I took this photo on January 3rd, in the train station in Granada, the day after the entire town celebrated the anniversary of the Reconquista in 1492. [It’s the one day of the year that anybody can ring the bells in the fortress portion of the Alhambra.] Needless to say, I was highly amused. It’s like the song “Do they know it’s Christmas” which was, at the time, the UKs best selling single ever. It assumes that a Sadhu and a Muslim Tuareg celebrate Christmas just because people in the west do. It’s Christmas-centrism!
I meant because I showed up in Granada, where they were celebrating the reconquista and I had to decide how I felt about it.
the key is felt. i will end it with you in this way: the attitudes that enlightened westerners began to exhibit toward muslim spain starting the 18th century and continuing into our own time says more about the nature of european civilization before the modern era, than it does about muslim spain! the only reason that i protest is that muslims themselves have taken up the banner and an ahistorical narrative promoted by european secularists to attack christendom is now taken as historical fact.
Muslim Spain was probably one of the most tolerant pluralistic civilizations of its time – so to use the term “fabled tolerance” is disingenous.
no. it wasn’t. only if you exclude the whole eastern half of eurasia, where religious disagreement did not make you a non-citizen. something to keep in mind when reading a blog where many individuals are of non-abrahamic provenance is that there is civilization outside of western eurasia 🙂
So for example the dhimmi in Muslim Spain, were in essence protected peoples, because the moral norm at the time was to slaughter, convert, or enslave, after a conquest, anyone who was not of your religion or your tribe.
this was the norm only among extremely civilized peoples. i am skeptical than even the pagan arabs engaged in this, since many were town dwellers and what not. the muslim conceptions of the jahilya are i suspect in large part propoganda to justify their dispensation (the arabs had civilized polities long before islam). conquered peoples were normally taxable base. it is true they could be slaughtered or enslaved, but on the scale of empires genocide was normally costly and so not engaged in (rather, local elites were co-opted, and this did happen in what was visigothic spain). the christians did not “slaughter, convert, or enslave, after a conquest” after all, at the time of the reconquista an enormous population of muslims lived under christian monarchs. after 1492 these became the moriscos. they were not expelled until 1600, and this in large part motivated by moriscos who converted to christianity and wished to sever all associations with crypto-muslims who cast their own citizenship under a pall.
p.s. if you want a state which exhibited exemplary toleration of religion during the period of the reconquista, i suggest you look to the duchy of lithuania between 1200-1400, where eastern orthodox and catholic christians were ruled by a pagan ruling caste, and muslim and jewish bureaucrats worked in the capital.
this was the norm only among extremely civilized peoples
remove “only.” sloppy re-edit.
Great photo, Ennis. Translated, Kapurthala-stylee:
Sadhu: My wish: good karma for the whole world Bedouin: My wish: that beliefs don’t become a reason for war
More Moorish Spain on SM: one, two, three