A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
smithsonianmag.com
A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
1–10 of 94 posts
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#2[flagged]
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#3Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#4[flagged]
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#5Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
This book was published by Regnery in their ISI Books line and if you look at the rest of their catalog (https://www.regnery.com/books/isi-books/) there's a certain theme that's overwhelming. To be slightly more explicit, when so many of their other books are so obviously by and for right wing culture warriors, why would they have published this one if it was not?
(And if you look outside that particular imprint the publisher's politics become even more obvious)
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#6[flagged]
[flagged]
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#7Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
That book is likely to be correct that it is a myth that "al-Andalus" was "a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony" and that in reality being a non-Muslim must have caused many disadvantages.
Nevertheless, even without examining any evidence from that book, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
For this, no other evidence is necessary beyond the fact that even if the non-Muslims might have not "lived in harmony", they certainly had lived there in great numbers, while soon after the reconquest the non-Christians no longer lived there (this is especially obvious from the large number of Sephardim who had to live in other countries after that).
Another thing that is true beyond any reasonable doubt is what is said in the parent article, i.e. that regardless whether the Arab conquest was good or bad for the local people, for Europe as a whole the Arab presence in Spain has been extremely useful, both as the source of improved knowledge in chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, due to their own research of various Arab and Muslim authors, and as the source of many ancient Latin and Greek works that had been lost in Europe.
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#8[flagged]
What are you talking about? The article goes through the history, both positive and negative. There is plenty of not-so-light-and-happy parts in the article.
Examples:
> And yet, after the Reconquest, the once-wealthy region fell into decay. By the early 19th century, it had become so wild and impoverished that Washington Irving was forced to trudge its grueling mountain roads in a mule team convoy with armed guards to protect from highwaymen.
> The remote setting has also seen its share of violence. In 1568, more than seven decades after the Reconquest, the Muslims of Almería joined the so-called Rebellion of the Alpujarras against Christian domination in Spain, creating an outlaw Islamic enclave that held out until it was crushed in 1571.
> Soon after, a mass escape of Republican civilian refugees on the desert highway from Málaga to Almería was strafed remorselessly by Franco’s Nazi-supplied planes, leaving at least 3,000 dead. The city of Almería then became “a vast encampment,”
> Spain’s attempts at reconciliation have ranged from symbolic—a 2022 apology to women executed as witches in Catalonia—to acts that have direct contemporary impact, like the exhumation of victims in mass graves from the Spanish Civil War, offering closure to descendants who want their relatives identified and properly reburied.
> In 2015, there was also an attempt to deal with injustices following the demise of al-Andalus, when the Madrid government apologized for the 1492 Edict of Expulsion aimed at Sephardic Jews and offered Spanish citizenship to their international descendants.
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#9Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
This book was published by Regnery in their ISI Books line and if you look at the rest of their catalog ( https://www.regnery.com/books/isi-books/ ) there's a certain theme that's overwhelming. To be slightly more explicit, when so many of their other books are so obviously by and for right wing culture warriors, why would they have published this one if it was not? (And if you look outside that particular imprint th…
Without knowing the content of those books, it's hard to judge if that's true.
Or you'll have to explain why this is obvious.
Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History
#10Ah yes the beautiful myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Turns out it's probably just a myth. For a different historic take I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-M...
That book is likely to be correct that it is a myth that "al-Andalus" was "a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony" and that in reality being a non-Muslim must have caused many disadvantages. Nevertheless, even without examining any evidence from that book, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treate…
> it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
Yeah, Spain the kingdom didn't really treat Muslims all that great, one just have to look at the "Expulsion of the Moriscos" in 1609 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos). Hard to beat that when it comes to treatment of entire populations.