Mythologising the “Christian” West — Book Review: ‘The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise’

This review is probably about 15 years late, but I’ll do it anyway.

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (2006) by Dario Fernandez-Morera, was quite popular in the skeptic and atheist network some years ago. It was the one book to cite on comment forums if the topic of Muslim Spain ever came up. It was seen as a serious debunking of the notion that medieval Spain under Islamic rule was a ‘golden age of peace and tolerance’.

I had bought the audiobook but soon gave up on it, finding it ill-tempered and somehow unbalanced. Recently I returned to it, this time with a bit more background knowledge of the period in question. My initial impression was more than confirmed. I find the book dreadfully skewed, often factually wrong, and profoundly limited in its perspective. It is better seen as a crass and often laughable piece of propaganda. The author is not concerned with the actual history at all, rather with promoting a particular view of “the West”, and defending the Catholic Church as a historical institution. He also fails to debunk a strawman he himself set up.

As the background is not well known, I’ve tried to write this review as a kind of introduction to the history and the issues surrounding it.

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Some Background

Is “the West” also inevitably “the Christian West”?

The fact that a part of western Europe was under Islamic rule for about 800 years (roughly from 711 to 1492) is easily overlooked. It’s not taught much in western schools, though most will have heard of the Inquisition and the reconquest. The mass expulsions of Muslims, Jews and even unwanted Christians, and the systematic attempts to obliterate all trace of the Muslim (and Jewish) presence in Spain, is seldom acknowledged. If it is, it’s usually only as background to the triumphs of the reconquest.

Occasionally, more sympathetic coverage attempts to redress this oversight. Unfortunately these often display a tendency to romanticise the Islamic period as exotic rather than as a distinctive European culture. It still fails to be seen as an integral part of European history. “The Moors”, as they are often pointlessly labeled, are presented as if they belonged to a single monolithic entity, which suddenly invaded, stayed a while, were very exotic, and then got conquered and disappeared.

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The Controversy

What moved Dario Fernandez-Morera to write The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise was his perception that Spain’s Muslim history has come to be wrongly presented as a golden age of peace and tolerance.

The main culprit, according to Fernandez-Morera, is a book published in 2002: Maria Rosa Menocal’s Ornament of the World. This bestselling book is a celebration of the culture that arose under Islamic rule, (in particular the Umayyad period from the 8th to the 11th centuries).

Fernandez-Morera claims this book unleashed a tsunami of political correctness that swamped both academia and public discourse. Now no one dares to question this idyllic view of Muslim Spain for fear of being called a bigot. No one that is, except Fernandez-Morera, the lone outspoken dissenter.

Nearly 20 years later Fernandez-Morera’s fans can still be encountered on comment forums reflexively stating that “there was no Andalusian golden age!!!”, at the mere mention of Muslim rule in Spain — regardless of whether or not anyone had implied there had been.

Fernandez-Morera implies that Menocal credits the Umayyad rulers (and in effect the religion of Islam itself) with creating a peaceful and tolerant society more or less from the top down. He thinks therefore, that recounting violent actions and repression of Christians by Umayyad rulers counts as a rebuttal. But this portrayal of Menocal’s book is quite inaccurate. The hint is in her subtitle: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Menocal’s focus is largely on the culture that emerged slowly over several centuries through everyday contact among its diverse and often conflicting groups. The book is not without faults, but it vividly portrays the interactions amongst a diverse and politically volatile mix of people in Umayyad society.

Fernandez-Morera seems greatly concerned that its readers might draw an unrealistically positive impression of Islam from Menocal’s book. He starts off by criticising the writer of the Foreword, Harold Bloom, for asserting that Muslim rule in Andalusia offers a model for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. This of course is clearly a stupid idea and Bloom should be roundly criticised for it — if he had in fact said it. Which he didn’t. I don’t know where Fernandez-Morera got the idea that he did.

Bloom does however say that Menocal’s book “may to some degree present an idealization”, and faults her for blaming a pogrom in Granada “entirely on fundamentalist Berbers”. Bloom finds this “not entirely convincing”.

