The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain [Paperback]

 

 

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Many of the reviewers seem not to be familiar with the history of Christian intolerance -- to which the author of this book contrasts the comparative tolerance of medieval Spain. Even before Constantine, Christian bishops were setting their mobs on other Christians who did not agree with them. After they achieved political power with Constantine, Christians set themselves to destroy all they could of pagan culture, including the works of the classical authors such as Aristotle and Plato. For 500 years, Christians made murder an instrument of policy to force people to accept baptism. In the 11th century, the popes called for the Crusades, causing more bloodbaths, not only of Jews and Muslims, but also Christians. In the 14th century, the storm troops of the Inquisition caused the deaths of thousands and ruined European commerce. The bloody battles between Protestant and Catholics took no quarter and devastated Europe, killing half the population. The Spaniards invading South American in a hundred years killed 150 million natives and expropriated their lands. The Catholic Church's support of slavery and execution of heretics lasted right up to the 20th Century. These atrocities were not incidental. They were approved by the highest authorities of the Church, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and almost every pope who had the power. Muhammad instructed Muslims in the Quran to not only respect but also to protect the "Peoples of the Book," Christians and Jews who shared an ancestor in Abraham and believed in the same God. For the most part, Muslims carried out this command. Muhammad also prescribed rules of war, often causing Muslims to be shocked with the barbarities and atrocities of Christian armies. Enlightened Muslims who arrived in Spain in the 8th century took this tolerance as far as it could go. Unlike the Christians, they had embraced their pagan roots and were open to science, philosophy, and the learning of the Greeks and Romans--cultures that Christians had done everything to destroy. What had been the province of half-Christianized Visigoths and Jews living in abysmal slavery not only became a center of learning but the scene of a bold political experiment. Predating Adams, Jefferson, and Madison by a thousand years, they developed a secular space for science, philosophy, and politics in which Christians, Jews, and Muslims worked shoulder to shoulder. The Jews especially thrived in this atmosphere of toleration. Several of them became renowned scholars and ministers high in the Muslim government. The Jews today look back on that experiment in Spain and call it their Golden Time. They consider their expulsion by their Catholic Majesties Isabel and Ferdinand in 1492 as a catastrophe equalled only by the destruction of the Temple in the Jewish Wars. The "Ornament of the World" is mainly an intellectual history. Menocal is interested in showing how the dour world of Visigoth Christianity was no match for the wide and expansive world of Islam. In a couple hundred years, the Muslims transformed Spain from a backwater province to the center of the civilized world, dazzling visitors with architecture, science, and learning. Menocal tells us about those scholars in Medieval Spain who worked to restore to Latin Europe not only the corpus of Aristotle and a thousand years of commentaries but also a framework for reconciling the demands of faith and reason. It was a breathtaking achievement. I found this a breathtaking book.

The Ornament of the World is not only an excellent book, it should be required reading for anyone who is interested in history, religion, or world affairs. I say this because it is a relevant work in all three areas of study. While Ornament is not actually about world affairs today, it is relevant in that it reveals a good deal about the interactions between religions.

Menocal describes the interactions between Chrisians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval Spain. "In the sense of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wonderful formula...'the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time'". The purpose of Ornament is to explain the context in which this tolerance developed and analyze why such tolerance was sustained at this moment in history.

I have heard Menocal speak. She is extremely intelligent and an excellent speaker so I would also recommend hearing her lecture if you have the chance.

Writing history raises an inevitable challenge: relate events as they were or portray selected elements to emphasize a theme. The former method is often ponderous, the latter often misleading. Menocal has opted for the second option. In her survey of Medieval Spain, she gives us an entertaining and informative look at expressions of the intellectual elite over seven centuries of Muslim rule.

Menocal's approach aims to restore Spanish Islam's blemished reputation. Muslim Spain has endured a scathing censure imposed by "victorious" Christian Europe. In the Christian view, the Reconquista of Spain freed a population from a Muslim yoke. The European invasion of the Western Hemisphere carried that myth across the Atlantic while strengthening the crusading attitude of the conquistadores. Menocal uses romantic poetry, the advancement of selected scholars to high posts under the caliphate, and the literacy of the Muslim and Jewish communities as evidence of high, positive interaction. Even the Christians, normally disdainful of literacy, science and philosophy, joined the chorus of common interests.

Weaving her tale around the Cordovan Umayyad caliphs founded by exiled prince Abn al-Rahmad, she traces the building programs, internal disputes among the Islamic schisms arising along the Mediterranean, and the challenges posed by intruders from the north. For Menocal, the binding force across Islamic Spain was language. Arabic became a lingua franca with the power to transcend religious dogma and jurisdictional disputes. Jews and Christians alike became fluent in this imposed language due to its expressive power. Arabic was also used in the Eastern Mediterranean to recover and spread lost texts of the Greek scholars. Thus, often unattributed, the Muslims kept medicine, astronomy, philosophy and other disciplines alive. Christians would later adapt them joyfully, but the Dark Ages aren't misnamed for the rest of Western Europe.

