Al-Andalus was not Paradise
Dear Friends,
There is so much to be grateful for. Specifically, I’m sure you all come down the stairs in the morning thinking, “Ah! I am so thankful to not be living in Medieval, Islamic Spain.” No? Well, you probably should be, especially if you are: a Christian, a Jew, or a woman (regardless of your religion).
Wasn’t Islamic Spain (otherwise known as Al-Andalus) a place of great religious tolerance? A place that can serve as a model for Christian-Muslim relations today? I thought so because I had heard so. Then I read:
Fernandez-Morera, Dario. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2015.
Dr. Fernandez-Morera wrote this book with a huge chip on his shoulder. He starts each chapter with a quotation from some author, historian or politician praising this or that aspect of Al-Andalus, then he proceeds to demolish their claim with dozens of sources from both Muslim and Christian authors of the period. Then he throws in some archaeological evidence for good measure.
Here are the three things that stuck out to me the most:
1. It was way better to be a woman under Christian rulers than Muslim rulers. Under Muslim rulers, free born women were habitually subjected to female genital mutilation. They were also not educated, not allowed to work (even within their own households) if rich, and not allowed to go out without being completely covered and accompanied by a male relative. If they did go out, their word was not accepted in court and they were generally ignored. Thousands of European women were taken as sexual slaves. These slaves could be educated in dancing, astronomy, poetry, and singing; but the sole purpose of their education was to make them more sexually attractive. It worked because recent genetic tests show both that there is very little Arab or North African genetic heritage in modern Spain and that most of the “Arab” rulers of Medieval Spain were genetically European even though they could trace their paternal line back to Arabia. So, yes, there were educated women and women allowed to go out, but they were sexual slaves and their education was intended for the benefit of their owners not themselves.
In Christian lands, on the other hand, women could and did go out and do stuff. They could own land, run their own farms and businesses. In court, the word of a trustworthy women was preferred to a questionable man’s. While there were no women rulers of Islamic Spain, Christian Spain regularly had female rulers. These Christian, female rulers appeared both before and after the Muslim invasion. Discussion around these women rulers primarily focused on their policies, not on the ruling capacities of women. Fernandez-Morera noted that when Queen Isabella (the one who drove the last Muslim ruler out of Spain and sent Columbus on his trip) ascended the throne of Castile, her primary rival was another woman. Christian queens of Spain regularly ruled with their husbands rather than being relegated to a harem. All to say, it was much better to be a woman in Christian Spain than Muslim Spain.
2. What qualifies as tolerance? In the movie Jodhaa Akbar, the Muslim ruler Jalaludin becomes the beloved ruler of the Hindus because he decides to abolish the “Pilgrim Tax” and allow the Hindus to worship freely. Before he can do that, Jalaludin has to give a strong sermon of toleration to his Muslim followers who don’t believe the tax should be waved. The main thrust of his speech was that you shouldn’t tax worship of God because that is intolerant and thus immoral (this movie reference has a point, I promise). Christians in Muslim ruled Spain also had to pay a religious tax. This tax was specifically designed to humiliate them and remind them of their subservience to their Muslim rulers (Muslims could come and pull their beard, spit on them, and generally abuse them while they were paying this tax). Furthermore, Christians could not mark the outside of their churches with any sort of religious sign, nor could they build new churches or repair old ones without specific permission. So rarely was this permission granted that now in southern Spain there are no churches that were built before the Reconquest. Christians either fled to the north or were eventually forced by the Muslim rulers to convert. So, by Jalaludin’s criteria (admittedly, he is a fictionalization of a historic person, but the character’s point stands), Islamic Spain was not a tolerant place towards Christians
3. Muslim ruled in various sections of Spain for centuries (here is a short video showing a map of those shifting kingdoms). In practice, there were more tolerant times and places and less tolerant times and places. But, the times and places in Muslim Spain where Christians and Jews had the most influence were the times and places where the Muslim rulers were weakest and infighting. Moreover, even then, the laws still were intolerant even if they were not enforced. This is not to claim that Christian kingdoms were particularly tolerant. They weren’t. And there were times, as described in the epic Poem of the Cid (dating to the twelfth century) where Christians and Muslims had friendly relationships even while they fought with other Christians and Muslims. Nevertheless, the point stands that it is false to claim that Al-Andalus, Medieval Spain when ruled by the Muslims, was a paradise of toleration and mutual respect because it wasn’t.
Now my friends, if you want to read a book by an irritated, irascible, thorough historian, this is the book for you. He does a very good job pointing out the common flaws of much of the current scholarship of Medieval Spain. I learned a lot from this book, and as I stand, scrambling eggs in the morning, I contemplate how grateful I am to not be living under Muslim rule in Medieval Spain…besides the fact that they were dealing with a more deadly plague.
Pax!
DS
