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To: Sparta
It's true. The Moors were more enlightened, more interested in scholarship, and more tolerant than most of the Europeans. There were many Jews living in Spain at the time, and when the Christians threw out the Muslims, they also threw out all of the Jews.

Some people want to pretend Catholics were always nice nice folks, and that Muslims were always rabid death-loving Jihadis, but that's just not true.

102 posted on 11/14/2002 5:50:49 PM PST by xm177e2
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To: xm177e2
The only reason the Moors were more tolerant than the Christians in this case was due to the fact that the Koran specifically did not allow the forceable conversion of the "People of the Book." The church also was opposed to forceable conversion, though that didn't prevent secular rulers from expelling or placing Jews in ghettos. The Moors and Jews in Spain were given an option to either convert or be expelled. There were many that chose to convert. Since, the concept of Nation State hadn't really been defined as inclusive of people of different faiths in the West just consider this forced assimilation. The fact that many of the converts were suspect of not truly converting (i.e. cryptojews) was one of the chief causes which led up to the Spanish Inquistion.
105 posted on 11/14/2002 6:20:41 PM PST by Coeur de Lion
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