For centuries the world has witnessed tension between people of different religions and cultural backgrounds. Just as there have been wars fought and lands conquered in the name of God, there have been people of different religions throughout the centuries who have sought peace in the midst of conflict. A look at Spain beginning in the 8th century, just 100 years after the founding of Islam, reveals a rich blend of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. Artists and scholars from the three traditions worked together, producing poetry, architecture, literature, and scientific research that far surpassed the accomplishments of the communities in the rest of Europe.

 

“Fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....” is engraved on American minds from early childhood. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain sent Christopher Columbus on his mission of discovery, but before Columbus was sent out to explore other worlds, the monarchs first had to recapture Spain itself. Even before the birth of Christ, Spain was eyed by the Roman Empire. Its geography, a peninsula between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, made it a coveted and strategic conquest to consolidate economic and military power. In the 6th century A.D., the peninsula was invaded by a Germanic people known as the Goths, or Visigoths (meaning “from the West”) who settled in France and Spain and set up their own kingdoms in the early centuries of the Christian era. Jews were in Spain at least from the time of the Roman Empire.

 

One of the Visigoth clans, the Witiza family, appealed to Berber warriors in North Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar to aid in a territorial fight. This opened the door for North African migration. The Berbers brought with them the Muslim religion. To the Visigoths and later Spanish-speaking people, they were known as the Moors.

 

There were some accomplished regimes under the Visigoths but also warfare and dissension including problems between them and descendants of Roman Christians who practiced another form of Christianity. The Visigoths persecuted the Jews. Thus the Jews welcomed the Muslims who at this time did not attempt to persecute or convert them.

 

Al Andalus

Beginning in the 8th century, Spain experienced periods of great accomplishment. In a number of areas Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together and contributed to a cultural mix that produced great works of architecture, literature, and science. Massive libraries attracted students from the major Western religions of the time. Science flourished. Translations were made of the writings of Aristotle and other philosophers of the ancient world. These rediscovered works were then carried  to other cultural centers in Western Europe where their influence was profound. Knowledge of the major theorists of Greek and Latin had previously been lost to the West at this time.

 

In Al Andalus (as Spain was known in Arabic), powerful kings reigned, but as was the case in much of Europe during this era, warfare between kingdoms and pogroms directed against nonbelievers were also prevalent. By 711, followers of Muhammad conquered most of the Iberian peninsula. Some Christian kingdoms held on in the North of Spain along the Atlantic coast and the Pyrenees Mountains.

 

Meanwhile, at the center of Islam, in Damascus, Syria, all the family of the ruling dynasty of Islam was murdered except for one: Abd Al Rahman. He fled to North Africa and later arrived in Spain. In 756, he established a new emirate based in the city of Cordoba. He severed ties with Damascus and established his own caliphate as a successor to Muhammad. Two generations later, by the time of Abd Al Rahman III in 912, this dynasty had encouraged a period of economic expansion and artistic achievement.

 

With the reign of Abd Al Rahman I began the first great period. Jews and Christians were Dhimmi, Arabic for the protected “people of the book,” believers in monotheism and descendants of the followers of Abraham. At various times in the world of Islam, this principle has not been honored, but at this time in Cordoba it was. These faith traditions together created a cross-cultural blending within the dominant Islamic culture. One Christian writer, Alvarus of Cordoba, complained that young Christian men did not know enough Latin to write a line but were able to write classical poetry in Arabic. The Christians of the period had lost power and some became martyrs rather than acquiesce to Muslim rule.

 

For the Jews, who had been poor and downtrodden under the Visigoths, this became a golden age. To this day, the Hebrew literature written during the reign of Abd Al Rahman III (912-961) is revered. It was inspired by the Arabic tradition of great appreciation for poetry and literature, a tradition that prevailed before the time of Muhammad.

 

Cordoba’s Blending of Cultures

The first of the great Hebrew poets of Al Andalus was Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, a physician who was also a diplomat and financier in the court of Abd Al Rahman III. He was a leader and protector of the Jewish community. Writers in the Islamic world had been using the holy language of Arabic to write secular poetry. Hasdai and others who followed him used the sacred language of Hebrew to write poetry  that portrayed their lives.

