(Source: book cover)
Hello everyone,
Spanish history in the Middle Ages has been a true clash of civilisations, those civilisations being Christian and Islamic. However, modern academics in the West have started the trend of perceiving those times as a haven of peace and tolerance. The book I'm reviewing, written in 2016, goes against that tendency. It is titled: 'The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise; Muslims, Christians and Jews under Islamic rule in Medieval Spain'.
The book is quite academic in its outset, and littered with citations to medieval works: the notes make up almost half (180 pages out of 390) of the whole book. The 'story' itself is written in quite a polemic fashion: the author, Dario Fernandez-Mora, attacks modern academia in his field for presenting an incorrect picture of Islamic Spain. He proposes a simple thesis: Islamic Spain, both in how it started and in its day-to-day affairs, was not a haven of peace, tolerance and enlightenment, as modern academia tries to present it (the so-called 'Andalusian Paradise'). I'll go through some of the main points he makes in this book.
Migration or conquest?
21st century academics have started to call the conquest of Spain by Islam a 'migration' into Spain. That sounds nice and peaceful, but was this the case? Fernandez-Morera argues against the migration-hypothesis with a simple fact: the first time muslims set foot in Spain in 711 AD, he brought an army, and went to battle with the Catholic Visigoths. The establisment of an Islamic emirate (and later Caliphate) in Spain was through battle against the nonbelievers, termed Jihad in the Quran. After these victories against the Visigoths, there was migration into Spain from the North-African lands. But to call the whole affair a peaceful migration would be a severe misrepresentation, according to Fernandez-Morera.
Islamic Law
Modern academia have tried to present Islamic legislature in Spain as a progressive institution, that offered many freedoms to its inhabitants, whether they were Muslims, Christians or Jews. Fernandez-Morera wonders how this attitude has developed, since there was not a trace of secular law to be found in Islamic Spain for the many centuries it existed.
Islam is different from Christianity regarding law: in a Christian nation, secular law has more room to breathe. In medieval Spanish Islam, 'secular' law came from the Quran, and the clergy were also judges. Shariah was the law of the land, and came word-for-word from the Quran. Fernandez-Morera argues that the Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain had a more 'progressive' law-system, simply due to the fact that there actually existed secular law there, that is was able to keep the Catholic Church and Canon Law out of direct jurisdiction.
Umayyad 'Tolerance'
The Umayyad-dynasty ruled Islamic Spain for almost three centuries (756-1031), and it has a remarkable reputation among academics: it was supposed to be a dynasty very tolerant of non-muslims in its territory. Fernandez-Morera disagrees, and does so with a plethora of reasons. Firstly, the application of Shariah law means that non-muslims are taxed more just for being non-muslims (Jizya), and are severely limited in religious expression.
Christians were not allowed to build churches, or to repair existing ones. Churches often got torn down by the muslims, or were re-instated as mosques. To add insult to injury, these new mosques were often rebuilt using the materials from churches that were torn down.
It also talks about the severe punishments that were meted out due to Shariah: blasphemy was punishable by death, slavery of Christians was a common sight, and leaving Islam was punishable by death. Unequal treatment was common: if a Muslim was found guilty of raping a Christian women, he was lashed, but if a Christian raped a Muslim, he was killed. All in all, there was a distinct pressure on the non-muslim populations to convert, leave, or suffer the consequences. Fernandez-Morera does not consider this state of affairs to be considered 'tolerance' in any way.
The place of Jews
So far this review has mostly about the affairs of Muslims and Christians. There was a third ethnoreligious group in the mix, however: Jews. Jews were not well off in Visigoth Spain, before the Islamic invasion/conquest: many laws in Visigoth Spain were installed to nudge the Jews towards conversion. So when the Muslims came to Spain, they saw an opportunity for a better situation, and decided to betray the Visigoths and help the Muslims.
Their positions did improve after the Islamic conquest for a short while: they were appointed in government and tax collection, and their position was better than that of Christians. However, their fate was often tied to a certain ruler: if the ruler became unpopular, so did the Jews, as executives of this ruler. In the end, they were also subject to Shariah, same as the Christians, and many fled to the Christian kingdoms in the north.
Christian subjects
The word used for non-muslim subjects in Islamic countries is dhimmi, which would roughly translate to 'protected'. Protection from what, is unclear, however, since their lives were not easy. Spanish Christians desperately tried to hold on in Islamic Spain: they tried to hold on to their faith, their language and their customs. Islamic rule lasted for centuries, however: up to almost 800 years in the far south. It is hard to keep up in those circumstances, and when Granada (the last muslim city in Spain) was conquered in 1492, there was not a trace of Christian presence in the city. All Christians had either converted to Islam, were killed, or had fled north.
Conclusion
I have tackled just a few talking points that Fernandez-Morera brought forth in this academic work. It is a very convincing total picture that he is able to paint, using both Spanish and Arabic sources from Medieval times. It is clear that modern academia might be somewhat scared to admit that Islamic Spain was not the haven of progressivism they make it out to be. It was more akin to the overall clash of civilisations that was taking place between Christianity and Islam in those ages. Think of the Crusades as a response to Jihad, and the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this short review, and I greatly welcome any comments/questions you might have. This was the 4th review so far, and I'll be doing more (mostly non-fiction) reviews in the future. Until the next one then,
-Pieter
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