|
Originally Posted by The dialogue that never was
An especially popular myth is that of the tolerant and peaceful caliphate in Cordoba, which often is referred to as an evidence of how cultivated and tolerant Islam is towards other cultures. That is complete nonsense, unfortunately. It is true that Christian and Jews were living in Cordoba, and that the very first Caliphs of Cordoba were a bit more tolerant than many other Islamic rulers. It also is true that in that epoch major scriptures from the heritage of ancient Greek culture as well as Christian scriptures, that both later influenced and facilitated the renaissance and the enlightenment, were translated and stored in archives without which they probably would have been lost. It also is true that sciences saw a blossoming during the time of the Cordoba Caliphate, and that a huge diversity of Islamic philosophers went there and formed new ways of thinking and theological dispute.
But if anyone would take from that that Cordoba was a heaven-like coexistence of two cultures, he couldn’t be more wrong.
Because the Christians and Jews lived by rule of the Islamic ahl al-dhimma, which was a system not of tolerance and protection, but of brutal suppression, discrimination, racism, financial plundering and intimidation, they were subject to excessive penalty taxes, that were the main basis for the material wealth of the Caliphate at that time. It were also the Christians and Jews that initiated the translation and conservation of old Greek and Christian texts, which was tolerated by the Muslim rulers only because occasionally they could make opportunistic use of their content for Islamic purposes. But they neither assimilated these pieces of knowledge in to their culture, nor did they develop a liberal attitude in their acting and ruling of Cordoba, or Islam in general. They were using a tool, nothing more. Like always, Islam only exploited the resources available in newly conquered territories, but it did not assimilate these into it’s own culture, never – one of the most typical characteristics of Islam (that hardly can be understood and interpreted as a sign of tolerance and liberal tradition with regard to foreign cultures). Muslim sciences blossomed indeed in Cordoba, but their range were extremely limited, as it always was and still is in Islam. In Islam only sciences are allowed that are not able to question the only accepted source of explanations, that is the Quran. Questioning the Quran, wanting to gain answers to existential question from other sources than Quran, is under penalty in Islam. Sciences that are aiming at insights that could become rivals to the Quran’s demand to be the only source of wisdom and insight, were not and still are not allowed. Sciences that have a chance to produce alternative explanations and different theories than what the scriptures have to say are considered to be sinful, and forbidden. No wonder then, that sciences like mathematics and surgery saw a cultural climax that made them superior to the scientific knowledge within Europe at that time, whereas natural sciences, philosophy and such were suppressed and eradicated, until today. Most of those Islamic philosophers and theologians the defenders of the Cordoba-thesis are so eager to refer to, when telling people how wonderful Islam was for Europe during that age, are ignoring the simple fact, that most of these agile minds and rebels found an early end either in prison cells, or in graves. The blossoming of Cordoba wouldn’t have been possible without the knowledge and intelligence of the suppressed Jews and Christians, and the immense income they generated by their penalty taxes. Muslims took the benfit from this blossoming of culture, but they added little or nothing to it, and especially they did not initiate it. And although during a certain period of time the usual progroms and violence against Christians and Jews in general saw a relative low during the early period of Cordoba, they nevertheless were treated with disgust and were sometimes hunted and slaughtered nevertheless. A practice that erupted into far higher violence once the Almohades took over the ruling of the Islamic sphere. They erected a most violent and brutal regime all over the Muslim world.
Seen in this light, Hammas’ recent call for restoring the paradise-like order of Cordoba and reconquer it for Islam is not only absurd, but such a ridiculous perversion of history that one can only bitterly laugh about the lies this demand comprises. The massive exploitation of Christian and Jewish culture in that place may have been of fun and of use for Islam – for the Christians and Jews who lived there when Islam attacked their country, it was a dramatic tragedy and an age of suppression, regular massmurder and sometimes slavery-like conditions. We have no reason to enthuse about the magic and wonder of the age of Cordoba. It was Islamic aggressive conquest, suppression and exploitation, nothing else.
|