I've recently been enjoying 'Tales of the Alhambra' which are folk stories collated by the American writer, Washington Irving. He visited Andalusia and gathered stories from the citizens of the region which harken back to the time of the Al-Andalus.
I cannot recommend the book enough! The societies that he describes feel magical, enlightened, inspiring, thoughtful, advanced and romantic.
I often wonder, 'how inspirational was Al-Andalus for contemporary Europeans?' The discovery and founding of America by Europeans itself has many parallels to the much earlier establishment of Al-Andalus. It too was an idealistic colony. Coincidentally, the word California - which symbolically marks a 'boundary of the west' of sorts - has an Arabic root!
I have to find the letter (possibly a Jewish reader can dig it out?) but I remember reading and being amused by a letter penned by Maimonides to iirc Jews in Arabian peninsula. Apparently they had written to him having heard of the paradise of tolerance in Muslim Spain and his letter poo pooing it, telling them it’s no better than their locale. I always read that letter as a sort of rabbinical wisdom on his part: he knew they wouldn’t be able to get there so he painted a dismal picture.
Jewish historians today would support the dismal picture. There were indeed severe restrictions on Jews in Muslim-ruled Andalusia: they were forced to wear special clothing, to dwell in a mellah (a special neighbourhood), and were prevented from riding horses. Yes, Christian Europe imposed analogical restrictions, but Andalusia under Muslim rule could hardly be called tolerant.
I've not heard of this letter - and would also be curious to read it!
Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) is considered religiously tolerant by modern historians in the context of the experience of Jewish citizens, especially when compared to contemporary parts of Western Europe.
As an example, it seems there was an expulsion of around 100,000 Jews in Christian France in 1306 and in England in 1290 of several thousand. I've not come across any such comparable events in my readings of Al-Andalus.
As a direct point, if Maimonides thought that France and so on would have offered more freedom or a better quality of life, then he could have moved there when Cordoba was experiencing political turmoil. He instead migrated through the Maghreb, towards the Middle East - it seems he was employed by Saladin at some point.
Maimonides lived under a particularly harsh time, contemporaneous to the Al-Muwahidun (Almohads) overthrow of the dynasty of the Al-Murabitun (Almoravid). The Almohads were much less tolerant than the previous dynasties, though that intolerance waned with time.
No religious or ideological flamewar on HN please, no matter how gullible others are or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
It really depends on the historical context.
I don't know what the standards were for the period but i saw this random tidbit from wikipedia while reading up on the Roma people (Note : this was after the era of the Andalus ):
>From 1510 onwards, any Romani found in Switzerland were to be executed; while in England (beginning in 1554) and Denmark (beginning of 1589) any Romani which did not leave within a month were to be executed. Portugal began deportations of Romanis to its colonies in 1538.
Compared to getting executed for being at the the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong ethnicity, Andalus may well have been a oasis of tolerance in Europe, relatively speaking.
About that book: “ It would be a book-length corrective that would address and properly contextualize and source all of the errors that occur at every level in The Myth, from basic problems of terminology to broader methodological and interpretive flaws” - https://wp.nyu.edu/sjpearce/2017/03/17/paradise-lost/
No mention of the Toledo School of Translators, the equivalent to the Tizard mission of the 12th century.
That event along with similar events in Italy and elsewhere was what truly triggered the Renaissance but historians in the West won't ever acknowledge it using that phrasing.
Today, people are taught that Leonardo Da Vinci was hiding in a room somewhere and suddenly the Renaissance happened. That caliber of nonsense is necessary to explain the gap without recognizing the merit of other civilizations.
Then you read this and realize that everything you have been taught about medieval times are fake feel-good stories about how the West is the light
> Now 'tis established in the exact Sciences by precise demonstration, that the Sun is a Spherical Body, and so is the Earth; and that the Sun is much greater than the
Earth; and that part of the Earth which is at all times illuminated by the Sun is above half of it; and that in that half which is illuminated, the Light is most intense in the midst, both because that part is the most remote from
Darkness, as also, because it offers a greater surface to the Sun; and that those parts which are nearer the Circumference of the Circle, have less Light; and so gradually, till the Circumference of the Circle, which encompasses the illuminated part of the Earth, ends in Darkness.
