A Glimpse of Muslim Spain
When you think of
European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture.
But did you know that
long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry.
A Glimpse of Muslim Spain
Muslims, as the
Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you’ll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.
Way back during the eighth century, Europe was still kneedeep in the Medieval period. That’s not the only thing they were knee-deep in. In his book, “The Day The Universe Changed,” the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:
“The inhabitants
threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors. (p. 32)
This squalid society
was organized under an old medieval system and had little that would resemble a
commercial economy. Along with other restrictions, the Catholic Church forbade
the lending of money – which didn’t help get things booming much.
“Anti-Semitism,
previously rare, began to increase. Money lending, which was forbidden by the
Church, was permitted under Jewish law.” (Burke, 1985, p. 32) Jews worked to
develop a currency although they were heavily persecuted for it.Medieval Europe
was a miserable lot, which ran high in illiteracy, superstition, barbarism and
filth.
During this same
time, Muslims entered Europe from the South. Abd al-Rahman I, a survivor of a
family of caliphs of the Muslim empire, reached Spain in the mid-700’s. He
became the first Caliph of Al-Andalus, the Muslim part of Spain, which occupied
most of the Iberian Peninsula.He also set up the Umayyad Dynasty that ruled
Al-Andalus for over three-hundred years. (Grolier, History of Spain).
Al Andalus means,
“the land of the vandals,” from which comes the modern name Andalusia. At
first, the land resembled the rest of Europe in all its squalor. But within
two-hundred years the Muslims had turned Al-Andalus into a bastion of culture,
commerce and beauty. “Irrigation systems imported from Syria and Muslimia
turned the dry plains… into an agricultural cornucopia. Olives and wheat had
always grown there.
The Muslims added
pomegranates, oranges, lemons, aubergines, artichokes, cumin, coriander,
bananas, almonds, pams, henna, woad, madder, saffron, sugar-cane, cotton, rice,
figs, grapes, peaches, apricots and rice.” (Burke, 1985, p. 37)
By the beginning of
the ninth century, Muslim Spain was the gem of Europe
with its capital
city, Cordova. With the establishment of Abd al-Rahman 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 Muslim Spain, “thousands
of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords.”
(Burke, 1985, p. 38)
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 Muslim power
structure. The Muslim harmony began to break up into warring factions. Finally,
the caliphs were eliminated and Cordova fell to other Muslim 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. …the Christians to the North were doing just the opposite. In
Northern Spain the various Christian kingdoms united to expel the Muslims 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 Muslims 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 Muslims
had huge libraries containing the lost (to Christian Europe) works of the
Greeks and Romans along with Muslim philosophy and mathematics. “The Spanish
libraries were opened, revealing a store of classics and Muslim 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 Muslim books into Latin. These books
included “most of the major works of Greek science and philosophy… along with
many original Muslim 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 Muslim 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).” (Burke, 1985, p. 42)
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 Muslims but the disharmony among the Muslims’ own ranks. Like
Greece and Rome that proceeded them, the Muslims of Al-Andalus fell into moral
decay and wandered from the intellect that had made them great.
The translations
continued as each Muslim 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 Muslims would be their books.
It’s fascinating to realize just how much Europe learned from the Muslim 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 Muslims came the numerals we use today. Even the concept of Zero (a Muslim
word) came from the translations (Castillo & Bond, 1987, p. 27).
It’s also fair to say
that renaissance architectural concepts came from the Muslim libraries.
Mathematics and architecture explained in the Muslim texts along with Muslim
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
Muslims.
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