Kingdoms of faith

A New History of Islamic Spain, Brian A Catlos (Basic Books, May 2018; Hurst, July 2018)

Histories have a purpose. Catlos aims to dispel "myths" about the period, that Islamic Spain was a place of enlightened religious tolerance or that it invoked a "clash of civilizations", both of which play into competing modern narratives. I must admit that I thought we had already moved beyond such conventions to a realization that the reality was far more complex and subtle, that tolerance co-existed with brutality, and that people and polities regularly crossed the aisle, as it were.

This is hardly surprising, of course: real life rarely falls into straight lines and neat boxes. There were lots of moving parts: rarely was one side or the other unified under a single ruler; even when it was, there were continual internal divisions. Borders were moveable and porous, not just between the al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms, but also what we might consider the natural boundaries of "Spain".

Christian kingdoms allied with Muslim kingdoms of al-Andalus against other Christians and vice versa. Christian mercenaries, notably Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, otherwise known as El Cid, often found work where they could. El Cid defended Muslim Zaragoza against Aragón. Muslim rulers wed Christians. 'Abd al-Rahman III "was the son and grandson of Christian women" while Subh, the 10th-century queen of al-Hakam II,

was of Basque origin and had been well-trained in Arabo-Islamic high culture and adab, including singing, a fact that undoubtedly led to her being acquired by the caliph and finding a special place in his affections.

Although there were distinct ethnicities—descendants of the pre-invasion populations, Arab, Berber—these did not always map well onto either religion or language. Christians converted to Islam, a number of the Christian kings spoke Arabic; Arabic was written in Latin letters, the early Spanish of the day could be written in Arabic script. Catlos writes that

Abu Bakr ibn al-Qutiyya ("son of the Gothic woman"), a descendant of Visigothic royalty who gained renown as a philologist and qadi, composed a history that emphasized the collaboration of members of the native Christian elite in establishing Islamic dominion over al-Andalus.

And the one-time ruler of Valencia, Abu Zayd

astutely converted to Christianity together with his children, taking the name Vincent, after the patron saint of Valencia.

This is, write Catlos

A history of faith, curiosity, generosity, and creative spirit, but also of violence, pettiness, cruelty, greed, and hypocrisy. Arab al-Andalus was no Shangri-La of open-minded tolerance, nor were the Christians and Berbers who destroyed it barbarous philistines. There were no "good guys" and no "bad guys" on the civilization level, and few on the individual level.

There are," he write, "no moral lessons to be learned here." One learns what is in retrospect obvious:

If one thing emerges out of the history of al-Andalus, it is the complexity and ambivalence of the individuals who inhabited it, the individuals who, however strong their faith, were not merely "Christians," "Muslims," and "Jews," but people.

It is a common fallacy to consider the status quo the natural order of things. The East, however, can be West and sometimes the twain did meet, and for a very long time.