It is worth noting that Fernandez-Morera repeatedly claims that no one dares challenge Menocal’s narrative, yet that’s a direct challenge right there in the Foreword of her own book. Menocal herself was quite happy for her readers to encounter such criticism before they have even read a word she wrote. (Fernandez-Morera, incidentally, didn’t voice any opinion at all about the Granada pogrom, because he didn’t mention it — or any other persecution of Jews whatsoever. More on that later.)

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The Whole of Western Civilisation Rescued

Anyone, according to Fernandez-Morera, who thinks that something valuable was destroyed with the reconquest, should consider the alternative! Everything we hold dear in the West would never have even existed at all, had the Muslim armies prevailed at the Battle of Tours in 732.

Historians differ considerably in their estimation of the importance of this battle. Some agree it prevented the Muslim take over of Europe, others argue that the supply lines of the Muslim armies were already overstretched, and that there was no plan or desire by Muslim leaders to keep rolling through Europe anyway. But Fernandez-Morera sees no controversy. He knows exactly what would have happened. Civilisation itself would have been prevented from arising.

Such ahistorical scaremongering is ridiculous on many counts, but I’ll focus one of them. His long list of the unique joys of Western civilisation concludes with the assertion that had the Muslims won at Tours, there would have been no music —

“…no rock & roll, no jazz.”

But the Umayyads — whose armies were doing the fighting — never banned music. Music was so much a part of Muslim society under the Umayyads that a Christian priest visiting Malaga in the early 1000s is on record complaining bitterly about the rowdy music coming from his Muslim neighbours all night.

Moreover, the guitar is itself largely derived from the Arabian oud — which was itself introduced for the first time into Europe around 790, when a celebrated Arab musician, Ziryab, brought it to al-Andalus. It was highly popular in the Umayyad courts. One could just as easily say that without the oud, there would have been no electric guitar, and therefore no rock & roll and no jazz either. And incidentally, Ziryab, also introduced the first deodorants. Without him, Europe today would be engulfed in a fog of body odour.

Fernandez-Morera’s ignorance is telling here. For him, Muslim = anti-music. But Andalusi classical music originating from that time is still well known.

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The “thoroughly Romanized” Visigoths

Each time Fernandez-Morera mentions those who inhabited the Iberian peninsula prior the Muslim invasion, he refers only to the Visigoths. He doesn’t say where they came from or how they got there. In fact, they more or less invaded and settled there, along with half a dozen other invader/settler groups. It was the Visigoths though who gained dominance and established a kingdom in the late 5th century. He treats them, however, as if they were the only group, and were the rightful owners in perpetuity.

And he only gives one single piece of information about them. A single adjective, which he repeats and repeats and repeats, like a political slogan, every single time he mentions the Visigoths. They were “thoroughly Romanized”.

What he means by this is that they were Catholic.

The picture, it seems, that he wants to emerge is of a unified Catholic kingdom that got overrun by Muslims, but which ultimately managed to reclaim its stolen territory in the reconquest.

The “thoroughly Romanized” Visigoths were indeed Catholic — officially. Their king converted to Catholicism in 580, and ordered the entire kingdom to covert too. Until then the Visigoths had been mostly Arian Christians (rejecting the divinity of Christ). Rebellions by Arians were brutally put down. Anyone who did not become “thoroughly Romanized” during the intervening hundred years or so before the Muslim invasion is simply excluded from Fernandez-Morera’s narrative.

This odd and repeated insistence on “thorough Romanization” is necessary because it’s the Visigoths who put the “re” in reconquest. Their catholicism establishes the continuity between Spain’s pre- and post-Islamic periods. There was certainly historical continuity between the Visigothic period and the reconquest, but an awful lot of history must be excluded to construct such a simplistic narrative as Fernandez-Morera does. Muslims on the other hand are thereby equated merely with foreign invading armies, rather than generation upon generation of citizens of their own country.

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Cultural Cannibalism

This double standard gets worse. Having simply declared that the entire population who lived under the Visigoths had suddenly become “thoroughly Romanized”, Fernandez-Morera openly accuses the Muslims of failing to develop any unique native culture themselves — over eight centuries.

Instead, they merely “cannibalized” elements of Roman, Greek, and Visigoth culture. Again, he repeats the term “cannibalization” over and over again for any case at all where cultural influences or borrowings by Muslims are mentioned. The Visigoths of course didn’t cannibalize Roman culture, nor did the Romans cannibalize Christianity. But when Muslims do it, it’s cannibalization.