Menocal might have produced a book of sweeping vision, restoring the image of Muslim Spain as one of civilisation's most noteworthy achievements. Instead, she sinks into a swamp of romantic fervour, highlighting erotic poetry and grandiose architecture. The farmers and small traders who were taxed to support these elitist endeavours likely had a different view. That is, when they weren't in hiding from the nearly continuous wars waged among the Muslims or between the Islamic invaders from the south or the Christian ones from across the Pyrenees.

As she skips over the centuries, Menocal introduces the rising tide of Christian aggressive attitudes culminating in the Jewish/Muslim expulsion. The French monastics at Cluny had adopted the liberal view of philosophy espoused by their Iberian neighbours. Deeper in Europe, however, the Cistercians, ardent crusaders, urged expunging Christianity of any Arabic taint. Viewpoints hardened, as Menocal recounts, through exchanges of essays and books. Menocal doesn't investigate whether these expressions reached the general populace, but the Church hierarchy system ensured local parish priests acted as mouthpieces of the regional bishops. The events of 1492 verified who had the louder voice.

Although tentatively concluding with the background of Columbus' departure, Menocal cannot resist extending her recital to the early 17th Century. How can one write on Spain without folding the La Manchan epic into the story? Finding Arabic roots in Cervantes is neither new nor difficult, but Menocal provides a new twist. Menocal suggests Don Quixote's worldview is that of any thinker of the Muslim period. Identity of any aspect of the world is muddled by a spread of conflicting, if not hostile, attitudes. La Mancha thus becomes the last gasp of an integrated Spanish society that is considered insane by the rigid-minded world that succeeded it.

Given the span of time and involvement of numerous articulate historical figures, one turns to the "Other Readings" at the back with high expectation. Turn the pages carefully, otherwise you'll miss it. Instead of a bibliography rich in selection, there are a few translations by Menocal's lady friends and a few, little known scholars of the subject. If Menocal lacked the ambition, time or knowledge to produce a proper reading list, she might have cited one or two good ones. Instead, there's a paucity of further reading. Except for the few maps, which mostly duplicate each other, the illustrations follow the pattern. A pity. Such an immense topic standing on so feeble a base makes this book good reading, but uninformative. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

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1.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant Tales for Little Folk
A book that purports to have some scholarly support, and that fails to list every single one of the major scholarly books on Islamic Spain -- especially failing to note the vast... Read more

Published on Jun 23 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars Find another book and leave this one on the virtual shelf
Ornament of the World is a perfect example of why historians do not always make good authors or storytellers. Read more

Published on May 5 2004 by A. R. Baroch

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly unclassifiable
"The Ornament of the World" is an artistic and intellectual history of Islamic Spain. It's also a treatise on how a multi-cultural, tolerant society can not only flourish, but... Read more

Published on April 5 2004 by Jesse Steven Hargrave

1.0 out of 5 stars Another rewriting of history
This book is historically inaccurate and does not bear a resemblance to original texts from the period and subsequent, properly documented, works. Read more

Published on Dec 30 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars THE BOOK OF HELL
This is by far the worst book i have ever read. I was forced to read it before i went to spain and i cant explain the agony i went through to read this piece. Read more

Published on Dec 29 2003 by m2005

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written but romanticized praise for a golden age
Menocal uses slices of history to convey images of medieval life in Spain's Andalucia, where Arabs ruled over a mixed society of Muslims, Christians and Jews. Read more

Published on Oct 9 2003 by M. A Michaud

5.0 out of 5 stars Politically Correct-the Reader or Menocal?
A reader's own sense of polital correctness will more likely influence one's response to this book than any parochialism offered by Menocal. Read more

Published on Sep 26 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly yet readable account of Iberian history
I read this book while traveling through Spain and Portugal for six weeks and was deeply moved by the sensitive tone which the author keeps throughout the text and the accuracy of... Read more

Published on Aug 19 2003 by Saleem Ali

4.0 out of 5 stars A good partial history, a bit scattered and anecdotal
This book will definitely help you distinguish your Ummayyadd's from your Abbassids from your Fatimids. Read more

Published on Aug 16 2003 by cloudia

5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant History for Our Time
Maria Rosa Menocal presents what today would be a 'radical' idea: people of different religions coexisting and even tolerating their differences while creating a vibrant and... Read more

Published on May 15 2003 by Tracy Davis

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