Al Andalus – Spain – الأندلس

Ryan M. Reeves (PhD Cambridge) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Muslim Reconquest of Spain Nears Completion: El Cid, Where Art Thou?
Spanish taxpayers now pay for massive mosque constructions
Image: The Last Crusade
THE LAST CRUSADE: Proof that history repeats itself comes with the news that Muslims have initiated their re-conquest of Spain.

The number of Muslims in Spain has climbed from 100,000 in 1990 to over 1.5 million in 2010.

Mosques are being constructed on a grand scale throughout the country.

The city of Barcelona, widely known as a European Mecca of anti-clerical postmodernism, has agreed to shell out nearly $30 million in public funds for the construction of an official mega-mosque with a capacity for thousands of Muslim worshipers.

The new structure in Barcelona will rival the massive Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid, currently the biggest mosque in Spain. An official in the office of the Mayor of Barcelona says the objective is to increase the visibility of Muslims in Spain, as well as to promote the “common values between Islam and Europe.”

In the past decade, more than 1,000 mosques and Islamic prayer centers have sprouted up throughout the once devoutly Catholic country.

Twelve new masjids are scheduled to open in northeastern Spain within the next three months.

The construction of new mosques comes at a time when municipalities linked to the Socialist Party have closed dozens of Christian churches across Spain by the enactment of new zoning laws.

The Barcelona mosque project was announced during a weeklong seminar titled “Muslims and European Values,” sponsored by the European Council of Moroccan Ulemas and the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers in Catalonia.

A representative of the Barcelona mayor’s office who attended the conference told the Madrid-based El País newspaper that the municipality would get involved in the mosque project because “although religion pertains to the private realm, this does not mean it does not have a public role.”

The idea to build a mega-mosque funded by Spanish taxpayers comes after Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam, said the construction of big mosques would be the best way to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Spain. “It is easier to disseminate fundamentalist ideas in small mosques set up in garages where only the members of the congregation attend, than in large mosques that are open to everyone, with prayer rooms, cafes and meeting areas,” Ziani told the Spanish news agency EFE. Read on and comment >>> TheLastCrusade.org

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When the Moors Ruled in Europe

Granada: The Magic of the Moors
THE TELEGRAPH: Now's the time to enjoy the stunning sights of Granada, says Anthony Jefferies.

The Alhambra is Spain's most visited tourist attraction but will be relatively quiet in February Photo: The Telegraph
The Alhambra is heart-flutteringly beautiful at any time but with southern Spain warming up in the early spring sunshine and the crowds yet to arrive, this is the perfect season to visit the great Moorish palace complex and the lovely city fanning out from its flanks. Old Moorish and gipsy quarters, vast cathedrals and churches, tree-lined plazas and great restaurants will provide an antidote to the cold British winter. >>> | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The Myth of Al-Andalus. Jihad against Spain (and Portugal)

The Myth of Islamic Spain


Hat tip: Always On Watch

Al-Andalus: الأندلس

Who Is Really Being Dishonest About Islam?
AINA: In his "The Faith Divide" blog at the Washington Post's website, Eboo Patel took umbrage Monday at two recent reviews in the New York Times Book Review charging "Dishonesty About Islam in the NYT Book Review." Patel was angry at favorable reviews of what he called "Bruce Bawer's alarmist book Surrender" (about which he huffed, "the subtitle says it all: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom") and Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (which was reviewed by Fouad Ajami). Yet while making the improbable claim that the New York Times printed material that was dishonest and negative about Islam, Patel showed himself to be not a little disingenuous -- suggesting that before he call these reviewers on their alleged dishonesty, he should look to his own.

"Ajami," complains Patel, "opens his piece by juxtaposing two disparate pieces of history: the departure of Spain's last Muslim ruler in 1492, and the terrorist attacks on Madrid in 2004. 'A circle was closed,' Ajami writes, 'and Islam was, once again, a matter of Western Europe.'" What is wrong with this? "The Muslim presence in medieval Spain," asserts Patel, "is widely regarded as a time of tolerance, good government and support for the arts and education. In fact, Ajami himself wrote a positive review of one of the many books on that era, Maria Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World. Placing Al-Andalus, as it was known, in the same breath as a ghastly terrorist attack - as if to say 'Here's what happens when Muslims are around' - is beyond questionable. A dead fish wouldn't want to be wrapped in a newspaper article with that level of intellectual dishonesty."

Funny that Patel should mention Menocal. Certainly her Ornament of the World is largely responsible for the contemporary myth of a tolerant, pluralistic, proto-multicultural Al-Andalus. But even Menocal, in that very book, admits that tolerance and pluralism went only so far in Muslim Spain, which institutionalized discrimination against Jewish and Christian dhimmis:

The dhimmi, as these covenanted peoples were called, were granted religious freedom, not forced to convert to Islam. They could continue to be Jews and Christians, and, as it turned out, they could share in much of Muslim social and economic life. In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax -- no Muslims paid taxes and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals. (Pp. 72-3)

So much for a paradise of tolerance and multiculturalism. Historian Kenneth Baxter Wolf observes that "much of this new legislation aimed at limiting those aspects of the Christian cult which seemed to compromise the dominant position of Islam." After enumerating a list of laws much like Menocal's, he adds: "Aside from such cultic restrictions most of the laws were simply designed to underscore the position of the dimmîs as second-class citizens." >>> Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine (JihadWatch)| Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Al-Andalus: الأندلس

Moors Want Spain to Apologise after 400 Years
Flag of Andalusia courtesy of Google Images.
What Mr Keeley, the writer of this article, fails to point out is that Spain had been invaded and conquered by the Moors, and the Spaniards’ culture and way of life had been taken away from them by the marauding invaders. I see little need for Spaniards today to apologize for anything. This was not so much “ethnic cleansing” as winning back the country which rightfully belonged to them. – ©Mark

TIMESONLINE: It was the start of one of the earliest and most brutal episodes of ethnic cleansing in Europe, so Spain is, understandably perhaps, a little reluctant to mark the occasion.