His favourite example of cannibalization is the Great Mosque of Cordoba, built in 785. He says it was built on the ruins of a Visigothic church, which it probably wasn’t.

It probably was, however, indeed built on the ruins of some kind of Christian building. And while this building was indeed demolished by the emir who built the mosque, that emir also bought the building from the Christians and paid them for it before demolishing it. Fernandez-Morera is too busy repeating the word “cannibalize” to acknowledge this fact.

The mosque is still standing, and is one of the most extraordinary buildings in Europe.

After the Christians conquered Cordoba, it was used as a church, with only minor alterations. But in 1523 Charles V agreed to allow the center of it to be demolished and a cathedral inserted into the middle of it. When Charles finally saw the building for the first time, he was reportedly horrified. “You have destroyed something unique to build something common place”, he supposedly said. Apocryphal or not, the judgement is indisputable.

I recall my first visit — walking through the prayer hall utterly gobsmacked and humbled, and then stumbling onto the cathedral jarringly stuck in there. I had to choke back tears. And still do on each yearly visit.

Fernandez-Morera otherwise never mentions any case of Christians destroying Muslim buildings, but he makes an exception here. This act of destruction was not “cannibalization”. Instead he gleefully calls it “poetic justice”.

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According to him, the Muslims who built the Mosque “cannibalized” the Greek-style marble columns (which the Visigoths of course hadn’t cannibalized from the Greeks — in fact Fernandez-Morera baptises the Visigoths “Greco-Roman” in this instance). And the Muslims “cannibalized” the Roman use of double arches. Worst of all, they “cannibalized” the distinctive Visigothic horse-shoe arch. Fernandez-Morera accuses Menocal and her ilk of covering up this “cannibalization” of the precious Visigothic horse-shoe arch and presenting it to the world as Islamic.

He is very excited about this Visigothic horse-shoe arch. He thinks he’s discovered a major cover up and won’t shut up about it. He even seems to think he discovered the Visigothic origin of the horse-shoe arch himself.

He is right that Menocal doesn’t mention his beloved horse-shoe arch — in her book on social history. But she does mention it in another book she wrote on Islamic, Christian and Jewish architecture in Spain. (It’s on page 18.) Tour guides in Cordoba routinely mention the Visigothic origin of the arch in passing. This random fellow on You Tube, (apparently a Muslim celebrating Muslim culture), mentions it in passing too, quite happily.

Not for the only time, Fernandez-Morera reveals how unfamiliar he is with the subject matter.

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Academics Who Stand with Fernandez-Morera (according to Fernandez-Morera)

Fernandez-Morera objects to scholars using the term ‘Iberian Peninsula’, which he sees as an attempt to cover up the inherently Christian nature of Hispania, as the Roman colonisers called it (before they were Christian, incidentally, but what the hey).

He also objects to scholars using CE to refer to historical dates instead of AD. He sees this as a deliberate denial of Jesus Christ. Worse still, he says, are scholars who use the Muslim calendar (AH) to refer to historical events — not only denying Jesus, but referencing Muhammed. He seems unaware that nearly all of the documents from that period were written in Arabic and use the Muslim calendar. Scholars are simply making cross-referencing easier and usually provide both CE and AH dates. It’s not an irruption of fanatical Islam into academia as he thinks it is.

Equally bizarre is at least one entry on his list of ‘brave historians’ who stand with him in not buying into the wave of pro-Muslim political correctness which he thinks is engulfing academia. I confess I haven’t read especially widely on this period, but I did recognise one of the names, Maribel Fierro, whose work I have read closely.

Her inclusion on his list reveals how little research Fernandez-Morera did for his book. Fierro’s special field is not the Umayyads (the main subject of Menocal’s book), but rather the Almohads. This fanatical and militaristic movement came to power more than 100 years after the Umayyads fell, and 200 after their cultural high point.

The Almohads were so fanatical that they even tried to forcibly convert other Muslims to their sect. They banned Islamic theology, and declared their predecessors, the equally fanatical and militaristic Almoravids, to be even greater enemies than Christians. No one, not even their greatest fans, have ever called their reign a golden age of tolerance!