After the fall of Islamic civilization in the Iberian peninsula and the middle east, the world took many centuries to reach the same level of scientific progress from centuries earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snell%27s_law
If the Mongols had not burned the Grand library of Baghdad you would be in a flying car right now talking with your friends on Mars.
Historically, Islamic philosophers (as they were then called) took works from the greek philosophers before them and expanded upon it. Then a few other philosphers who did not like people learning from non-muslims leaned hard into fundamentalism and you now have the kind of Islam (Salafist/Wahhabism) that exists today, e.g. Saudi Arabia
The Mongols opened the door to fundamentalism, but it didn't have to go that way. The sack of Baghdad is a simplification
Yes. But we stopped studying the Greeks for a long time and had no paper. So we could not distribute copies of Greek works until paper was introduced here, and until we had those copies.
That trend, that lasted a long time, ended with the help of the Islamic civilization influence, with the arrival of paper and translated copies of the works you are talking about.
They were studying them. We were not. Our copies come from them, and the technology to distribute those copies also comes from them.
Our scientific tradition is a direct continuation of theirs, as they are the first advisors to the first doctors in the West.
"Kingdoms of Faith" by Brian Catlos is an excellent book about Al Andalus, from the Arab invasion to the fall of Granada (the aftermath is not covered extensively).
I got interested in Al-Andalus when I visited Tarragona, where the Moors pushed out the Visigoths and ruled for 400 years. A short book I recommend is Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher (https://www.amazon.com/Moorish-Spain-Richard-Fletcher/dp/052...). It's a quick and engaging read covering the conquest and slow rollback of Muslim rule.
A podcaster I listen to said something that stuck with me. He doesn’t care who invented the light bulb. That would’ve happened anyway.
What’s way more interesting is events that could’ve completely changed human history. Like if Julius Caesar lost in Gaul or the Persians had defeated the Greeks or the Mongols had invaded Europe.
On that list had to be what if Islam had spread throughout Europe? It very much could’ve at different points. Not just the Moors but later the Ottomans.
For much of Europe, it did. If you take a look at the maps of various Islamic empires, there remains a fairly small part of Europe that was never ruled by them. Practically speaking, what is called 'Europe' today are just the parts that were never conquered, or were later retaken. The rest we call e.g. Turkey.
I believe that Henry the Eighth was talking with some of the Muslim calliphates in Northern Africa around the time he broke from Rome. He could have gone Islamic but decided to set up his own church instead. Who knows how it would have worked out if he chose differently.
That book is likely to be correct that it is a myth that "al-Andalus" was "a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony" and that in reality being a non-Muslim must have caused many disadvantages.
Nevertheless, even without examining any evidence from that book, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
For this, no other evidence is necessary beyond the fact that even if the non-Muslims might have not "lived in harmony", they certainly had lived there in great numbers, while soon after the reconquest the non-Christians no longer lived there (this is especially obvious from the large number of Sephardim who had to live in other countries after that).
Another thing that is true beyond any reasonable doubt is what is said in the parent article, i.e. that regardless whether the Arab conquest was good or bad for the local people, for Europe as a whole the Arab presence in Spain has been extremely useful, both as the source of improved knowledge in chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, due to their own research of various Arab and Muslim authors, and as the source of many ancient Latin and Greek works that had been lost in Europe.
> it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
Yeah, Spain the kingdom didn't really treat Muslims all that great, one just have to look at the "Expulsion of the Moriscos" in 1609 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos). Hard to beat that when it comes to treatment of entire populations.
Why would it be symmetric? This is like if North American natives had successfully expelled the Europeans after some amount of time, and then saying that the natives were meaner to the Europeans than vice versa. Wouldn’t expulsion be justified from the North American native’s perspective?
Note that there was about 9 centuries between the Umayyad conquest of Iberia (8th century) and the explulsion of Moriscos (17th century). So the analogy with North American natives would be something like - if somehow the Native Americans win political/military control in the 23th century (9 centuries after the arrival of the Europeans) and then decide that all non-native Americans will have to leave the country to wherever their ancestors came from - do you feel that would be justified?
From the native perspective that would absolutely be justified. At the same time from the European perspective they should resist being expelled (just as the equivalent people in Spain should have and probably did resist being expelled in their time).
