{"id":84155,"date":"2021-04-12T14:17:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T19:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/?p=84155"},"modified":"2021-04-12T14:17:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T19:17:21","slug":"manufacturing-counter-mythology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/?p=84155","title":{"rendered":"Manufacturing Counter-mythology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manufacturing Counter-mythology<\/strong><\/p>\n

[This is a preprint of a book review scheduled for publication in the Molinari Review in May 2021]<\/em><\/p>\n

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Dar\u00c3\u00ado Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez-Morera, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2017, 358 pp., US$29.95. ISBN 161017095-4 (hb).<\/p>\n

Myths are important. Actual myths play a fundamental role in a society in shaping its values. While they may be rooted in some historical event, their historical accuracy is of no significance compared to the role they play in giving a means of communicating the fundamental values of that society. As a youth I read books that informed me how Greek mythology played such a role in ancient Greek society. Similarly, a book entitled The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain<\/em> could have been an exposition on how the enlightenment scholars who use Muslim Spain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relative tolerance as an object lesson in trying to move Western thought in the direction of pluralism and liberty. It is not.<\/p>\n

One might expect a book with this title could be using the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153myth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to mean a set of broadly accepted misconceptions (in the manner of the Washington Post\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s series of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Five Myth About [whatever]\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Were that the case, one would hope that the book would make a careful attempt to correct errors in the popular understanding of specific historical events. Alas, Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez-Morera\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book has a different objective. It is not some popular misunderstanding of history that is the target of his screed, but the work of respected experts.<\/p>\n

To understand the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s objective, one must first know the standard historical understanding of Spain under eight centuries of Muslims rule. There were changes in rulership over the centuries during which the degree of tolerance and coexistence had ups and downs as exhibited by centralized dynasties (Ummayad, Almoravid, Almohads) and local principalities. The mainstream historians view the period from the 8th<\/sup> century liberation of most of Spain from the preceding three and a half centuries of occupation by the Visigoths until the final phase of reconquest by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 as one of a relatively tolerant society that, although by no means completely free of discrimination against its non-Muslim minorities, generally respected their right to life, labor, raise their families\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcertainly in comparison to the way that religious minorities were treated in other parts of Europe at that time. Further, historians note that what they call this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Convivencia\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a time of fruitful interactions among the groups that led to philosophical, scientific, and cultural development that not only contrasted to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dark Ages\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in some other parts of Western Europe, but provided a positive influence in bringing Western Europe out of the Dark Ages in the later medieval period. The author aims to indict the academic establishment which, he believes, has blithely accepted the propaganda of Muslim apologists, for failing to see the period in question as manifesting what he professes to be an intolerance not only worse than western Europe of the time, but from which the Spanish Inquisition that followed was a relief.<\/p>\n

The author is well aware that the counter-myth he seeks to create flies in the face of the academic establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understanding of the era, but, for him, this fact indicts the establishment. Thus, when defending the work of Sylvain Gougenheim against his critics (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153an international collective of 56 researchers in history and philosophy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who found his work \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amateurish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153discredited,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u009dscientifically dishonest,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d among other things), the author dismisses their criticism as the work of those who could never dare to match the outsider Gouggenheim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed insights because to do so \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would endanger the attractiveness of the field of research that provides a living for the Islamic studies experts, and \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 risk \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 loss of funding \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6, ostracism \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and difficulty finding university positions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for students and those newly entering the field (p. 7).<\/p>\n

