Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! 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. Moors, 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 knee-deep 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) http://www.xmission.com/~dderhak/index/moors.htm
Yea, then that crazy inquisition thing happened. (joking) Don't worry Proud Muslim, Spain managed to get rid of their Jewish population as well. So basically they "got rid of" everyone that could write, read, count past 20, and religiously believed in taking out the trash. Great move on their part. Anyways back on topic, the Irish managed to save some pre-medievel stuff as well. Check out "How The Irish Saved Civilization"
From your link... That's a shame. We do owe a great debt to those moors for their intellectual achievements, and for being responsible for the preservation of greek and roman writings, and arab commentary.
What nonsense. By the time the moors were thrown out of spain, spain was an immense power in europe. Also a lack of man power and a lack of a safe sea precipitated their decline. Combine all that with religious and racial spite and assistance from the french, etc. Fuck it. another time maybe
You know, I am Syrian with Spanish Muslim heritgae, when people see me in Europe, they think I am either Spanish or IRISH !!!! I always thought there must have been some connection between Ireland and Muslim Spain, I dont know where I heard it, but some Muslim Spanish coins were discovered in Ireland and many Irish traders and scholars lived in Muslim Spain. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Even ORFA, the English king, struck his coin with the Muslim declaration of faith: LA ILAH ILA ALLAH, MUHAMMAD RASOULU ALLAH ( no God but Allah, Muhammad is his messenger ) It is amazing how these people lived at that time....sometimes, i wish time will go back just for a while to live with them for couple of days to see how life really was at that early cold time in our history.
This is not accurate, Spain gained its immense power after they started stealing the GOLD from latin America after 1492 AD ( the year the last Muslim city of Granada fell to the catholics ).
Amazing! I enjoy learning about ancient times and Moorish Spain is one of the more beautiful places I have read about. We owe much our western wisdom to the Muslims who preserved it. Thank you for putting this here.
King orfa? You got a link for that? Of course, you dont mention that the Moors invaded spain in order to take it over and then build their civilisation. Hey, give Israel a couple hundred years, maybe theyll build a great, humanistic civilisation in the middle east.
Isn't Israel the only democracy in the Middle East? In spite of the nation's evil, that's something they have going for them. And the Moors were better rulers than the Christians were. I would have rather lived under the former for a variety of reasons--most notably in religious terms, the Tolerance Tax, as opposed to burning at the stake, for being of a different Abrahamic Religion. All the really nice Spanish Architecture is in the southern regions too, so nice in fact that the Christians didn't destroy [most of] them when they finally had them within their grasp.
I must give the Muslim/Arabs credit where it is due. Recently the English TV presenter Kilroy caused controversy by asking "What have the Arabs ever given us?". Um, how about writing, numbers and astronomy... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Which one I would ratehr live under would depend when we're talking about. At different times, various parts of the Muslim worls and the christian european world were progressive in the sense we would recognise today. In the 13th/ 14th centuries, after teh transmission and diffusion of the greek phislophers works etc, western europe was quite a good place (unlesss you were a jew in the wrong place at the wrong time.) And concommitantly, there were times when it was a bad idea to be in North Africa or indeed Turkey, eg when the ottoman empire was around.
"Which one I would ratehr live under would depend when we're talking about." True, but I think things really started to go to hell when the British procured the Middle East at the end of WW1. Up until the Mongol's sacked it, I would have picked Baghdad as my preferred place of residence. And I believe that event happened in the mid fourteenth century, correct me if I'm wrong. After that my knowledge is a bit vague, I don't really know where I'd rather live because it seemed like everywhere really sucked. I'd probably pick an isolated farm somewhere in Castile or Leon, maybe Valencia. What can I say--I like Spain's climate. Looks comfy. I'd stay the hell away from the cities, though.
Western Europe does owe it's secular humanist renaissance to the preservation of Greek documents by the Arabs. Western culture owes a lot to the Arabs and visa versa.
Your welcome, I just came back from there, it is was breath-taking, As an Arab and Muslim, I came back to Al Andalus ( Spain ) after 511 years absence, it was very moving, I will never forget this moment when my eyes first saw Al Hambra palace....I cried....it was as if someone pulled me 5 centuries back into history...it was so touching.