As a side note, I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto everyone at once, which does not produce a useable model of reality IMO.
> I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto everyone at once
Thanks for putting into words something I've been feeling for a long time! It's like people think that conflict is unnatural, when really it is one of the most fundamental aspects of nature.
A part of the ancient Latin and Greek literature has been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and another part by the Arabs.
The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type printing press, when their importance has soon become more historical than practical, due to the rapid advances that have started at that time.
Besides the ancient Latin and Greek books, the Arabs have also passed knowledge that had come from India and Persia and also the results of original research that went beyond what had been transmitted from others, especially in chemistry and mathematics, hence words like alchemy and algebra.
Muslims, not Arabs. Also you are mistaken about Arabs passing Persian knowledge. Initially invading Arabs were given to destroying books. It was Muslim Persians who did most of the translation, and subsequently elaboration of the ancient world’s thinking into the Muslim civilization and from there to Europe. And yes, they wrote in Arabic just like Isaac Newton wrote Principia in Latin. And most of us now write in English, but are we Anglos?
p.s. important to amend this here to note that certainly, Muslim civilization had many towering Arab (and non-Persian non-Arab) intellects as well. In my personal opinion, the correct terminology would be Muslim and Islamic (since it certainly was that) instead of Arab or Arabic. The latter apparently is favored by European “Orientalists” but it is both incorrect and further it is divisive.
I agree than many of the most important scientific advances in the Muslim world were due to Persians, like the classification of the chemical substances made by Avicenna, who has written in Arabic, as you say.
However, the works of Avicenna and others like him have reached Europe through Arabs, frequently through Spain.
If you know of another path to Europe for the Persian Arabic works, I am curious to hear which is it.
This book was published by Regnery in their ISI Books line and if you look at the rest of their catalog (https://www.regnery.com/books/isi-books/) there's a certain theme that's overwhelming. To be slightly more explicit, when so many of their other books are so obviously by and for right wing culture warriors, why would they have published this one if it was not?
(And if you look outside that particular imprint the publisher's politics become even more obvious)
If you check the bibliography of this article's author, his latest book seems to be a wistful longing for Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution.
The greatest "myth" I'm seeing in this thread is the idea of objective pop history writers (or readers). All of these works are goods being sold to a consumer audience. Perhaps in decades past, many consumers favored works that expanded or challenged their worldviews. But in today's zeitgeist, most consumers want to read things that reinforce how they view the world already.
> There are some conservative books there, but also general topics too.
And that's exactly what to expect from a conservative library! There's no left-wing book, at all, in the shelves and that's a pretty clear sign.
We can't know for sure if the “general topics” are themselves conservative, but the complete lack of left-wing PoV in collection, that doesn't bode well.
but the claim wasn't that is was a "a conservative library" (consisting or specialising in having of a large amount of conservative titles, presumably for conservatives) - but that it (or a large selection of its titles) caters to RW culture warriors, to the extent that you ask "why would they have published this one if it was not?", i.e. it cannot be merely conservative, but assumed RW-extreme.
Of course the term “right wing culture warrior” is questionable, but when your library is so right leaning that its political orientation is obvious after just glancing at a handful of books cover then maybe this term is kind of apt.
It turns out that the page I linked to has more than just pictures of the covers, and if you click thru you can find the publisher's blurbs which are brief descriptions of the contents spun in a way favorable to them.
As an example, there's this biography of William F. Buckley Jr :https://www.regnery.com/9781610171557/william-f-buckley-jr/ whose blurb reads in part "William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement tells the incredible story of a man who could have been a playboy, sailing his yacht and skiing in Switzerland, but who chose to be the St. Paul of the conservative movement, carrying the message far and wide." (and makes it sound more more like a hagiography, but let's leave that aside).
Then there's https://www.regnery.com/9781610171458/just-right/ with this excerpt from the blurb: "This memoir is full of colorful stories from a man who has been present at nearly every major event of the modern conservative movement and has done it all in a remarkable, multifaceted career."
I said "obvious" regarding the publisher overall, not just their imprint. You'll notice they have a "Political Books" category (https://www.regnery.com/books/political-books/) in which you might find that their 'Featured Books' include "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" (by Ted Cruz, and please refer back to my comment re: Santorum), "Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists Behind the Attack on America's Kids" , "When China Attacks: A Warning to America", "The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy has Destroyed Us", and "Domestic Extremest: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War".
