The glory that was al-Andalus

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam

I live in a town whose name is Madrid (Mayerit), studied at a prestigious local university called University of Alcala (al-Quilat an Nahar), spend my week-ends and holidays at a country cottage near a village called Guadaljara( Guad al- Jarras) and speak a language which has got hundreds of Arabic words in its vocabulary. From all this, one could easily conclude that I live in a Muslim country. That would be wrong. The country where I live is Spain. In spite of the presence of the vestiges of the great Hispano- Muslim civilisation in almost every walk of life, Spain today is a predominantly Catholic country where only a few hundred thousand Muslims live, most of whom are immigrants from Africa and Asia. But many centuries ago things were quite different.

At the beginning of the eighth century, Spain was in turmoil because of social unrest and internal strife among the nobility. The Roman imperial rule had collapsed. The Visigoths, a Germanic people, who used to be referred to as the barbarians by the Romans had gradually, over a period of two centuries, consolidated their hold on the peninsula. But they had great difficulty in being accepted by the conquered Hispano-Roman population because of different linguistic, ethnic, legal, cultural and religious (The Visigoths , although later converted to Catholicism, at the time of the invasion practised a heretical faith called Arian Christianity) backgrounds. For some time even marriage between members of these two communities was prohibited by law. There was very little commercial activity. Most of the Hispano-Romans earned their livelihood from working in agriculture and animal husbandry while the best cultivable land often belonged to the Visigoth noble families. Hunger and poverty were quite common among the poorer classes because of frequent draughts. The vast majority of Hispano-Romans did not identify themselves with the ruling Visigoths. They lived under such appalling conditions that they believed that a change in the governing class might improve their living conditions.

On the political front, there were continuous plots and counter-plots among the Visigoth noble families. The situation was made worse by the Gothic tradition of electing their monarchs from among the nobles whenever a reigning monarch was assassinated or died a natural death, which often led to civil wars. There was no such thing as natural heirs through hereditary succession. In an attempt to install a system of peaceful transition of power through hereditary succession, King Witiza (700-710) named his son Aquila as his successor. But this was opposed by a group of nobles led by Duke Roderick, who proclaimed himself king of Spain after the death of King Witiza. Civil war broke out between the two camps in 710.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the straits, in Africa, the Muslims who in only a few years after the death of Prophet Muhammad had built up a formidable military machine and conquered the whole of North Africa, were carefully watching the situation in Spain for an opportunity in invade the country. That opportunity came when Witiza's family members invited the Muslims to help them defeat Roderick, whom they considered as a usurper. It is of historical relevance to mention here that if internal strife among the Christian Spaniards was what paved the way for the Muslim conquest of Spain, it is equally true that eight centuries later, internecine wars among the Muslim Spaniards was the principal reason for their downfall and eventual disappearance from Spain.

Although in most history books, the year 711 is mentioned as the year when the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula began, this is not quite true. Actually, the first Muslim soldiers set foot on the peninsula a year before. This is true that in 711, a Muslim army of approximately seven thousand soldiers under the command of a Berber (not Arab) general called Tariq ibn-Ziyad landed at the foot of a mountain called Calpe in southern Spain. But almost a year before this landing, i.e. in 710 Tariq had sent a small contingent of soldiers (approximately four hundred men) as a reconnaissance force to the peninsula under the command of another Berber soldier called Tarif ibn Muluk to gather intelligence and prepare the ground for an eventual landing of a larger army. After so many centuries and vicissitudes of history, the places where they landed and built fortresses (now sizeable towns) still bear their names. Tarifa (Jazirat Tarif), the southern most -town on the Iberian Peninsula and Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq), still bear testimony to those historical events.

Tariq was a military genius. He knew that it was essential to move swiftly. After building a fortress at Gibraltar in only two months and securing his supply lines from North Africa, in July 711, he camped at a place near modern Cadiz, which he considered a suitable place to confront the numerically superior Spanish army which was coming down from the north at great speed with King Roderick at its head. It was the month of Ramadan. Both the armies fought valiantly. But strategic genius of Tariq and the Islamic zeal of his troops won the day. The Spanish army was completely routed. King Roderick was later killed and the whole of Iberian Peninsula lay open to Muslim domination. Instead of returning to Africa, Tariq headed north and conquered Toledo (90 kilometres from Madrid), the capital of the Visigoth kingdom in the same year. (By the way, Madrid or Mayerit was founded sometime in the middle of the ninth century as a garrison town by Emir Mohammad of Cordoba to defend Toledo.)