Yet Fernandez-Morera thinks that Fierro’s steadfast scholarly account of the Almohad revolution debunks myths about the Umayyads.

Conflating the Umayyads with the Almohads is like conflating the Ottoman Empire with ISIS. This is the same guy who wanted to shrink the Muslim presence in Spain from eight centuries down to less than five. Yet here he doesn’t even realise he’s stretching the Umayyad rule by an extra century or two.

Furthermore, Fierro has commented on Christian perceptions of the Almohads. She says that although Christian (and western) philosophers acknowledge that the great philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) was an Muslim, they rarely admit that he was also a high ranking member of the Almohad elite.

Fernandez-Morera could have admitted that the Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, “cannibalized” Averroes’ great commentaries on Aristotle, which he kept open on his desk while writing the Summa Theologica. Instead, he says nothing about it. He could also have noted that the first translations of the Greeks from Arabic into Latin were carried out in Christian Toledo, by Jews and Christians who had been expelled by the Almohads. He chooses, however, to avoid the subject of expulsions altogether for some reason.

He does mention the transmission of Greek philosophy to Western Europe via Arabic translations, but only to say that this transmission was superfluous. The West later got hold of the Greek originals anyway, so the debt is expunged, he argues.

Maribel Fierro, incidentally, also once commented that she found the hype around the Andalusian convivencia a bit exaggerated. She suggested that Syria during the great Islamic translation movement would be a better example of such living together of inter-religious harmony. Not really the kind of knock-down Fernandez-Morera would hope for.

(And, of course, she also uses both CE and AH, like all her colleagues.)

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The Oppression of Christians — by other Christians

Fernandez-Morera goes to great lengths to recount the oppression of Christians at the hands of Muslims. But he never acknowledges the oppression of Christians in Spain by numerous Popes and Christian leaders. Of course, that’s not the subject of his book, but he should have noted it at least in passing, given the amount of time he devoted to oppression by Muslims.

The Visigoths had, as already noted, long been Arians before their forced conversion. After the Umayyad invasion in 711, Christians were allowed to continue practicing their religion — Arian or Catholic. Christian soldiers, when fighting alongside Muslims in Umayyad armies, were allowed to practice their faith, even while on campaigns (usually, it should be noted, against neighbouring Christian lands).

The unique Visigothic liturgy survived for centuries under Muslim rule, but was declared heretical by the Catholic Church and ruthlessly suppressed.

The same thing happened to the theology of Adoptionism, the view that Jesus was not literally the son of God but rather the adopted son. No doubt this doctrine had its origins in Arianism, but close contact with Muslims is also likely to have played a role in inserting a bit of common sense into the bizarre theology enforced by the popes. Unsurprisingly Adoptionism was not smiled upon in Rome and was quickly snuffed out.

One case where Fernandez-Morera correctly identifies bad behaviour by Muslim leaders is the case of the Christian rebel Ibn Hafsun. After his death his corpse was disinterred by the Umayyads and mutilated, and crucified outside the gates of Cordoba. Fernandez-Morera mentions this grotesque treatment at least three times. What he doesn’t say though is what made the Umayyads so angry. He implies that it was merely because Ibn Hafsun converted to Christianity and “rebelled”. In fact, it was because he had raised a large army and fought a highly damaging war against the Umayyads over several decades.

A few centuries later during the post-Reconquest expulsions, new converts like Ibn Hafsun were deemed by the Catholic rulers to be of impure blood and expelled. Fernandez-Morera doesn’t acknowledge this, nor does he breathe a word about the expulsions. Yet he repeatedly takes the time to talk about Ibn Hafsun’s mutilated corpse.

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The Jews (of course)

By some astonishing coincidence, each time Jews appear in Fernandez-Morera’s narrative, it is as collaborators with the Muslims.

To be fair, the Jews do seem to have supported the invading Muslims in 711, exactly as Fernandez-Morera says. What he doesn’t say though is why they did. The Jews had lived happily enough under the Arian Visigoths. But when the king suddenly converted to Catholicism, the severe persecution and oppression of Jews began. It need be no surprise that the invading Muslims were greeted as liberators, because for Jews (and for the other non-Catholic groups) they were indeed liberators.