To overturn centuries of historical study is not easy, so the author employs a clever methodology. He announces at the outset that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interpretive stance is Machiavellian, not Panglossian\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 3). Specifically, he dismisses any modern understanding of Islam as irrelevant to understanding the realities of medieval Spain. All that matters to him \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is that, for the culture of medieval Islam in al-Andalus, the important texts were not so much the Quran as the religious laws as interpreted by the ulama<\/em> [scholars] of the Maliki legal school that dominated al-Andalus\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 10). He can then deflect any doubt shed on allegations of intolerance on grounds that they are in opposition to Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122anic commandments with the argument that such doubt is irrelevant to a society in which the jurisprudence of one particular school\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand a somewhat authoritarian one at that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhas precedence over what all Muslims accept as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Word of God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This powerful tool pre-empts using any objection that a purported act is a violation of holy scripture as reason to question the historical accuracy of the claim that the act took place. It also pre-empts accusing rulers who engage in such actions as failing to live up to Islamic ideals. It does more.\u00c2\u00a0 It allows the author to doubt the historical accuracy of reports of any good and praiseworthy acts as historically inaccurate on the grounds that they violate the precepts of the Maliki school, and allows him to maintain that, even if true, such reports only exemplify departure from, rather than adherence to, Islamic law. The author says of those who argue otherwise, that their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153understanding of the Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122an may be true, but, to borrow Cervantes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcit matters little to our story.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

This premise poses a challenge for a reviewer such as I who has no special expertise in the Maliki school.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, I am one of those Muslims whom the author considers irrelevant for insisting that the jurisprudence of the religious scholars can be overruled by the words of the Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122an.\u00c2\u00a0 To remedy this deficiency, I have turned to two experts in Maliki law for assistance in evaluating the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s understanding of that school. By special arrangement between the Minaret of Freedom Institute and the Tayba Foundation, Shaykh Muhammad Mahmoud ibn Ahmad (Professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic Language, Higher Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Mauritania) and Rami Nsour Alidrisi (Executive Director of the Tayba Foundation who has lectured on Maliki law at the Zaytuna Institute ) have provided me with deep background on the Maliki scholarship related to the questions raised in the book. Rami Nsour provided the English translation of the results of Sh. Muhammad research and additional explanatory comments. For simplicity, I shall herein cite their work as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ahmad and Alidrisi.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In Chapter 1, the author seeks to depict the initial Muslim conquest of Spain as an example of some Islamic duty to conquer the world, which is how he would have us understand the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153jihad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He rejects as apologetics any concept of jihad as a spiritual duty, saying that for the Maliki scholars it was only a material duty to spread the religion of Islam and its legal precepts by the sword.<\/p>\n

It is certainly true that, after the Prophet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (peace upon him) death, Islam began a rapid expansion of territory under Muslim rule that coincided with a rising obsession in books of Muslim jurisprudence with struggle (the literal meaning of the Arabic word jihad) in warfare. The pertinent question, however, is not whether Islam permits fighting. The Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122an gives explicit permission to fighting for a just cause by just means. The question is whether aggression is permitted or whether war is limited to defense (of self or of other oppressed people). The same question is dealt with in the Catholic doctrine of just war theory.<\/p>\n

The author finds the standard historical account that the Muslims were invited into Spain by the oppressed people of the country suffering under the Visigoth rulers unpersuasive. In the history books, Julian, governor of Ceuta invited the Muslims into Spain because the tyrannical king Roderic had violated (some say seduced) his daughter. The author does not recount this story at all, only mentioning Julian to dismiss him as an outsider \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christian lord from North Africa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Further, the local Christians whose aid (together with that of the local Jews) made the Muslims\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rapid conquest of Spain possible, are dismissed as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a competing royal faction [that] sided with the invaders \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 [f]or personal or other reasons\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The author wants us to believe that the fact that dhimmis (protected minorities) paid a tax, jizyah, not levied on Muslims somehow shows that religious oppression is the motive for the Muslim entry into Spain. Toward that end, he cites Ibn Rushd (best known in the West as the philosopher Averroes) as an authority to prove that jizyah is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a payment for sparing the lives of Christians and Jews while they remain under the power of Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 26). To the contrary, Ahmad and Alidrisi note that Ibn Rushd actually uses jizyah as it has generally been understood by Muslims, as a head tax in lieu of military service. It is ironic that the author detracts from his main claim (that Ibn Rushd uses \u00e2\u20ac\u0153jihad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to mean military service) by pretending that jizyah is a penalty for not accepting Islam rather than a substitute for military service. Ibn Rushd points out that women and children and others not eligible for military service are exempt from jizyah.<\/p>\n