Four hundred years ago today King Philip III signed an order to expel 300,000 Moriscos - or part-Muslims - who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

Over the next five years hundreds of the exiles died as they were forced from their homes in Spain to North Africa at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.

There are no plans to mark the date officially, although the occasion is being remembered in a series of exhibitions, conferences and public debates.

The anniversary comes days after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, met Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, in Istanbul to celebrate the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, which is intended to foster friendship between the West and the Islamic world.

Some Muslim writers and Spanish and Moroccan campaigners believe that Madrid should apologise for the wrongs committed during the 17th century. Juan Goytisolo, a Spanish novelist, said:

“Official and academic Spain retires into the fortress of cautious silence, which reveals obvious discomfort. The expulsion was the first European precedent ... of the European ethnic cleansings of the last century.” >>> Graham Keeley in Barcelona | Thursday, April 9, 2009

Europe Just Got a Little Dhimmier
Photo of Al Hambra courtesy of Google Images
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: After centuries of denying a common history with Islam, Spaniards are once again trying to live together with Muslims. In Granada, home of the Alhambra and former center of Moorish Spain, a multicultural revival is taking shape that sees Christians and Muslims coexisting in mutual respect.

The panoramic terrace of the Plaza San Nicolas becomes a magical setting at sunset. Gypsy boys play deeply melancholic melodies on the guitar while their girls dance to the music and whirl brightly colored ribbons. Bohemians pass around liter bottles of beer and cheap red wine, Japanese tourists set up their cameras, and Latin Americans sing cheerfully.

From the head of this square on the Albaicin hill sounds the lingering call of "Allahu akbar." The muezzin has climbed the 59 steps of the tower. He stands between the open Moorish arches and cups a hand to his mouth so everyone who is listening for his call can hear "God is great." In the day's last rays of light, the gilded outlines of Arabic ornate lettering glitter mysteriously under the pointed roof.

Across from the brand new, whitewashed mosque, the floodlights are lit, bathing the Alhambra palace and its ramparts, located on the other side of the river, in a rosy sheen that transforms the architectural ensemble into a veritable "red fortress." Off in the distance, the snows of the Sierra Nevada gleam in the setting sun. As men -- and the occasional woman dressed in a long coat -- hasten from the windy, narrow cobbled streets of the Albaicin district to pray in the mosque, the evening bells of the cathedral ring out over the city.

Today's Granada is a cultural melting pot. Five centuries after the Christian royalty known as the Catholic Monarchs drove the last Muslim ruler from what is now Spain and raised their cross in the throne room of the Alhambra, Muslims and Christians in the city of Granada are once again living side by side in peace. For nearly 800 years, the inhabitants of al-Andalus, as the Arab dynasties called their empire on the Iberian Peninsula, allowed Jews, Christians and Muslims to coexist in a spirit of mutual respect -- a situation that benefited all. The red fortress symbolizes this period. Originally, a rich Jewish merchant had the walls of red clay built on the ruins of an old castle. Later, the Muslim Nasrid Dynasty expanded the complex of palaces up until the late 14th century, creating shady gardens and fountains and building a splendid mosque. The house of worship was consecrated as a church by the Christian conquerors 150 years later.

It is here, in this last bastion of the old multicultural society of Moorish Spain, that an extremely vibrant Islamic community is taking shape today. Thanks to its rich history, many even see Granada as the future Islamic capital of Europe. Others fear that Andalusia could once again become the gateway for a "reconquista" -- this time under the green banner of the Prophet.

After the death of the Prophet Mohammed, and once the rule of Islam had been firmly established on the Arabian Peninsula, the first wave of conquest began. The Berber tribes of North Africa were converted to the new faith. As early as 710, the first Berber leader, Tarif Abu Sura, crossed the Straight of Gibraltar. To this day, the place where he made landfall is called Tarifa. One year later, some 7,000 Muslim warriors defeated the army of the Visigoth king Rodrigo. Afterwards, the Hispanic-Latin inhabitants offered little resistance, and a quarter of them became Muslims within the first generation. The Visigoth nobles even fled Toledo, leaving the field open for the conquerors to advance to the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain in just three years. At his point, the invaders were halted by the Asturian resistance.

Starting in 1055, a number of Christian kingdoms began to expand south of their northern mountain refuges as part of the "Reconquista" -- the so-called reconquest of al-Andalus under the banner of the Crusades. The successors to the Castilian throne, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon -- the Catholic Monarchs -- united the Christian military forces through their marriage and, following the fall of Granada in 1492, formed a purely Catholic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. They immediately banished the Jews. The Muslims, who represented the vast majority of the population of al-Andalus, were forcibly baptized, and the last group was permanently expelled in 1614. The Spanish Inquisition guarded over the "purity of the blood," under threat of torture and execution by being burned alive at the stake. A Multicultural Model for Europe >>> By Helene Zuber in Granada, Spain | May 22, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)