 

The Great Mosque of Cordoba was begun in the time of Abd Al Rahman I. It was built on a holy site that had been a Roman temple and then a Christian church. The mosque has rows and rows of columns with red and white striped horseshoe arches combining the architectural styles of Islamic Syria and Roman buildings such as the nearby aqueducts from Roman times, which still stand. The columns themselves are from Roman ruins and Visigothic churches. These artisans followed the Islamic prohibition—they do not portray humans. They looked to forms from nature and Arabic calligraphy for decorative elements.

 

Much later, after the Christian reconquest of Spain, a choir and high altar were built and enclosed within the open spaces of the Great Mosque. Other Christian chapels were added with time. The mosque, with its Arabic inscriptions, graceful, repeating geometric forms, and 850 pillars still stands today, a witness to the achievements of another era.

 

At the end of the reign of Abd Al Rahman III, problems of succession caused much instability. This opened the way for a new wave of Islamic Berbers from North Africa to capture Cordoba. The Berbers would not permit followers of Judaism and Christianity to practice their religions. They were purists, followers of a very restrictive order of Islam and didn’t approve of Islam as it was practiced in Cordoba. There was  ongoing warfare between the different city states, such as Granada, Seville, and others. Many people fled.

 

Samuel Ibn Nagrila (or Samuel the Nagid—the prince) and his family were part of the exodus. He eventually became an advisor to the ruler of Granada and a great leader under him. He wrote poetry that described the political and military life of the Muslims and the world around him, providing the sole known source of information about this era.

 

Toledo: Creative Center

Toledo was another of the city states that became a center for creativity. At one time Muslim, it was conquered by the Christian King Alfonso VI in 1085 and another fusion of cultures was under way. Cordoba’s loss was Toledo’s gain. 

 

Under Alfonso VI, Toledo became the center of the Christian world of the Iberian Peninsula. Christians from the Arabic world,  the Mozarabs, now encountered Christians who followed the Latin traditions of France. A new and vibrant artistic style called Mudejar  developed under Muslims who remained after the Christians gained control. Churches and synagogues were built using Islamic decorative and architectural styles.

 

Extensive libraries were built in Toledo. They grew up around the Arabic collections from the Muslim era. Archbishop Raymond of Toledo (1126-1151), originally from France, encouraged scholars to begin translating the books in the libraries of Toledo. Students came from all over to study. The institution that grew around the libraries was called the School of Translators. The scientific and philosophical works of the Greeks had previously been translated into Arabic.  Now, they were translated into the spoken vernacular languages of the time. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worked together on this project. Often Jews who read Arabic would read a text and speak it out loud in Castilian, the romance language that was spoken locally. Then a Christian working with him would translate it into Latin.

Many synagogues were built in Al Andalus in the years before 1492. Some have been destroyed or altered beyond recognition, but a few are extant and give a sense of what existed at the time. Two of these are in Toledo. One synagogue,  named Santa Maria La Blanca, because it was converted to a church after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, is a dramatic building with rows of horseshoe arches and columns in geometric and floral designs. Possibly it was built by the finance minister of a Christian king, Alfonso VIII of Castile. The other synagogue, called El Transito, was built around 1357 by Samuel Halevi, advisor to a Christian king, Pedro the Cruel. It is a large rectangular room with beautifully patterned geometric stucco carvings. There are inscriptions in Hebrew and Arabic around the walls, not surprising since Arabic was one of the spoken languages of the period. El Transito has recently been renovated and opened as a museum of Spanish-Jewish culture.  Another much smaller synagogue in Cordoba is in the same tradition.

 

Sectarianism Prevails

Why did this era of cooperation end and intolerance gain such a foothold?  Scholars have proposed various ideas. Outside influences increased. Neither the Berbers from North Africa nor the Christians north of the Pyrenees had traditions of tolerance. Then, in the mid-1300s, millions died of the Black Death, the Bubonic plague. The basic structures of society were shaken by this scourge. The plague provided enough instability for Ferdinand and Isabella to gain a stronghold. With Spain reunited under one monarchy, the terms of citizenship were redefined.

 

In 1492, the last of the Muslim rulers departed. Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion of all Jews and Muslims, even those whose ancestors had contributed much to the development of the country. Newly reunited Spain entered mainstream Western history.

 

 

* Beryl Goldberg is a freelance photographer in New York City.