Of course, I disagree with Emile's appraisal of the Muslim conquest of Spain.... Here's an interesting account on the subject:
xmission.com
Excerpt:
By the beginning of the ninth century, Moorish Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova. With the establishment of Abdurrahman III - "the great caliphate of Cordova" - came the golden age of Al-Andalus. Cordova, in southern Spain, was the intellectual center of Europe.
At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". (Digest, 1973, p. 622) "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries." (Burke, 1985, p. 38).
In his book titled, "Spain In The Modern World," James Cleuge explains the significance of Cordova in Medieval Europe:
"For there was nothing like it, at that epoch, in the rest of Europe. The best minds in that continent looked to Spain for everything which most clearly differentiates a human being from a tiger." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 70)
During the end of the first millennium, Cordova was the intellectual well from which European humanity came to drink. Students from France and England traveled there to sit at the feet of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars, to learn philosophy, science and medicine (Digest, 1973, p. 622). In the great library of Cordova alone, there were some 600,000 manuscripts (Burke, 1978, p. 122).
This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. Tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Moorish Spain, "thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The society had a literary rather than religious base. Economically their prosperity was unparalleled for centuries.
The aristocracy promoted private land ownership and encouraged Jews in banking. There was little or no Muslim proselytizing. Instead, non-believers simply paid an extra tax!
"Their society had become too sophisticated to be fanatical. Christians and Moslems, with Jews as their intermediaries and interpreters, lived side by side and fought, not each other, but other mixed communities." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 71)
Unfortunately, this period of intellectual and economic prosperity began to decline. Shifting away from the rule of law, there began to be internal rifts in the Arab power structure. The Moorish harmony began to break up into warring factions. Finally, the caliphs were eliminated and Cordova fell to other Arab forces. "In 1013 the great library in Cordova was destroyed. True to their Islamic traditions however, the new rulers permitted the books to be dispersed, together with the Cordovan scholars to the capital towns of small emirates." (Burke, 1985, p. 40) The intellectual properties of the once great Al-Andalus were divided among small towns.
As the Moors built mini-alliances and fought amongst themselves, the Christians to the North were doing just the opposite. In Northern Spain the various Christian kingdoms united to expel the Moors from the European continent. (Grolier, History of Spain) This set the stage for the final act of the Medieval period.
In another of James Burke's works titled "Connections," he describes how the Moors thawed out Europe from the Dark Ages. "But the event that must have done more for the intellectual and scientific revival of Europe was the fall of Toledo in Spain to the Christians, in 1105." In Toledo the Arabs had huge libraries containing the lost (to Christian Europe) works of the Greeks and Romans along with Arab philosophy and mathematics. "The Spanish libraries were opened, revealing a store of classics and Arab works that staggered Christian Europeans." (Burke, 1978, p. 123)
The intellectual plunder of Toledo brought the scholars of northern Europe like moths to a candle. The Christians set up a giant translating program in Toledo. Using the Jews as interpreters, they translated the Arabic books into Latin. These books included "most of the major works of Greek science and philosophy... along with many original Arab works of scholarship." (Digest, p. 622) "The intellectual community which the northern scholars found in Spain was so far superior to what they had at home that it left a lasting jealousy of Arab culture, which was to color Western opinions for centuries" (Burke, 1985, p. 41)
"The subjects covered by the texts included medicine, astrology, astronomy pharmacology, psychology, physiology, zoology, biology, botany, mineralogy, optics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, music, meteorology, geography, mechanics, hydrostatics, navigation and history." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) These works alone however, didn't kindle the fire that would lead to the Renaissance. They added to Europe's knowledge, but much of it was unappreciated without a change in the way Europeans viewed the world.
Remember, Medieval Europe was superstitious and irrational. "What caused the intellectual bombshell to explode, however, was the philosophy that came with (the books). This included Aristotle's system of nature and the logic of argument." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) Found among the works were even Arab philosophers' commentaries of Aristotle's views. This "shocked the West by giving religion and philosophy
equal status as systems for explaining the cosmos." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) This questioning and the use of logic revolutionized the definition of
truth and sparked the renaissance.
Christians continued to re-conquer Spain, leaving a wake of death and destruction in their path. The books were spared, but Moor culture
was destroyed and their civilization disintegrated. Ironically, it wasn't just the strength of the Christians that defeated the Arabs but the
disharmony among the Moor's own ranks. Like Greece and Rome that proceeded them, the Moors of Al-Andalus fell into moral decay and
wandered from the intellect that had made them great.
The translations continued as each Moorish haven fell to the Christians. In 1492, the same year Columbus discovered the New World,
Granada, the last Muslim enclave, was taken. Captors of the knowledge were not keepers of its wisdom. Sadly, all Jews and Muslims that
would not abandon their beliefs were either killed or exiled (Grolier, History of Spain). Thus ended an epoch of tolerance and all that would
remain of the Moors would be their books.
It's fascinating to realize just how much Europe learned from the Moorish
texts and even greater to see how much that knowledge has endured. Because of
the flood of knowledge, the first Universities started to appear. College and
University degrees were developed (Burke, 1985, p. 48). Directly from the Arabs
came the numerals we use today. Even the concept of Zero (an Arabic word)
came from the translations (Castillo & Bond, 1987, p. 27) . Along with texts,
Arabic music spread throughout Europe, giving us the keyboard, the flute and the
concept of harmony. It's also fair to say that renaissance architectural concepts
came from the Moorish libraries. Mathematics and architecture explained in the
Arab texts along with Arab works on optics led to the perspective paintings of
the renaissance period (Burke, 1985 p. 72). The first lawyers began their craft
using the new translated knowledge as their guide. Even the food utensils we use
today come from the Cordova kitchen! (Burke, 1985 p. 44) All of these examples
show just some of the ways Europe transformed from the Moors.
Much of what we are today can find it's roots in the once great Moorish
culture of Spain. |