If that's not enough for you, then please consider the publisher's own words: "Want to read conservative books that drive headlines, start debates, and change the course of history? That’s what Regnery books have been doing since 1947." which doesn't leave much room for ambiguity.
specialising in conservative books isn't the same thing as catering primarily to "right wing culture warriors", in the sense that any book from their collection can be assumed as biased.
I think you're conflating 'primarily' and 'exclusively'. Furthermore if you consider their 'general topics' books and check up on their authors you might notice a certain theme.
I'm not quite sure I get your angle but HN users are as welcome from Eglin Air Force Base as from anywhere else, as long as they're using the site as intended. Why shouldn't they be interested in pedestrian footbridges in Minneapolis? (to mention one darling of the moment)
What are you talking about? The article goes through the history, both positive and negative. There is plenty of not-so-light-and-happy parts in the article.
Examples:
> And yet, after the Reconquest, the once-wealthy region fell into decay. By the early 19th century, it had become so wild and impoverished that Washington Irving was forced to trudge its grueling mountain roads in a mule team convoy with armed guards to protect from highwaymen.
> The remote setting has also seen its share of violence. In 1568, more than seven decades after the Reconquest, the Muslims of Almería joined the so-called Rebellion of the Alpujarras against Christian domination in Spain, creating an outlaw Islamic enclave that held out until it was crushed in 1571.
> Soon after, a mass escape of Republican civilian refugees on the desert highway from Málaga to Almería was strafed remorselessly by Franco’s Nazi-supplied planes, leaving at least 3,000 dead. The city of Almería then became “a vast encampment,”
> Spain’s attempts at reconciliation have ranged from symbolic—a 2022 apology to women executed as witches in Catalonia—to acts that have direct contemporary impact, like the exhumation of victims in mass graves from the Spanish Civil War, offering closure to descendants who want their relatives identified and properly reburied.
> In 2015, there was also an attempt to deal with injustices following the demise of al-Andalus, when the Madrid government apologized for the 1492 Edict of Expulsion aimed at Sephardic Jews and offered Spanish citizenship to their international descendants.
Similarly, some of the examples of bad things the author cited are stretching plausibility to kind of imply that they were a result of Christian rule when they happened in the 19th century in the Spanish Civil War era.
edit: forgot to mention that slavery appeared to be practiced by Muslims and Jews in Al-Andalus.
At the time of the formation of Al-Andalus, Muslims were prohibited from enslaving fellow believers, but there was a slave trade of non-Muslims in which Muslims and local Jewish merchants traded in Spanish and Eastern European Christian slaves
I know somehow Andalusians really seem to enjoy self-deprecation, and put down anyone who talks about the region in a positive light, but the numbers show it's not that poor. I know very well these kind of numbers don't reflect on perceived poverty in rural villages, but Andalusia as a whole is not doing that bad at all, objectively. Actually even has pockets of extreme wealth, like Marbella or Sotogrande.
Andalusia and Extremadura are at the bottom of the table of Spain's autonomous communities by GDP per Capita and HDI. They share metrics comparable to Sicily and other poorer parts of Southern and Eastern Europe such as Portugal.
Before the rapid economic growth Spain saw in the 1980s, it was most likely even poorer and less developed.
There is still a North-South divide in Spain with Communities Madrid northwards sharing economic and developmental indicators with Western European countries like France or Germany, while Southern Spain shares developmental and economic indicators closer to Portugal, Sicily, or other southern and Eastern European regions. The same issue plagues Southern Italy as well.
I don’t see how this is supposed to be meaningful. Ancient Greece was incredible for its time, and modern Greece is relative poor. I hope we both agree that doesn’t diminish Greece’s past in any way.
One has to really stretch the modern definition of "colonization" and its moral implications for it to be applicable to the 7 centuries of Muslim Spain, but not make it applicable to the immediately preceding Visigothic and Suevi kingdoms of Hispania, some of the Germanic tribes who invaded and took over during the fall of the Roman Empire.