In Chapter 2, the author sets out to dismiss the remarkable scientific and technological achievements of Muslim Spain. He starts by claiming that the Muslim conquest \u00e2\u20ac\u0153interrupted \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the full emergence of a new Christian Hispano-Visigothic civilization.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His strongest argument in support of his speculation as to why said emergent civilization would have been successful is that the Visigoth code would subordinate the ruler to the rule of law, and that everyone had a duty to know the law. However, the same was true of the Islamic law. The fact that this limit on tyranny could<\/em> facilitate a flourishing society is not the same as guaranteeing one would emerge.<\/p>\n

His other arguments are less persuasive. He would have us believe that the failure of the Spaniards to adopt the Visigoth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unitarian religion shows the religious liberty which the Visigoths afforded them. Actually, them Visigoths considered themselves as superior to the occupied peoples and discouraged assimilation. Muslims did not impose Islam on the locals, but welcomed conversions that made the locals equal to them under the law. Nonetheless, the Visigoths did, after more than a century convert to Catholicism. This conversion evidently pleases the author, but it coincided with the deterioration of their treatment of the Jews under their rule, and does not advance the chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aim to demonstrate that the Visigothic conquest was a progressive one whose flourishing was stopped only by the arrival of Islam.<\/p>\n

The author boasts of the Roman aqueducts as if they were an innovation of the Visigoths rather than merely the adoption of an old Roman technology. He even denies the role Islam played in the transmission of the works of ancient wisdom to Western Europe by claiming they had not been lost to Europe because they were still extant in Byzantine libraries. Of course, Byzantine libraries were the ultimate source material of the Greek texts on which the Syriac and Arabic translations were based. Indeed, Muslim rulers had commissioned Eastern church Christians to translate these texts into Arabic in the first place. Western Europeans were oblivious to them until they made contact with Muslim civilization centuries later (in large part through the translations of these texts in Latin in Spain!). The author will have none of this, echoing Gougenheim that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153with the translations made at the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel, medieval scholars hardly needed translations of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 73). Both Gouguenheim and our author conveniently pass over the two-hundred-year gap between the translation movement in Spain and that at Mont St. Michel. The author blames the rise of Islam rather than the split within the Church itself for the lack of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cultural communication\u00e2\u20ac\u009d between the eastern and western churches (p. 77). The historical reality is that while St. Thomas may indeed have read Latin translations of Aristotle from other sources, it is Ibn Rushd whom he honored as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The<\/em> Commenter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The<\/em> Philosopher.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Chapter 3 is devoted to arguing that the Spanish Muslims were intolerant even of other Muslims (outside the Maliki school) by arguing that Maliki thought dominated daily life and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ulama in Spain followed only the teaching of Malik and claimed as authorities only the Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122an and Mallik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Muwatta\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 97). Ahmad and Al-Idrisi reject this, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there were many schools of jurisprudence other than the school of Malik\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Andalusia and providing numerous examples.<\/p>\n

The interruption of Maliki influence during the Almohad dynasty gives the author the opportunity to claim that the establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s admiration of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jewish and Christian influence [as] a wonderful example of convivencia<\/em> and tolerance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the time is just a reflection \u00e2\u20ac\u0153of the nadir of Islamic power in medieval Spain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 97).\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, he would have us believe that even if there was tolerance it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly be due to Islam because the rulers weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Malikis. There are many things wrong with this. The author wants to focus on the Malikis not because they best represent Islam, but because he sees them as dominating the society. If the Almohads weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Malikis that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily mean they were less religious. They certainly did not see themselves that way. Rather than argue that the rise and fall of tolerance must prove that Islam is intolerant, a more reasonable conclusion is that people<\/em> can be more or less tolerant.<\/p>\n

To prove Maliki intolerance of fellow Muslims, the author alleges that the widely used juridical manual al-Tafri \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prescribed death for unrepentant Mutazili heretics\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pp. 98-99). Ahmad and Al-Idrisi deny this, and, based on Maliki commentaries from that time state that the reason the government fought those dissidents was that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they rebelled against the government and caused civil unrest, and it is not due to the fact that they hold beliefs that are innovations,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offering as further proof the fact that those not charged with rebellion were not killed.<\/p>\n

