the northern Spanish Christian Kigndoms.
Today's America, not unlike the case of the late Roman Empire, is not Grandpa's World War II America. An ever growing percentage of our population is becoming weak and degenerate. It is not inconceivable that, in a few generations when most of America thinks like Sheryl Crowe, America may fall to a more backward society that is not anaphylactically allergic to the art of war.
The future conquerors of America may be more than one and one may be more "cultured" than the other. However, that would not erase the civilization that was America in it's prime and it would not precluded a new American generation, steeled with resolve by adversity, from taking America back and restoring America's original culture.
Such was the case in Spain.
Your desire to have the Muslims invent civilization in Hispania because they may have been slightly higher up in the barbarian scale than the Visigoths were in 711 A.D. would be like claiming that the Mexican chapter of the Crips "brought civilization" to America in the year 2073 after the Mexican Crips had militarily overthrown the Islamic Republic of America that had been established by Middle Eastern Islamist clerics after America's defeat during President Chelsea Clinton's Administration.
He (Maimonades) and his family lived there during the supposed "Golden Age." Saying they "left" is cute. Why do you think they "left"? Actually his family was in hiding for ten or so years in Spain (Gee. Why were they hiding?) Then they escaped to Morocco where they continued to face persecution so the "left" there too. They did get to Egypt (via Palestine) as you suggest. There Maimonades was put on trial for his life for heresy and somehow escaped conviction, for which we are supposed to be grateful. I suggest to you contrast the treatment Maimonades received from the Muslims with the treatment Rashi (another great Jewish scholar) received from the Christians in France where he lived at about the same time. (Rashi made wine.)
ML/NJ
Sad, but true.
I would question if someone is truly educated, if so totally ignorant about such a major historical event.
The result is trying to discuss Islam with them is like discussing transcendential functions with second graders...
The last two years have been very enlightening for me.
In re the Inquisition: it worked both ways. Many a 'heretic' was burned in Calvin's Geneva and other Protestant strongholds. That was the game as it was played in that league at that time. No use comparing it to an interfaith picnic in Peoria.
Interesting theological character: Michael Servetus. Condemned by the Pope and the Inquisition in Rome, he fled to Geneva, where Calvin burned him at the stake.
Constantinople, now called Istanbul.
We can associate islam with the Inquisition ---- only Spain had that kind of Inquisition and only after it managed to cut lose of 700 years of Islamic domination and suppression. Once they reverted back to Christianity, the Inquisition quickly died out. Also the Inquisition was what the Spaniards learned after many centuries of living under islamics--- they had to fight fire with fire --- they had to learn the barbaric islamic ways in order to defeat it.
A Pleasant Fairy Tale -- The Rediscovery and Redesign of Muslim Spain
I wish you all could read German. The article by Siegfried Kohlhammer, a German scholar of Islam, makes the NY Times article appear like very small beer.
A few choice morsels (in my translation):
"The rediscovery of the culture of Muslim Spain, and recognition of its meaning for European culture, as well as its idealization as a Golden Age of Tolerance, took place in the western World -– in the 18th and 19th centuries."
"In the 18th century Europeans began to believe in Islamic tolerance and superior humanity, in the 19th century the Muslims followed suit, and in the 20th century the Islamic scholars finally joined them."
It's too bad that the article is so long, otherwise I'd love to translate it for FreeRepublic.
The early Christians were primarily part of Judiasm, and later came from the Roman Empire. There was also a strong ethos of pacifism that is associated with the early church. I haven't heard of much violence in the early church so what are you referring to?
After Constantine made Christianity the Official State Religion, Christians were no longer fed to the lions in the Coliseum. Pagans took their place, their temples were destroyed, vandalized, or converted to Christian Churches.
Other examples can be found in the spread of Christianity by the early missionaries. When the kings of the Scandinavian countries converted to Christianity, it wasn’t because they “saw the light” in a religious manner, but because of the benefits of trade with central and southern Europe. Any of their subjects that continued their pagan ways were converted by the sword.
Look at the pogroms and witch hunts. Look at the wars between Catholics, Protestants and other “heretics”.
I am not criticizing Christianity, but being honest about its roots.
If we "remove religion" from our understanding of this conflict, will that matter to the other who has declared war on us and shall NOT "remove religion" from HIS understanding of this conflict?
Once again, one of the radical Islamic groups primary selling points for recruitment is the idea – propagated by them and reinforced by some Christians – that the Christians are waging a New Crusade against Islam. They have only to link to some of the Free Republic posts to convince potential members that the Crusade is a fact.
Remove that incentive to recruitment.
Should the priority be to advance Christianity by the elimination of competition, of the protection of We, the People?
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