Even if we were to accept invasion of Iberia by the Umayyad Caliphate of Arabia in 711 as an exercise in colonisation, the Caliphate collapsed by 750, and Muslim rule in Iberia was succeeded by a complex succession of mostly local rule by the united Emirate or Caliphate of Cordova, or broken into smaller Taifas, and fluctuating levels of control by Berber dynasties which also controlled parts of North Africa—but notably would sometimes seat their court in Seville or Cordova.
Was that colonisation? If it was, it's hard to argue that the similar political and territorial changes taking place in the Christian kingdoms, counties, and principalities of Northern Spain, often by descendants of the Visigothic invaders, were not also acts of colonisation. Another example would be the Marca Hispanica, established by Charlemagne, and direct predecessor of the County of Barcelona and hence the Principality of Catalonia, a realm of the Crown of Aragon which is a constituent part of modern Spain.
Spanish mediæval history is a constant shuffle of rulers and territorial changes, which can neither be ascribed to the oversimplified idea of the Christian Reconquista (=Reconquest) nor can it be regarded as an example of colonisation in the modern sense. Regarding this complexity, consider that the Coat of Arms of Spain [0], in its many historical variations, explicitly references the Crown of Castile (Kingdoms of Leon and Castile), the Crown of Aragon, the Kingdom of Navarre, and the Kingdom of Granada. The first two entities were united by dynastic union, and the latter two were taken by conquest. To what extent was the conquest of Muslim Granada a decolonisation event, and not the conquest of Christian Navarre?
Finally, regarding Andalusia being the poorest part of the country [2] and its history with serfdom, this is more due to the repopulation carried out by the Kingdom of Castile after the (re?)conquest of territories from Muslim rulers. Much land was granted to Christian noble families and feudal lordships were established as reward to them, to a greater extent than had happened in the North of Spain in the earlier period. In fact, the effect of repopulation and land awards as recompense can be seen to a certain extent in the map of municipalities of Spain [1]. Notice that the Northern Meseta, mostly modern Castilla y León (Northwest square of inland) is much more granular than the bottom half, including the Southern Meseta, mostly Castilla-La-Mancha and Extremadura (inland area below north-south midline of Spain just north of Andalusia), Andalusia and Murcia. That is the case even though the Northern and Southern Mesetas are not significantly different in terms of climate and geography. Their only differences is how the Southern one was more systematically repopulated by the Crown of Castile, as was the rest of Southern Spain.
[2] There were of course many later contributing factors, including the effect of the Spanish Empire, the effect of 19th century protectionist economic policies, as well as the whole 20th century. Here I'm only focusing on the how the late mediæval period had its effect.
One of the reasons that Muslim rule over Spain is regarded as colonization, but not the earlier Visigothic rule, is that the Goths had very little cultural impact on local society. For example, the Iberian Romance varieties were never replaced by Gothic, rather the Goths quickly assimilated to Iberian Romance. In Andalusia, on the other hand, there was a gradual process in urban areas of shift from Romance to Arabic that was only reversed after Muslim rule ended. In religion, the Visigothic rulers soon converted from the Arian Christianity upheld by the Goths to the Nicene Christianity of the local population, while under Muslim rule the inverse often happened and Christian Andalusians converted to the Muslim faith of their rulers.
> where forms of serfdom were still present in the late 20th century
While I don't doubt it, I haven't been able to find anything that actually supports this claim. But considering who it was that actually owned serfs I think we can all agree that this is another reason it's a shame the wrong side won the Spanish Civil War.
Furthermore, I just recently learn that after Franco's death, the entire country decided that it was best to not investigate and prosecute any of the wrongdoers from before the pact in order to make the transition to democracy "more smooth" after the dictatorship fell apart. Imagine the same happening after Nazi Germany fell, hard to imagine people willingly just forgetting what happened...
> The Pact of Forgetting (Spanish: Pacto del Olvido) is the political decision by both leftist and rightist parties of Spain to avoid confronting directly the legacy of Francoism after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.[1] The Pact of Forgetting was an attempt to move on from the Civil War and subsequent repression and to concentrate on the future of Spain.[2] In making a smooth transition from autocracy and totalitarianism to democracy, the Pact ensured that there were no prosecutions for persons responsible for human rights violations or similar crimes committed during the Francoist period. On the other hand, Francoist public memorials, such as the mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen, fell into disuse for official occasions.[3] Also, the celebration of "Day of Victory" during the Franco era was changed to "Armed Forces Day" so respect was paid to both Nationalist and Republican parties of the Civil War.
