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A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#61

Post by alephnerd »

ricardobayes wrote: post #31
tgv wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I know somehow Andalusians really seem to enjoy self-deprecation, and put down anyone who talks about the region in a positive light, but the numbers show it's not that poor. I know very well these kind of numbers don't reflect on perceived poverty in rural villages, but Andalusia as a whole is not doing that bad at all, objectively. Actually even has pockets of extreme wealth, like Marbella or Sotogrande. https://en…

Andalusia and Extremadura are at the bottom of the table of Spain's autonomous communities by GDP per Capita and HDI. They share metrics comparable to Sicily and other poorer parts of Southern and Eastern Europe such as Portugal.

Before the rapid economic growth Spain saw in the 1980s, it was most likely even poorer and less developed.

There is still a North-South divide in Spain with Communities Madrid northwards sharing economic and developmental indicators with Western European countries like France or Germany, while Southern Spain shares developmental and economic indicators closer to Portugal, Sicily, or other southern and Eastern European regions. The same issue plagues Southern Italy as well.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#62

Post by littlestymaar »

Chris2048 wrote: post #43
littlestymaar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some conservative books there, but also general topics too. And that's exactly what to expect from a conservative library! There's no left-wing book, at all, in the shelves and that's a pretty clear sign. We can't know for sure if the “general topics” are themselves conservative, but the complete lack of left-wing PoV in collection, that doesn't bode well.

but the claim wasn't that is was a "a conservative library" (consisting or specialising in having of a large amount of conservative titles, presumably for conservatives) - but that it (or a large selection of its titles) caters to RW culture warriors, to the extent that you ask "why would they have published this one if it was not?", i.e. it cannot be merely conservative, but assumed RW-extreme.

Of course the term “right wing culture warrior” is questionable, but when your library is so right leaning that its political orientation is obvious after just glancing at a handful of books cover then maybe this term is kind of apt.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#63

Post by adrian_b »

37074177throw wrote: post #33
adrian_b wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A part of the ancient Latin and Greek literature has been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and another part by the Arabs. The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type prin…

Muslims, not Arabs. Also you are mistaken about Arabs passing Persian knowledge. Initially invading Arabs were given to destroying books. It was Muslim Persians who did most of the translation, and subsequently elaboration of the ancient world’s thinking into the Muslim civilization and from there to Europe. And yes, they wrote in Arabic just like Isaac Newton wrote Principia in Latin . And most of us now write in En…

I agree than many of the most important scientific advances in the Muslim world were due to Persians, like the classification of the chemical substances made by Avicenna, who has written in Arabic, as you say.

However, the works of Avicenna and others like him have reached Europe through Arabs, frequently through Spain.

If you know of another path to Europe for the Persian Arabic works, I am curious to hear which is it.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#64

Post by capableweb »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #41
capableweb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, I just recently learn that after Franco's death, the entire country decided that it was best to not investigate and prosecute any of the wrongdoers from before the pact in order to make the transition to democracy "more smooth" after the dictatorship fell apart. Imagine the same happening after Nazi Germany fell, hard to imagine people willingly just forgetting what happened... > The Pact of Forgetting (…

> Imagine the same happening after Nazi Germany This is precisely what happened in non-Soviet-occupied Germany. Only the most senior Nazis were severely punished at big trials like Nuremberg. For lesser ranking Nazis, even when they were sentenced to imprisonment, their sentences were generally short or soon commuted. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission focused on the investigation side in order to pro…

> This is precisely what happened in non-Soviet-occupied Germany. Only the most senior Nazis were severely punished at big trials like Nuremberg.

> but it sought to avoid prosecuting any but the most trenchant participants in Apartheid

So, not at all what happened in Spain then, as no one got punished at all, everyone was supposed to just collectively forget about it. I wouldn't have a issue with it if it just focused on the "most trenchant participants" but instead nothing was done.