Chapter 4 is devoted to challenging the Umayyids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reputation for tolerance by arguing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they elevated religious and political persecution, inquisitions, beheadings, impalings, and crucifixions to heights unequalled by any other set of rulers before or after in Spain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 120). Beyond accusing medieval Spanish Muslims of being, well, medieval, he seems to believe that those cowardly historians have wrongly awarded to Torquemada a crown that rightly belongs to the Ummayids. (Tellingly, Torquemada doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even appear in the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s index. Mentioning the Grand Inquisitor might distract the reader from the alleged villainy of the Muslims. In fact the Spanish Inquisition is indexed only twice: in reference to page 4, where Princeton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kwame Appiah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfavorable comparison of the Spanish inquisition to the Umayyid policies is sneered at as part of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153culture of forgetting,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and in reference to p. 100 where the author finds it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ironic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that the Spanish Inquisition targeted Muslims and Jews who feigned conversion to Christianity to save their skins when the Maliki school condemns anyone who practices another religion while pretending to be Muslim as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the worst form of apostate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n

For the author, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153such notions as \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctoleration,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 [and] \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfreedom of conscience\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 were essentially foreign to Malikism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 100). Ahmad and Al-Idrisi wonder how such a claim can be reconciled with the general freedom of practice of religion accorded to Christians and Jews, who did not have to leave the country en masse<\/em> as Jews and Muslims were forced to after the Reconquista. Or with the enormous number of churches left standing. Or the fifteen Andalusian monasteries. Or how the Christians maintained their own tradition\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s code of law. While one would be right to doubt the courts were unbiased in all mediation between Muslims and non-Muslims, I doubt one could find after the Reconquista an equivalent to the following report Ahmad and Al-Idrisi cite from Ibn Sahl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ahkam Al Kubra: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was a Christian woman who was married to a Muslim man. She passed away and left two young girls [who were Muslim as their father was Muslim]. The children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s maternal grandmother was a Christian and she claimed custody of the children. The children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paternal grandmother (who was Muslim) also claimed custody of the children. The jurists decreed that the custody belonged to the maternal grandmother, even with her being Christian.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Al-Idrisi adds, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This rule of the maternal grandmother of Muslim children being granted custody over Muslim relatives is a well-known Maliki ruling that can be found in the section on Custody (Hadanah) in the books of jurisprudence, such as the Mukhtasar of Khalil and other works as well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

To back up his sweeping anti-historical claim, the author starts with the assertion that Malik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Risala states, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A freethinker (zindiq) must be put to death and his repentance is rejected\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p.100). The translation of zindiq<\/em> into freethinker is wrong, contradicted by Malik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own definition of zindiq in the very next sentence as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one who conceals his unbelief and pretends to follow Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 100).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boasted reliance on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153original sources\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is actually a reliance on translations of original sources, and the translators are suspect. Ahmad and Al-Idrisi suggest that Malik is using the word to mean \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hypocrite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which is certainly supported by Malik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definition. The author would have been on firmer ground to accuse the Malikis of intolerance against hypocrites. We must all (at least in the 21st<\/sup> century) agree that it is wrong to make hypocrisy a capital crime. And even in the seventh century the Qur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122an stated that one who hides his religion not to engage in fraud but to defend himself from persecution should get a pass. Al-Idrisi argues that this debate is tainted by the issue of apostasy. While it is fair to brand Malikis (and other Muslims who hold apostasy to be a capital crime) to be intolerant on that count, it is hypocritical in the classical sense to pretend that the Malikis are any worse than the Spanish Inquisition on this score. So, one point to the author for calling out the Umayyids as less tolerant than his 21st century readers and minus ten points for dropping the context of the time. Further, not all Malikis interpreted Malik\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statement as referring to all hypocrites or apostates. Ahmad and Al-Idrisi note that judge Qadi Isma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122il understood Malik to be referring only to the muharib<\/em>, meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one who carries weapons to take things from people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