No wonder Spain still experiences a lot of issues related to fascism, Francoists, Carlists and more, you cannot just pretend like something didn't happen.
This is indeed the source of many troubles for Spain, and it is quite shocking. There are laws against investigating were victims of civil war are buried, and other dark things like that.
At the time, any reforms had to please the Franco supporters, or a coup was feared. This is why the Constitution is ambiguous in many points: Spanish is aconfessional but with special historical weight for Catholicism, the amount of independence of different regions, etc.).
I think it is easier to understand after 2 facts:
1. The dictatorship lasted from 1939 until 1975.
2. Franco designated what would be the next King as his successor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_I). Keep in mind Spain was a republic before Franco's coup and civil war. This king, instead of becoming the new dictator, was installed back with the monarchy.
After 40 years of Franco, everybody was scared of a coup. In fact, in '81 a some military-police did try it, but fortunately failed. So it was kind of sensible not to tear up the country and provoke another war and/or dictatorship. You can't just "flip the country over" and go after basically everybody with any political, military, or economic power.
>wrongdoers
This goes all ways. The USSR had their hands in Spanish politics. Spain’s extensive gold reserves were drained and shipped off to Moscow, for instance.
Spain was dragged into a political and economic system with no real organic connection to the country. Democracy here has always been a farce. During covid the leftist government enacted some of the most draconian lockdowns in the world, and there was zero pushback from the kind of people who seethe over Franco. Also, the government is many times larger than it ever was during Franco (hence more control), the economy is relatively worse off, and the fertility rate is in a death spiral.
> the government is many times larger than it ever was during Franco
A key part of Fascism is that there is no real division between private and state enterprise, beyond some cosmetic titles. So the proportion is definitely not greater today, whatever measure you define. And if you mean "the total amount", which is even more meaningless, and today it is greater, than that is because Franco's economy was just very underdeveloped.
This is precisely what happened in non-Soviet-occupied Germany. Only the most senior Nazis were severely punished at big trials like Nuremberg. For lesser ranking Nazis, even when they were sentenced to imprisonment, their sentences were generally short or soon commuted.
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission focused on the investigation side in order to provide healing, but it sought to avoid prosecuting any but the most trenchant participants in Apartheid – and the country was praised for that. There is certainly a belief that coming down hard on the ancien regime may only prolong civil conflict, so it is hard to see Spain’s way of dealing with Franco’s legacy as beyond the pale.
> Spain still experiences a lot of issues related to fascism
I don’t think this is a fair characterization of contemporary Spanish politics. The political successor of Spanish Fascism (the falangistas) had dwindled by the 1990s to a handful of elderly folk who were derided by wider society. Today in Spain, the term “fascist” is often applied by people on the left to any ideological opponent on the far-right or even the center-right, but that right-wing opponent’s actual link to Franco or the distinctly early-twentieth-century phenomenon that was Fascism, is doubtful.
> This is precisely what happened in non-Soviet-occupied Germany. Only the most senior Nazis were severely punished at big trials like Nuremberg.
> but it sought to avoid prosecuting any but the most trenchant participants in Apartheid
So, not at all what happened in Spain then, as no one got punished at all, everyone was supposed to just collectively forget about it. I wouldn't have a issue with it if it just focused on the "most trenchant participants" but instead nothing was done.
> Today in Spain, the term “fascist” is often applied by people on the left to any ideological opponent on the far-right or even the center-right, but that right-wing opponent’s actual link to Franco or the distinctly early-twentieth-century phenomenon that was Fascism, is doubtful.
I'm not sure if you visited Spain recently, but there is definitely young francoists and falangists all around Spain, openly promoting fascism and trying to protect whatever legacy Franco still has in the country. It's not a handful of elderly folks as you think.
Sucked that they did that. But they were there for centuries; their kids didn't do it. If Moorish descendents are bereft of virtue owing to the sins of their fathers, does the same apply to the descendents of the European invaders of America?
I read condemnation on this site every day against Europeans/Americans because of things done in the past that we were not a part of.