> Today in Spain, the term “fascist” is often applied by people on the left to any ideological opponent on the far-right or even the center-right, but that right-wing opponent’s actual link to Franco or the distinctly early-twentieth-century phenomenon that was Fascism, is doubtful.

I'm not sure if you visited Spain recently, but there is definitely young francoists and falangists all around Spain, openly promoting fascism and trying to protect whatever legacy Franco still has in the country. It's not a handful of elderly folks as you think.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#65

Post by keenmaster »

ROTMetro wrote: post #51

[flagged]

Janissaries were a uniquely Ottoman practice, and evoke something completely different than Muslim Andalucia. Also, I don’t believe that the Ottomans mutilated Janissaries in the way you described - that would be counterproductive, since strength is important in the military, especially with highly motivated elite soldiers. Look it up, that’s a popular myth, no more real than the Unsullied in Game of Thrones.

In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, no one talks about some great Andalusian army. Al-Andalus was known for its culture, architecture, scientific innovation, multiculturalism, etc…that being said, the American school system doesn’t really cover Al-Andalus, the so-called Islamic Golden Age, and Muslim advancement of the frontier of knowledge.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#66

Post by onetimeusename »

capableweb wrote: post #8
tgv wrote: post #2

[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…

None of these things happened under Al-Andalus prior to the Reconquista which I think shows the bias of the author. There were of course persecutions that happened of non-Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange_i...

Similarly, some of the examples of bad things the author cited are stretching plausibility to kind of imply that they were a result of Christian rule when they happened in the 19th century in the Spanish Civil War era.

edit: forgot to mention that slavery appeared to be practiced by Muslims and Jews in Al-Andalus.

At the time of the formation of Al-Andalus, Muslims were prohibited from enslaving fellow believers, but there was a slave trade of non-Muslims in which Muslims and local Jewish merchants traded in Spanish and Eastern European Christian slaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_colonial_Spanish_Am...

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#67

Post by onetimeusename »

6stringronin wrote: post #15

[flagged]

> What great monuments were left by the Europeans for their conquered?

India has a lot of British made buildings they try to preserve but a number of them have gone into disrepair which is unfortunate. Even so a number of them are still in use like Rashtrapati Bhavan which used to be a presidential palace. There are quite a few British made buildings still in use and considered architecturally and historically significant.

>look up Mozarabic Rite.

what about it? it existed prior to Al-Andalus. Christianity is a middle-eastern religion so you can find a lot of middle-eastern/Mediterranean influence in Early Christian rites/prayer and chants.

> Respect for the local population seems like something European colonization never did when they spread their misery around the world.

Christians were dhimmis under Muslim rule in Spain.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#68

Post by whims31 »

Ligma123 wrote: post #40
37074177throw wrote: post #34

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_i... I have to find the letter (possibly a Jewish reader can dig it out?) but I remember reading and being amused by a letter penned by Maimonides to iirc Jews in Arabian peninsula. Apparently they had written to him having heard of the paradise of tolerance in Muslim Spain and his letter poo pooing it, telling them it’s no better than their locale. I always…

[flagged]

It really depends on the historical context. I don't know what the standards were for the period but i saw this random tidbit from wikipedia while reading up on the Roma people (Note : this was after the era of the Andalus ):

>From 1510 onwards, any Romani found in Switzerland were to be executed; while in England (beginning in 1554) and Denmark (beginning of 1589) any Romani which did not leave within a month were to be executed. Portugal began deportations of Romanis to its colonies in 1538.

Compared to getting executed for being at the the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong ethnicity, Andalus may well have been a oasis of tolerance in Europe, relatively speaking.

Re: A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

#69

Post by [deleted] »

onetimeusename wrote: post #66
capableweb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

None of these things happened under Al-Andalus prior to the Reconquista which I think shows the bias of the author. There were of course persecutions that happened of non-Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange_i... Similarly, some of the examples of bad things the author cited are stretching plausibility to kind of imply that they were a result of Christian rule when they happened in the…

[deleted]
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