For some reason, the author thinks his case is advanced by exaggerating the punishments inflicted on Muslims for violating the Muslim law, even though these laws were not imposed on or enforced against non-Muslims. Thus, he claims on p. 103 that the punishment for wine-drinking on a fourth offense is death. Ahmad and Al-Idrisi say that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there is no scholar in the Maliki school who holds this opinion. In fact, there is no scholar in any of the recognized schools who holds this opinion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The author seems to have stumbled upon a hadith which is rejected for legal purposes by all except \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a few Dhahir scholars.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than demonstrate intolerance, the appearance of this hadith in the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s source material would seem to reflect the reluctance (or at least an inability) of the Malikis to suppress rival legal rulings, even from outside the Sunni mainstream.<\/p>\n

Some of the accusations against the Muslims have less to do with intolerance than with the fact that they looked down on Christians for their perplexing beliefs (such as the notion of one God in three persons) or their despised practices (like consuming intoxicants). The inclusion of such irrelevancies is clearly meant to play to the complementary biases of his own intended audience (to look down on people who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe in an incarnate God and who refuse to sit down with you for a cold beer). Tolerance is irrelevant to those things about which we are indifferent.<\/p>\n

Having said that, however, we must address the allegation of gratuitous disrespect, such as the claim that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[w]hereas Malik did not object to a Muslim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s using water left over by a menstruating woman or by a Muslim in a state of impurity, he forbade using the water left over by a Christian, or using for ablutions anything a Christian had touched, or eating food left over by a Christian\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 111). Ahmad and Al-Idrisi respond that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Malik disliked using the leftover water of a Christian is not because he is Christian, but rather because of the likelihood that they use alcohol.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d By the same token the water or food of a Muslim who drank alcohol was forbidden, and the food or water of a Christian of whom one was certain had not used alcohol was permitted. The distinction between Christians and Muslims is one of presumption of tainting by prohibited substances and not disrespect of person.<\/p>\n

The author would have us believe that the many churches left standing by the Muslims must have actually been torn down on the strength of the precedent of Malik having written in the Utbiyyah regarding the churches of Fustat (in Egypt), \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I believe they should be changed and destroyed, not left in that state and there is no good in them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ahmad and Al-Idrisi say that this was a narrow opinion regarding a people who were not dhimmis and had no treaty with the Muslims. It was to clarify this point that Ibn Rushd commented, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The people who have treaties are allowed to build new churches in the areas that they included in their treaties and also to repair old churches. This is if they are not within the limits of the Muslim land and Muslims do not live among them, and this is even if they do not put that right as a condition. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Whereas if they are in the limits of the Muslim land, then they do not have the right to build new churches unless they had a treaty with that right.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They quote another scholar who opined dhimmis should not be prevented from building new churches \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in their villages that are included in their treaties, because the land is their land, they can sell their land as they see fit and the Muslims cannot take anything from it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They add that the Ahkam of Ibn Sahl, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the most famous legal texts from the Andalusian period \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 states: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThey are not to be prevented from the churches in their villages that they included in their treaties after the land was conquered nor are they prevented from building new churches. This is because they included that right in their dhimma treaty which included their right to do what they want with their land. And there is no tax on the churches, as the tax is upon the produce of their land.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Ahmad and Al-Idrisi hold that the claim that Muslims were prohibited from mixing with Christians is false. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In regards to the Muslims not mixing with the Christians at all, this is not correct. Rather, the Muslims used to mix with non-Muslims in many aspects of their life such as their marketplaces, trades, and other elements of public life. In fact, their mixing extended to matters of worship and as a proof of this it has been recorded that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwhen the Muslims conquered Andalusia, they followed the examples of [those] who followed the opinion of Umar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the permissibility of sharing space in churches in land administered by treaty rather than war. That \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Muslims shared the worship space of the non-Muslims of Cordova in their grand church. In that shared space, the Muslims built a masjid and in the other portion of the space the church remained\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is just one of many such reports.<\/p>\n

