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. 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 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)
This squalid society was
organized under a feudal 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[1] 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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