It is also worth noting that absolutely any “thoroughly Romanized” Christian group might also be rather keen to blame the death of Jesus on “the Jews”, rather than on those who did in fact execute him — namely the Romans.

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Concluding Thoughts

Fernandez-Morera conflates the Umayyads with the Almohads, whom he more or less conflates with the Taliban, whom he then conflates with the entire Muslim world. He presents all Christians historically in the Iberian Peninsula as Catholic. He presents any appreciation at all of the society under the Umayyads as a capitulation to radical Islam. And he completely excludes from his narrative one of the most heinous crimes of the last 500 years in history, namely the expulsion of Muslims, Jews and unwanted Christians from Spain.

As for Maria Rosa Menocal’s book, I found it at times fawning and oddly partisan in some historical controversies (like who the “rightful” caliph might be, for example). She does seem a little too keen for some kind of vague lesson about religious tolerance to be learned from the example of al-Andalus. But that’s not the main purpose of her book, nor the most important and valuable thing to be drawn from it. To quote from a review by Christopher Hitchens:

“It is no exaggeration to say that what we presumptuously call ‘Western’ culture is owed in large measure to the Andalusian enlightenment… The book partly restores to us a world we have lost.”

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The Emperor’s New Corpse: an odd tale of political intrigue from Medieval Spain

This is intended to be a fairly lighthearted blogpost about a sequence of historical events that vividly illustrate the stupidity of greed, the weakness of power, and the unpredictable course of history. It takes place in Medieval Spain during Muslim rule, and involves Muslims, Christians and Jews. It is not, however, intended to surreptitiously make any kind of general point about any of these particular religious groups or cultures. It is only written for historical interest, and maybe a few laughs about human nature.

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At the beginning of the 11th century, the once resplendent and widely celebrated Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba suddenly descended into chaos. Chaos then turned into slapstick, with at one point, three caliphs, two of whom were fighting each other, and one who was pretending to be dead.

This is their story…..

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After flourishing for a couple of centuries in southern Spain, and even outclassing Baghdad as a cultural center, things started to go downhill for the caliphate in 976. The last of the great caliphs, Hakam II, died, having named his only son, Hisham II, as successor. Unfortunately Hisham was only ten years old at the time.

The child’s mother was a former Christian slave who had been an inmate in the caliphal harem. She had built up considerable political power for herself and formed an alliance with the caliph’s chief advisor, Ibn Abi Amir (later known as Almansor). When a conspiracy to usurp the throne and hand it over to a favoured Umayyad prince was discovered, Hisham’s mother turned to Almansor to prevent it. He did this by simply having the prince assassinated.

Almansor then took over the rulership himself, while he educated the young Hisham. Under Almansor’s tutelage, the young caliph learned nothing but utter submission to Almansor, and otherwise to do nothing and bother no one. As one subsequent chronicler noted, “none feared the slightest evil from him, nor expected the slightest benefit.”

Almansor, on the other hand, proved to be a successful and skillful leader. Everything went well for the next twenty years or so until 1002, when Almansor died. He had named one of his sons as his own successor in the role of chief advisor to the useless Caliph. Again, things ran fairly smoothly until 1008 when this son died, apparently poisoned by his own younger brother.

At this point things start to get interesting.

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This younger brother, known as Sanjul, lacked discretion and common sense. He disastrously overplayed his hand by convincing the ever pliant Hisham to name him as successor to the caliphal throne. He knew this was a dangerous move — Hisham of course belonged to the esteemed Umayyad lineage of the original caliphate in Damascus. Thus the centuries old Umayyad caliphate would simply be handed over to an undistinguished member of a rebellious Berber clan.

The Umayyad elites acted swiftly. They forced the weak-willed Hisham to abdicate, and the wannnabe-caliph was assassinated. His corpse was trampled by horses and then crucified, and his head was stuck on a spike outside the city gates. The disgraced Hisham was replaced with Muhammed II, (the son of the prince who 30 years earlier had been assassinated by Almansor).

Given the volatility of the situation and his poor political skills, the new caliph Muhammed began to feel uneasy in his new role. He was especially worried that people might start missing the useless but harmless Hisham.

