The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
By Maria Rosa Menocal
Reviewed by Indhira Flowers, Biola University, La Mirada, CA
Once upon a time, in Medieval Spain, three different religions coexisted with one another for over seven centuries. These religions; Judaism, Islam and Christianity, cohesively created a thriving society and made a city in Spain (Andalucía) named Cordoba, “the ornament of the world”. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain by Spanish and Portuguese Professor Maria Rosa Menocal, of Yale, “describes an era in medieval Spain from 750 to 1492 when the three monotheistic faiths clashed, intermingled, and produced a rich, tolerant culture.” [1]
During that period of time Medieval Spain radically transformed into thriving Andalucía. It went from a kingdom ran by uneducated and ill-bred Visigoths who persecuted Jews, ravaged the land and spoiled the economy, to a Muslim Empire that at one point housed hundreds of libraries, schools, and palaces and was known for its sciences, literature, poetry and medicine. Andalucía became in Christian Europe’s eyes as a place of grandeur, science, advancement and knowledge, but at the same time it was a sore spot in the eyes of Europeans who wished to re-conquer land which was lost in the early eight century.
Most crucial to the thriving of this splendid era was a sole surviving Umayyad prince by the name of Abd al-Rahman, who fled from Baghdad after his entire family had been slaughtered by the enemy Abbasid clan. Abd al-Rahman fled across North Africa and finally settled in Spain, where his inborn leadership skills and love for culture, literature and knowledge escalated him to become the leader of this newly Muslim province, and also laid the foundation of what would become one of the most influential countries in Europe which led the rest of Europe in technology, medicine and education.
“The Umayyads, who had come pristine out of the Arabian Desert, defined their version of Islam as one that loved its dialogues with other traditions," Menocal says. "This was a remarkable achievement, so remarkable in fact that some later Muslim historians accused the Umayyads of being lesser Muslims for It." The author attributes this embrace of complexity to the perpetuation within the Arab imagination of both the Islamic faith and the intense love of language and poetry that were part of Arabia's pre-Islamic tradition. Most Jews and Christians living in Iberia were "Arabized," embracing the language and much of the culture it fostered. But they were not required to give up their faith, although some did convert. The status of Jews, who had led "an abysmal existence under the Visigoths," improved dramatically, and many rose to high positions. We meet, for example, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the Jewish grand vizier of Cordoba in the mid-10th century, who conducted foreign relations for the caliph. [2]
This was unlike anything ever seen before in Europe before. Christians and Jews alike could rise up to higher ranks in society, they could hold greatly esteemed jobs in the government and they could do all of these things while still being able to freely practice their religion. “What made Andalusia possible, Menocal says, is the ability to live with contradictions, the indispensable ingredient of a ‘first-rate’ in F. Scott Fitzgerald's definition. ‘[T]he test of a first-rate intelligence,’ Menocal quotes from Fitzgerald, ‘is the ability to hold opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.’"[3]
Although Andalucía thrived on religious coexistence and a growing cultural appreciation, the country still had its share of problems. Unlike many other books on this subject, Maria Rosa Menocal does not gloss over the internal conflicts the Andalusians faced, but she focuses on certain key figures and events in the history of Muslim Spain, diving into detailed character studies of each person, or detailing what were the key circumstances which led to certain events. Menocal writes of what she believes led to the eventual fall of Islamic Spain, when the Almoravid tribe from North Africa came to power in Andalucía, the brought with them a fundamentalist mentality that held little tolerance for Christians, Jews, education, science or any of the other great things Andalucía was known for.
In truth, that golden age of Al-Andalus was relatively brief -- from the early years of the 10th century to the middle years of the 11th. Islam had stayed long in the Peninsula: Nearly eight centuries separate the Muslim conquest from the fall of Granada. The Jews had partaken of it all: There were seasons of bliss and times of terror. There were benevolent, worldly Muslim rulers who raised their Jewish courtiers to great heights of power, and there were preachers and mobs who cut them down whenever they could. There was Cordoba, on the banks of the Guadilquivir, the ornament of the world, secular to the core, and there were the merciless bands of zealots, fundamentalist warriors from North Africa, who had brought with them the ways of plunder and intolerance. By the early years of the 13th century, the Andalusians had effectively lost their political freedom. Cordoba fell to Christian forces in 1236, Valencia in 1238. Two years later, it was Seville's turn.[4]
Granada was the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, continued to thrive regardless of the circumstances until 1492, when the union of Aragon and Castile (Isabella and Ferdinand), fought for a unified Christian Spain. Within months of the fall of Granada, Jews were expelled from the land that they called home, and the rest, so they say, is history.
“The book concludes with a postscript about September 11. If her history of medieval Spain is ‘tinged with irony’ in light of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, she writes, “so be it.”[5] Because of Menocal’s approach to the history of Islamic Spain is so balance, as a reader one gets the feeling that “if Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval Spain can coexist peacefully, why can’t we?” The answer is simple, tolerance is just the first level of peaceful coexistence and is not so hard to do, and it is acceptance that we as a society must strive for when dealing with peoples of different races, religions and backgrounds in order to have a cohesive society.
[1] Jane Lampman, “Religious tolerance before it was hip: Medieval Muslims, Jews and Christians built a rich culture”, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 July 2002, available from http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0725/p15s02-bogn.html ; internet, accessed 16 March 2011
[2] Ibid.
[3] Scott Galupo, “Progress and Islam:The mini-enlightenment that was Andalusia”, 30 May 2002, accessed from http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-galupo053002.asp; internet, 16 March 2011.
[4] Fouad Ajami. “Before the Moor's Last Sigh: 'The Ornament of the World' by Maria Rosa Menocal and 'The Clash of Fundamentalisms' by Tariq Ali”, Washington Post, 28 April 2002, Page BW04.
No comments:
Post a Comment