VMI now set to celebrate the muslim conquest of Spain, page 2

Originally posted by nenothtu
"The Al Andaluz"? That's like saying "the the Adalusia" I guess Arabic isn't your first language.

You're right. Stopped clock and all.

Navigation: several previous civilizations that had oceangoing capabilities would be interested in hearing your asessment, I think.

Depends on how you define "oceangoing." Most travel in the Mediterranean and North Sea hugged the coastlines, with small open-water hops between known islands. The Moors were no different in this. However, the knowledge of Astronomy and mathematics that they brought to both spain and Iraly is what allowed Spain, Portugal, and Venice to become such powerful trade empires.

Libraries: the most famous, at Alexandria, seriously predates Islam period, much less Andalusia, and was DESTROYED by the conquering muslims. I hardly consider libraries to be an Andalusian innovation.

Actually it was destroyed several hundred years before the Arab conquest of Egypt; It caught fire in 48 BCE when Gaius Caesar conquered Alexandria; It was pillaged by Emperor Aurelian in CE 274, most of its contents taken to Constantinople; and then finally it was sacked and burned due to the decree of emperor Theodosius in 391 wheich made all Paganism illegal and punishable by death. when the Arabs rolled in in 642, there really was no "Library of Alexandria" anymore. Accounts of Muslims torching the place are all at least 500 years AFTER this conquest, and have largely been dismissed as propaganda.

Art: also predates Andalusia in southern Europe, and of higher quality, too. Of course, quality of art can be considered to be in the eye of the beholder, eh?

Yeah, the two styles of art can't even be compared with any meaningful scale. They're just radically different.

Civilization: You're attributing this to the Moors? HOW?

Compared to the Visigoths? Yeah. I mean hey the Visigoths had their own thing going on, but it's still like comparing Imperial Rome to the Picts.

Tolerance: yeah, as long as the one tolerated was a muslim. The rest of the population either entered dhimmitude, or died. Dhimmitude carried some ridiculously odd restrictions of it's own, designed to keep the dhimmis in their proper place.

In the rest of Europe, you were either Catholic, or you were dead. Do you think a European Jew would rather pay taxes and wear a pointy hat in Andalus, or have his wife and daughters raped before being beaten to death while he's tortured and burned at the stake in France?

Medical, fashion, invention, commerce, music, poetry, and so on: NONE of these were introduced or improved by the Moors. Frankly, I have to wonder where an odd notion like that comes from.

Visigothic medicine was pretty lackluster. if leeches didn't fix it, then maybe you'd get a priest to come in and try to slap the demons out of you. Lice were a sign of piety, and typhus a sign of god's displeasure (go figure). Yes, the Moors introduced advanced medicine to the Iberian peninsula.

Fashion... who cares.

Invention... well, yeah, the rest of Europe was living in a decaying and static theocracy. Innovation was ungodly. The Umayyads weren't exactly cranking out new technology at a rapid pace, but they were doing better than the rest of Europe at the time.

Commerce actually came from the other end of the Islamic empire, introduced to Europe by Crusaders who brought back such skills as double-entry bookeeping, Arabic numerals, and the Hindu invention of zero.

Music is one of those things that is more of a blend than any one people. But next time you enjoy your favorite band's screaming guitar solo, remember that if it weren't for the Moors, the guitar would have stayed stuck in Egypt for another thousand years.

Poetry... Europe has its own poetic traditions. However, Romantic poetry was introduced from Muslim lands; stangely enough, Islam was more permissive of such concepts than the Christianity of the time.

The Reconquista of Al Andalus is what should be celebrated and remembered, serving as an example of the triumph of freedom over the servitude of foreign conquest.

You know, after more than seven hundred years of Umayyad rule in Iberia, i'm not sure it could be called an "occupation." Really, that's something that just gets glosssed over a lot; Andalus was there for the greater part of a thousand years. It wasn't like one day the moors ride in,and a year later the Catalans take it back. the Umayyad caliphate in Andalus existed for three times longer than the United States has.

Speaking of the US; I suppose you celebrate the attempts by the unconquered peoples of the mexican highlands and deserts to reclaim the lands stolen from their northern cousins? You'd shed no tears if every last white corpse-worshipper were either gunned down in the streets or thrown into the Atlantic, right? I mean, you're so happy that the Castillians swarmed through a 700 year-old state, raping, murdering, and pillaging as they went as a "triumph of freedom," so I just want to know what your stance on the modern version of this would be. I'm assuming your pleasure at rape, murder, and ethnic cleansing is universal and not restricted topjust when it's applied to Muslims and Jews, right?

To the folks praising the Andalusian invention of alcohol: This is one of my all time favorites! The name alcohol is Arabic, the substance is not. It was around LONG before Islam, in diverse places, and the fact that what we call it now is Arabic serves me no end of amusement, since intoxicants are forbidden by Islam. How ironic it is that the most common name we give it now was bestowed by a people villifying it!

The Arabic term it's derived from actually has nothing to do with alcohol, but is rather a term for a fine powder. The term was applied to the substances we now class as "alcohols" as a product of alchemical experiements; It was assumed that the intoxicating humors of wine was actually due to a light powder dissolved in the drink itself.