Assassinating the former caliph would be risky, but fortune presented Muhammed with a safer, though highly unusual alternative. A man who closely resembled Hisham had just died. Muhammed acquired the corpse and displayed it to courtiers with the news that Hisham had sadly passed away.

No one believed him.

A solemn funeral was held and the corpse was interred in the caliphal tomb, (despite the fact that the deceased man was Jewish).

Still no one believed him.

Then things got even more complicated for Muhammed. His Berber enemies found another member of the Umayyad clan who was sympathetic to their cause, and simply declared that this person and not Muhammed was now the caliph.

So now there were two caliphs, plus one supposedly deceased ex-caliph who was probably hiding in a closet somewhere.

The neighbouring Christian states looked on with interest.

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This newest caliph, named Sulayman, gained the support of a Christian leader with a powerful army in Castile.

Sensing imminent defeat, Muhammed tried to cut his losses with another of his unconventional solutions. He publicly announced that Hisham II was in fact still alive after all, and therefore he, and not Sulayman, must be the rightful caliph.

The resurrected Hisham’s second stint as caliph didn’t last long. Sulayman summoned the Christian army from Castile, which attacked Cordoba. Hisham was forced to abdicate for a second time. Muhammed fled, while marauding Christians sacked the city.

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While on the run, Muhammed decided to try one of Sulayman’s tactics, and recruited Christian support. Two rivals of Sulayman’s Castilian allies, Count Borell I of Barcelona, and Count Armegnol of Urgel, were quite happy to try their hand at bringing down a ruling caliph. They also demanded the right to pillage Cordoba, as the Castilians had done. The desperate Muhammed promptly agreed. So attractive was this offer that numerous bishops and high ranking priests signed up for military service, as did even the finance minister of Barcelona. Even Count Armegnol himself joined in the fighting, but got himself killed before he could grab any loot.

The campaign was successful: Sulayman’s forces were defeated, and Muhammed was reinstated as caliph. And of course Cordoba was sacked by marauding Christians for a second time, at the invitation of a ruling caliph.

Muhammed’s second stint on the throne didn’t last long either. After two months he was assassinated, and the long-suffering and ever pliant Hisham became caliph again.

But ex-caliph Sulayman hadn’t given up that easily, and soon forced Hisham to abdicate yet again — his third abdication in as many years.

The caliphal revolving door continued in this manner, with six different caliphs in the next decade or so, until the Cordoban elites got so annoyed that they simply dissolved the caliphate. Muslim Spain devolved into a group of competing petty kingdoms.

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The unfortunate Hisham died in prison in 1030.

But surprisingly, that wasn’t the end of his career.

Despite his own death and the absence of a caliphate, in 1031, Hisham II became caliph again for a fourth time. Given Hisham’s previous record as a resurrectee, it was widely believed that he wasn’t dead this time either. Rumours of his survival circulated until the ruler of Seville, (Abu l-Kasim ibn Abbad), spotted an opportunity. He discovered that there was a poor labourer in the city who closely resembled the deceased caliph. Seville’s status and power would be greatly enhanced if it could be declared the center of a new caliphate. All that it needed was a plausible caliph. And all that this labourer had to do to gain his spectacular promotion was wear the caliphal clothes and show himself to be passive and clueless about matters of state. It was a spectacular success. Abu l-Kasim managed to outflank his enemies and impress his allies with Seville’s new-found status, until his death in 1042. (The fate of the second Hisham II is unknown.)

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Perhaps it’s worth noting a little of the subsequent history of al-Andalus, with a few more unexpected twists.

Increasing political fragmentation invited increasing attacks by neighbouring Christian states. Lacking the unity to organise an effective defense, the petty kings of al-Andalus recruited support from the newly arisen Almoravid regime in North Africa. This fanatical and militaristic clan swiftly drove back the Christian armies. While doing so, they also noticed that southern Spain is indeed quite nice, so they decided to stay on and claim it for themselves.

The Almoravids settled into their new home, but a few decades later they were themselves defeated by an even more fanatical and militaristic sect, the Almohads. These fellows were so convinced that they had the correct version of Islam that even the strictest theologians and legal scholars were persecuted for harbouring excessive diversity of opinion. However, while theology was barely tolerated, philosophy and reason were considered necessary tools for the personal quest for spiritual and worldly truth.

A golden age of philosophy ensued.

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