By A Colleague
monday, april 22, 2024 at 06:52:19 p.m. edt
jihad revisited: a different look back on the muslim rule of spain
I purchased and read this book a few years ago. It is chock-full of rich details about the grim realities of "Al-Andalus" that only a thorough, painstaking examination of primary sources could turn up and expose.
The final chapter, if memory serves, ponders the question of why the benign myth came to be, a myth that is so at odds with the oppression that really happened.
The author, Dario Fernandez-Morera, is a Cuban American, with, of course, ancestral roots in Spain.
Lest we forget, Spain and Portugal were occupied by moors (muslims) for some seven or eight centuries. But not permanently, even though it must have seemed that way a hundred or two hundred years into la ocupacion. La reconquista (reconquest) took hundreds of years and many thousands of lives, and was eventually accomplished by Ferdinand and Isabella, yes the same king and queen who supported Columbus (Cristobal Colon) on his epic voyage westward into the open Atlantic, beyond the horizon, into the unknown, and into the pages of history.
When I lived in Latin America years ago and learned Spanish, I remember coming across the Spanish surname (apellido) "Matamoros." It literally means "moor Killer" or "Killer of moors." Can you imagine what it must be like in these more politically-correct times to be carrying a name with such a blatant, in-your-face message? Yet there is a city of half a million in the mexican state of tamaulipas that has that very name. If it were in the wokeified USA, one could only imagine the outcry about such a "racist" and "genocidal" name and the pressure to rename it.
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2 comments:
jerry pdx
Excellent recommendation, but the title of the book is not supplied. I tracked it down on Amazon using the authors name and the title of the book is:
"The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: muslims, Christians, and Jews under islamic Rule in Medieval Spain"
I haven't read it but am seriously considering purchasing it. This subject definitely needed an honest reassessment through non PC lenses. Understanding historical islamic aggression help us understand how modern islamic aggression works, and also helps us see the danger islam represents to the world today.
When I get into debates online, especially with racist negroes, on the subject of European history they always bring up historical islamic (they call is moorish) rule of Europe as a time when the negro (they claim moors were all black) brought civilization, science, math and music to the primitive White man. An utterly ludicrous, stupid and unsupported claim but these are negroes we're talking about. And oh yeah, to compound the stupidity they claim Beethoven and every other great European talent was a product of that "negro moorish" period.
Below is a review I cut and pasted from Amazon:
Scholars, journalists, and even politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain—"al-Andalus"—as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: it is a myth.
In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise shines light on hidden history by drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological evidence only recently unearthed. This supposed beacon of peaceful coexistence began, of course, with the Islamic Caliphate's conquest of Spain. Far from a land of religious tolerance, Islamic Spain was marked by religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life and the marginalization of Christians and other groups—all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities.
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise provides a desperately needed reassessment of medieval Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity," Fernández-Morera sets the historical record straight—showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless.
"The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: muslims, Christians, and Jews under islamic Rule in Medieval Spain"
Indeed, everyone was just fine as long as you ate the Muslim dog food. Ate and then said how good it was.
You master [the Muslim] knows what is best for you.
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