THE MYTH OF AL-ANDALUS
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Posted: 06 Mar 2013
Recently,in 2010,Stanley G. Paine,American expert on Spanish civilization and history,published a scholarly analysis of Spanish history.
His book was first in Spanish and then in 2011 published in English as “Spain:a Unique History”.
Chapter 2 of his book is “Spain and Islam:The Myth of Al-Andalus” and here I cite his conclusions textually so that nobody can say a paraphrase of mine does not represent him.The only modification of mine is that I enumerate some of his statements.
The chapter begins like this:
“During the twentieth century,Western multiculturalists began to imagine utopias of cultural and ethnic “diversity”,as they liked to put it,in which distinct cultures and civilizations would coexist harmoniously.This ideal became a prominent feature of cultural and educat
ional institutions in western Europe and,especially,North America.”
Then it states:
“1.It was difficult,not to say impossible,to find an historical precedent for such a utopia,since all known civilizations have insisted on the primacy of their own culture
2.But some commentators have thought to identify such a unique society in medieval Spain.
3.As early as the mid-nineteeth century,historians and writers evoked a mythical paradise in medieval Al-Andalus,which was declared to have achieved a culture of genuine tolerance,compared with which all the rest of Spanish history might be seen as a decline.”
Americo Castro“1.A century later Americo Castro gave this a new spin from his American exile,in the several successive versions of his magnum opus imagining a unique situation of what he termed “conviviencia”.
2.Most recently such an image of tolerance and cultural cross-fertilization has been eloquently evoked in a work by the Harvard literature professor Maria Rosa Menocal,”The Ornament of the World”(2002)(1).The title is taken from a comment by an eleventh-century German nun,and the product is a sort of novel,written with considerable charm,consisting of a series of pen portraits of leading cultural personalities.In this idyll,Christians and Muslims quarrel more among themselves than they do with each other,while cooperating with Jews in creating a unique multicultural paradise.”
(1)M.R.Menocal,”The Ornament of the World:How Musims,Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain”(Boston,2002)
Who was Americo Castro(1885–1972)?
He was a Spanish intellectual who challenged some of the prevailing notions of Spanish identity.In 1948,in his book “Espana en su historia:cristianos,moros y judios/Spain in its history:Christians,Moors and Jews” he created the term “conviviencia”.That word already existed in Spanish(it means to get along well) and in English there is “conviviality” and “convivial”.For Castro,as applied to Muslim rule in Spain it meant that the Muslims practically treated non-Muslims as equals,it was the idyllic coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.He held it as a model for today.
But another Spanish intellectual, Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz (1893–1984),completely disagreed and said so in his monumental “España: Un enigma histórico” (1956).In reality scholarship has shown Castro was wrong and Sanchez-Albornoz right.
To know more:
“Convivencia in Medieval Spain:a Brief History of an Idea”
http://demo.sheruyasodha.com.
And about him:
http://danassays.wordpress.
The case of Juan Goytisolo(born in 1931)
He is a Spanish writer who lives in a voluntary self-exile in Marrakech,Morocco since 1997.He has defended Americo Castro’s myth that Muslim rule in Spain was a model of multiculturalism,real tolerance,a model for today.
In his novel “Count Julian” (1970) he identifies and defends the Visigothic noble who,according to legend,allied himself with the Muslims before their invasion of Spain and helped them win.He says he identifies himself “with the great traitor who opened the door to Arab invasion.”
The Uniqueness of Portugal and Spain regarding Islam
Stanley Paine also states in that same chapter:
“Only in the Iberian peninsula(My note: Portugal and Spain):
1.Was a large territory both conquered and for the most part culturally and religiously Islamized,only to be reconquered and de-Islamized by a portion of its pre-Muslim inhabitants.
2.This fact alone would have made Spain absolutely unique in world history,if the Spanish had never accomplished anything else.”
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