Yes, a social structure similar to Jim Crow in the USA should be condemned not celebrated as being tolerant or some mythical place. It was not a good culture, it was not kind. Islam only allowed enslavement on non-muslims. Nice 'tolerance'. You shouldn't enslave people, and my people we mean non-believers. As many as 1.25 million white Europeans were enslaved by Islamic slavers. Much tolerance, much beauty.
I don't believe that the article was celebrating Islamic culture as a whole. It looked at their residual food/architecture. I furthermore don't know that there is a monolithic Islamic culture. Kurdish culture is a heck of a lot different than Afghani culture. Europeans and Americans did plenty of slaving. It's almost like it's a human thing, not a religion thing.
I think you need to touch grass, friend. Dehumanization of the infidels is what allowed Moors to enslave Europeans. Take care not to become their mirror image.
Janissaries were a uniquely Ottoman practice, and evoke something completely different than Muslim Andalucia. Also, I don’t believe that the Ottomans mutilated Janissaries in the way you described - that would be counterproductive, since strength is important in the military, especially with highly motivated elite soldiers. Look it up, that’s a popular myth, no more real than the Unsullied in Game of Thrones.
In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, no one talks about some great Andalusian army. Al-Andalus was known for its culture, architecture, scientific innovation, multiculturalism, etc…that being said, the American school system doesn’t really cover Al-Andalus, the so-called Islamic Golden Age, and Muslim advancement of the frontier of knowledge.
The Janissary were a part of the Ottoman Empire - which was on 'other end' of Europe, geographically. The Janissaries were not eunuchs.
Eunuchs were also an element of society in Ancient Rome. I'm pointing out that it was not considered in previous ages, as it is today. As an example Italians would castrate boys prepped for singing opera - castrati - until the 1800s, it seems.
Is the idealism of a successful society ever not of the elites and the rulers?
I have read somewhere that the monarchs of Al-Andalus often had Visigoth (i.e. Spanish) lineage. Arabic may have been their lingua franca, but their society may have been essentially Spanish in many ways, just not 'Christian Spanish'.
I think that the decline and fall of Al-Andalus may have been mostly a result of internal divisions, conflict and civil war. The Reconquista was however from without, the terror of the Spanish Inquisition was what followed, for the newly conquered.
Janissaries were part of the Ottoman Empire starting in 1300s, while this article is about Muslim Spain, which lasted until 1400s at the latest. So, ignoring the rest of the bait in your content, no they did not have Janissaries.
Religious flamewar is not ok here, and please don't post in the flamewar style to HN generally. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for past explanations of why). Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been doing this exclusively, but we need you to stop if you want to keep posting here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
I would equally post complaining if there were monthly posts about how beautiful the Spanish Missions in the Americas were, and how they increased the literacy rate.
That said, if you have to defend yourself you dun did mess up. Add on you don't think I add to the community, and I that I don't want to make a community worse for my presence I'll refrain from further posting.
> What great monuments were left by the Europeans for their conquered?
India has a lot of British made buildings they try to preserve but a number of them have gone into disrepair which is unfortunate. Even so a number of them are still in use like Rashtrapati Bhavan which used to be a presidential palace. There are quite a few British made buildings still in use and considered architecturally and historically significant.
>look up Mozarabic Rite.
what about it? it existed prior to Al-Andalus. Christianity is a middle-eastern religion so you can find a lot of middle-eastern/Mediterranean influence in Early Christian rites/prayer and chants.
> Respect for the local population seems like something European colonization never did when they spread their misery around the world.
Christians were dhimmis under Muslim rule in Spain.
> Its always the same narrative talking about European colonization of the world, "yes, this is what armies/nations did back then, past is past"
When talking about Spain or Constantinople, "look at the awful colonizers!"
Who do you see saying these things today? In e.g. the early 1900s that was probably the common view, but today the common view in the west seems to be the exact opposite.
#/media/Archivo:Spain_municipalities.png){kind=link}
I cannot recommend the book enough! The societies that he describes feel magical, enlightened, inspiring, thoughtful, advanced and romantic.
I often wonder, 'how inspirational was Al-Andalus for contemporary Europeans?' The discovery and founding of America by Europeans itself has many parallels to the much earlier establishment of Al-Andalus. It too was an idealistic colony. Coincidentally, the word California - which symbolically marks a 'boundary of the west' of sorts - has an Arabic root!