ISLAM AND EUROPE
Islam was once prominent in Spain. How did it become so important there?
Muslim armies crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711, and an important Arab-Islamic presence established itself in Spain within fifty years or so. After the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus, the incoming Abbasids sought to put an end to their Umayyad rivals by assassinating all of the family’s princes. However, one managed to escape to Spain, where he established the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba. Later it would grow to challenge Baghdad’s authority as the Cordoba caliphate.
What was the overall religious and cultural situation in early Islamic Spain?
Spain’s population had become “Latinized” over the preceding seven centuries or more. Jews who had lived in the Iberian peninsula since Roman times experienced considerable persecution under their Christian rulers and were among the first to taste the benefits of the Arab Muslim conquest: they were given their religious freedom, while the Christian population was allowed to retain its Roman institutional heritage as a basis for local order. For several centuries Cordoba would be a marvel of cultural splendor and inter-religious harmony. On the whole, Cordoba was an outstanding example of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live together in peace under Muslim rule. As for larger political and cultural traditions, the Arabs drew heavily on their Middle Eastern roots. Educated Christians and Jews learned Arabic, and Middle Eastern taste in fashions and luxury items found ready acceptance. The over seven-hundred-year presence of Islam in Spain left a lasting influence on the Spanish language and the arts. The expression of enthusiastic approval “Ole!” comes from the Arabic Wa’llahi, (“By God!”), and dozens of Spanish words that begin with al-, such as Alcazar (“the castle”) betray an Arabic influence.
In what other ways did Islam advance westward across the Mediterranean and into Europe?
The Byzantine empire ruled subjects harshly so many Christians welcomed Muslims and actually regarded the coming of Islam as a liberation. They preferred being dhimmis (protected minorities) to being under Byzantine rule. Eventually, many converted to Islam but for as many as four centuries, Muslims remained the minority in the Middle East generally. Christians were allowed their freedom in return for paying a “poll” tax. Jerusalem’s citizens were mostly dhimmis for many generations. Further to the west, Muslim rule in Spain began in 711 and their advance toward central Europe was halted in 732 by Charles Martel at Poitiers. As a result, Muslims in the North of Spain no longer posed a significant threat to the portions of Europe then ruled by Charlemagne (crowned in 800). Minority populations of Muslims nonetheless trickled into parts of Switzerland and northern and southern Italy. Christians had largely lost control of the Mediterranean in the early ninth century after Sicily came under repeated Muslim invasions. In 831 the people of Palermo surrendered and in 966 Byzantines acknowledged Muslim rule there. That was short-lived, however, and by 1072 Sicily was back in Christian hands, but Muslims were allowed to remain. By the end of the Crusades, the Muslim presence in the central Mediterranean had largely vanished.
The Cordoba mosque, known to locals in Spain as Mezquita-Cathedral, is one of the oldest structures remaining from the age when Muslims ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula.
What happened to the Muslims of Spain?
Spanish Catholics gradually reclaimed the important Muslim cities of Toledo (1085), Cordoba (1236), and Seville (1248), with the Nasrid kingdom in Granada holding out until 1492. Determined to purge the land of any taint of infidel faith, Ferdinand and Isabella gave remaining Muslims and Jews the choice of conversion, exile, or death. Muslim converts to Christianity, called Moriscos, continued to live in small communities, but after 1500 Spanish Islam was little more than a memory. Today some Muslims are emigrating to Spain from North Africa, though in much smaller numbers than to France.
What is the meaning of the term convivencia and why is it applied to medieval Spain?
Convivencia is Spanish for “living together,” and it refers to a period from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries because of the often romanticized notion that Christians and Jews lived together in peace under Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. Some have referred to the “medieval” period in Spain as a Golden Age, and it is true that the early Middle Ages in Spain were in many ways a period of Muslim-Christian harmony. But these seven centuries witnessed more than enough difficulties, along with a genuinely remarkable cultural flourishing, during several periods within that long stretch of history in a land known as al-Andalus. In the area of juridical matters, Christians and Jews held the status of “protected minorities,” or dhimmis—a status accorded to “peoples of the Book,” that is, members of the Abrahamic faiths. All Jews and Christians were required to pay the jizya, or poll tax, in lieu of freedom from Muslim almsgiving requirements and military service. In exchange they were also guaranteed protection for their lives and possessions, freedom of livelihood, and religion. Christians and Jews were forbidden to proselytize among Muslims.
What are some examples of the benefits of convivencia?
In the realm of cultural affairs, many important connections occurred. Intermarriage was not unusual and Muslim rulers often married Christian women from the north of Spain. Many Spanish words have Arabic influences, words beginning with “al” and those associated with agriculture, crafts, and civil administration. Christian and Jewish architecture borrowed many formal and decorative conventions from Islamic buildings, such as the horseshoe arch, colored voussoirs (the periphery of arches), and stalactite-like features on vaulting called muqarnas. Perhaps most importantly, the city of Cordoba’s intellectual life was rich with poetry, music, and science, offering educational opportunities that attracted members of all faiths from across Europe. This cross-pollination was essential in facilitating the transfer of much “Islamic” learning and scholarship to Europe by encouraging translation into Latin from Arabic. Living not far from the famous Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was a noted contemporary, the legendary Rabbi Maimonides. On the negative side, Jews and Muslims were often segregated in religious and ethnic ghettos called juderias and morerias, respectively; and slavery was very common in medieval Spain.
What was the reconquista?
Throughout much of the period in question, Christian rulers were engaged in the reconquista, attempting to “reconquer” the peninsula in the name of Christian monarchs, and this occasionally caused tension among those still under Muslim governance. With his fifty-seven campaigns, Caliph al-Mansur was very active militarily and often held captives in lengthy imprisonment. Under later Muslim sovereigns, Christian prisoners of war contributed to the Kutubiyya mosque in Marrakesh. On the other hand, victorious Christian rulers returned the favor, and Muslim prisoners of war helped build the pilgrimage center of Santiago de Compostela in the 1100s. Christianity’s Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 addressed issues regarding Jews and Muslims, and included a number of harsh conditions for non-Christians enacted across much of Europe.
By the tenth century, the Iberian Peninsula was divided more or less in half, Christian kingdoms in the north and Muslims in the south. All sorts of curious social and religious changes followed. Muslim tolerance of Christians and Jews marked a high point in the tenth century, but many Christians converted, and the Arabized Christians were called Mozarabs (from an Arabic root meaning roughly “adopting Arab ways”). Shifts in religious allegiance were a cause of grave concern for both Muslims and Christians. A prominent Christian leader named Eulogius, archbishop of Cordoba, for example, raised alarms over what he perceived as dangerous signs of “Islamization.” He lamented that Christians seemed to prefer Arabic to Latin. Christian women began veiling their faces, stopped eating pork, and appreciated