Yet, on p. 122, the author deems it impossible that Muslims should ever have shared space in a church. Absence of evidence turns out to be ignorance of evidence, since the purchase of St. Vincent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s church he sneers at on p. 121 as an offer the Christians \u00e2\u20ac\u0153couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t refuse\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was, in fact, the result of negotiations between the amir and the Christian leadership of church property that had been shared with Christians for generations, until the number of Muslim attendees began to dwarf the number of Christians. Kenneth Baxter Wolfe, in Christian Martyrs in Spain<\/em>, writes that negotiations resulted in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153promise of a large cash payment as well as permission to rebuild one of the extramural churches\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that had been destroyed during the conquest.<\/p>\n

In Chapter 5 the author turns to the favorite target of Islamophobes, the treatment of women. I shall not prolong an overly long book review by going over territory already covered well elsewhere. Instead, I will focus on what is unique to Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez-Morera\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claims. Here he outdoes himself, claiming that the\u00c2\u00a0 Maliki legal text Al-Tafri \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stipulates that not only a muhsan<\/em> woman who fornicated should be stoned, but also married female slaves\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 145). Ahmad and Al-Idrisi find the passage to state the opposite:\u00c2\u00a0 that a female slave may not be stoned for fornication, only free women (and men) were subject to such punishment. It is one thing to criticize Malik for holding adultery to be a capital crime under Islamic law, another to accuse him of saying the opposite of what he has said regarding slaves.<\/p>\n

A more picayune charge, one all the more annoying since he resorts to misrepresentation on such a petty point, is the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complaint that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Following Malik, al-Tafri even forbade women to loosen their hair when cleaning it during ablution\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. In fact, Spanish Maliki jurisprudence advised proper Muslim women to keep their hair short\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 149). According to Ahmad and Al-Idrisi, this is not<\/em> what the author of al-Tafri says. Rather than forbidding women from unbraiding their hair to wash before prayers he is acknowledging their right to simply \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wipe over the hair, and she does not need to undo her hair.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They add \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is to make it easier<\/em> for women, since unbraiding the hair at every washing for the prayer would be a clear difficulty. This is part of the spirit of tolerance and ease that the author of the Myth is calling for.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The author also takes a unique, albeit somewhat incoherent, approach to dismissing the establishment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claims of (relative) female freedom and empowerment in Muslim Spain. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny that some women enjoyed certain liberties and educational benefits, but insists that rather than due to some kind of Islamic tolerance, it was because these women were slaves, from marginalized sectors of society, or from privileged families. His argument is that Maliki law required \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153only used for procreation, being therefore destined to the service of their husbands and relegated to the cares of procreation, upbringing and education [of the children]\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pp. 156-157).\u00c2\u00a0 He is here quoting Ibn Rushd, who is actually criticizing the status quo, and who goes on to complain that this attitude towards women stifles their potential as human beings. For the author, however, the fact that it does describe the status quo means that any exceptions are not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women but slaves, sluts, or women of such high privilege that they can afford to flout Maliki law the way hypocritical Muslim rulers flout the laws against drinking and adultery. The passage in question comes from Ibn Rushd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commentary on Plato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Republic and, in the words of Charles Butterworth, scholar of medieval political philosophy, exemplifies how he, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153like Alfarabi and Avicenna, helps us understand what it means to live a good human life \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 by taking the best from the learned tradition whether it is Muslim or not.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Ahmad and Al-Idrisi observe that the author is putting forward his own interpretation of Maliki jurisprudence seen through the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lens of his contempt for Islam\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and unimpeded by the intermediation of any Maliki scholar. Thus, when he writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153According to the Mudawwana, if even part of the hair of the woman comes out from under her veil during prayer, she must restart the prayer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 153), he completely misses the point that the scholars are offering a recommendation<\/em> that the prayer be repeated, not an obligation<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich means that the prayer is not<\/em> invalid. Worse yet, when the author claims, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In Maliki jurisprudence modesty in the case of a hurra<\/em> (free Muslim woman) was so important that a man could see his future wife only if she had not yet reached puberty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 157), in a book with 96 pages of endnotes, he gives no citation for this claim. For good reason: This is not the position of the Maliki school. Ahmad and Al-Idrisi write, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is well-known in the Maliki school that a man may look at the face of a woman that he is proposing to\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and they find no basis for the claim of any exception for postpubescent women in the Maliki literature.<\/p>\n

Chapter 6 purports to refute the notion of a Jewish golden age in Spain. There is no doubt that Jews, like Christians, suffered some persecution. But the author is not satisfied with that. He wants us to be believe that Jews had it better in Christian lands than in Muslim Spain. Rather than devote space to refuting this absurdity, I shall refer those who are interested in a more credible critique of the status of Jews in Muslim Spain to take a look at Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages<\/em> by Mark R. Cohen. Of Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez-Morera\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective, suffice it to say that he mistreats the great Maimonides in a manner reminiscent of his mistreatment of the Malik fuquha. He takes a passage in which the great Jewish scholar, in his role as leader of the Jewish community, warns against letting the close proximity to Christians and Muslims provided by the Convivencia become an excuse for violating the Jewish law as evidence that there was no Convivencia: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This fact alone could dispose of the Convivencia. Maimonides explicitly ruled against eating and drinking with non-Jews. Practicing Jews must not \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 eat crab, lobster, oysters, squid, octopus, pork, or blood products, among other things \u00e2\u20ac\u201c prohibitions that made eating with non-Jews religiously risky and therefore inadvisable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (p. 197).<\/p>\n

The title of Chapter 7 sums it up: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Christian Condition: From Dhimmis<\/em> to Extinction.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His main claim is that any success or prosperity or liberty enjoyed by Christians or Jews in Muslim Spain \u00e2\u20ac\u0153occurred in spite of\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand in direct opposition to\u00e2\u20ac\u201dIslamic injunctions, and it created resentment among the ulama and the Muslim population.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As the chapter title suggests, he claims that establishment scholars have not only ignored the persecution of Christians, but have erased from the books their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extinction.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 So, not content to argue that Spain was not a paradise, he wants it to be remembered as a genocide. This is the counter-myth he seeks to establish.<\/p>\n

Islamic Spain was not perfect, nor does it live up to the ideals of 21st<\/sup> century libertarianism. The enlightenment writers who hyped its positive aspects and overlooked its flaws were motivated by the desire to positively influence their own societies that fell short of even the Andalusian reality, let alone their liberal ideals. If you want a balanced view of Andalusian history, it is best not to rely on any single perspective, let alone a single source. More credible works than this are available that cover a spectrum of perspectives from Maria Rosa Menocal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Ornament of the World<\/em> to David Nirenberg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, <\/em>and including Salma Khadra Jayysi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Legacy of Muslim Spain<\/em>, Roger Collins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Caliphs and Kings, <\/em>Olivia Remie Constable (with Damian Zurro)\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Medieval Iberia: readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources<\/em>, and Mark R. Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aforementioned Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If, on the other hand, you want a freshly fabricated mythology with the negative objectives of demonizing Islam and replacing romanticized memories of the accomplishments of Muslim Spain with amnesia about the Spanish Inquisition, then this is your book.<\/p>\n

I prefer not to speculate why an associate professor at Northwestern University would choose to write such a book, but I go out on no limb to guess that the reason it was published by ISI is that no academic publisher wants to embarrass itself. ISI, on the other hand, already sacrificed the respectability it once had as a conservative institution on the altar of Islamophobia years ago with the publication of such anti-Muslim propaganda as Robert Reilly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s The Closing of the Muslim Mind,<\/em> described by Yale Professor of Islamic Studies Frank Griffel as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war literature.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This book, too, is war literature.<\/p>\n

I wish to thank Shaykh Muhammad Mahmoud ibn Ahmad and Rami Nsour Alidrisi for their essential assistance and Prof. Charles Butterworth for his helpful comments on this review.<\/p>\n

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
\nMinaret of Freedom Institute
\nwww.minaret.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manufacturing Counter-mythology [This is a preprint of a book review scheduled for publication in the Molinari Review in May 2021] The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Dar\u00c3\u00ado Fern\u00c3\u00a1ndez-Morera, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2017, 358 pp., US$29.95. ISBN 161017095-4 (hb). Myths are important. Actual myths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-ahmads-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84156,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84155\/revisions\/84156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.minaret.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}