Next year, (in 712), Tariq's superior, General Musa ibn Nusayr , landed in the peninsula at the head of a largely Arab army composed of approximately 12,000 soldiers to consolidate Muslim hold over the peninsula. He also set about the task of putting in place the rudiments of a government for the conquered territories. In a mere matter of 21 years after Tariq's first victory in 711, the Muslims conquered most of the Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), which eventually came to be known as al-Andalus. Some of the mountainous regions in the north remained in the hands of the Visigoths. It was from this small patch of unconquered territory that the Christians mounted their “reconquista” which eventually culminated in the fall of the last Muslim kingdom of Granada in 1492 and the “final solution of the Muslim problem” in 1609 and 1611.

The Muslims did not come to the peninsula to plunder and go back home with the pillage. They came to stay. They settled on lands taken over from the Visigoths. Unlike the Visigoths, who were against establishing family ties with the conquered, the Muslims readily intermarried with the Hispano-Romans and the Visigoths. It was also made necessary by the fact that the first waves of Muslim invaders did not bring any women with them. The locals converted to Islam in vast numbers and became known as the “new Muslims”. Although at the initial stage there were considerable rivalries among the various ethnic groups (the Syrians, the Yemenis, the Berbers and the new Muslims), gradually there evolved a mixed race of people whose common religion was Islam and the common language was Arabic. As their ties with the East loosened, the soldier- settlers and their descendants started considering al-Andalus as their homeland. They became Spaniards or Andalusis.

The privileged classes lived in walled cities. Traders, craftsmen, peasants lived both in towns and villages depending on business opportunities. The family structure was clearly patriarchal and agnatic. Women played a secondary role in the society. But unlike modern Spanish women, who only recently have acquired the right to make financial transactions without authorisation from their male folks, the Hispano-Muslim women could own properties and run businesses without any male supervision.

It was a highly urbanised society. The streets were narrow, noisy and full of hustle and bustle. While in small towns there were mosques, fountains, public parks, baths, libraries and markets only in the central area, in large cities there were similar facilities in the suburbs as well. Cordoba at the height of its glory had more than eight hundred fountains and six hundred public baths. Cleanliness was godliness for the Hispano-Muslims. Most major towns had underground sewage system. The public places, including the streets and market places were kept impeccably clean.

Cereal sorghum and olive oil were the staple diet of the poor, which was occasionally supplemented by chicken or meat. In the Levante region, people used to consume a lot of rice as well. With the development and success of irrigation agriculture, the introduction of new crops like apricot, artichoke, carob, rice, saffron, sugar, jujube, eggplant, parsnip, lemon, orange, grapefruit, carrot, dates etc. and the growth of a sophisticated middle lass, urban cuisine reached its excellence.

As far as the basic principles were concerned, the Hispano-Muslims were an intensely religious and family-oriented people. They prayed five times a day, paid Zakat, fasted from dawn to dusk in the month of Ramadan, which was considered as the month of quiet reflection and communal solidarity. They celebrated Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Azha with great fervour. On these occasions, they used to wear their finest clothes and go to the nearby mosque to pray. After the prayer, they used to invite the poor to share their food. They also used to buy new clothes for their family members and servants.

The local people who maintained Christianity as their religion adopted the language, food, clothes and customs of the Muslims and they came to be known as Mozarabes. The Jews, who were not treated well by the Visigoths, became a powerful community during the Muslim rule. Not only did they prosper in finance and commerce but also occupied important positions in the government bureaucracy.

Thus evolved a society in which the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews lived in peace and harmony. It was a remarkably tolerant society. During the course of the next eight hundred years, despite many civil wars among the kings and princes, the Muslims built a civilisation in al-Andalus, which became the envy of the world. They excelled in art, literature, science, architecture, agriculture, astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine, etc. and left their mark on every walk of life, when Christian Europe plunged into a state of intellectual hibernation. Now the question is: Why and how their enormous contributions to civilisation disappear from the collective memory of the Europeans and in particular, the Spaniards?

Well, it was a long and deliberate process which started as early as 718, only 7 years after Tariq's landing at Gibraltar when one of King Roderick's nephews called Pelayo made himself strong in the northern mountains and waited for an opportunity to counter-attack. Since most of the ordinary citizens of Gothic Spain, who were Hispano-Romans had accepted Muslim rule because they were treated so unfairly by the Visigoths, a common cause had to be found to rally them against the Muslim invaders. Catholicism was the answer. From then onwards the Catholic Church played a progressively important role in uniting the new Catholics like the Goths and the old Catholics like the Hispano-Romans against the “infidels”, i.e. the Muslims. From this small beginning, the Church and the Christian princes successfully mounted the “reconquista” which slowly but steadily advanced over a period of eight centuries until the last Muslim armies of the king of Granada were defeated in 1492.

Islam was banned. All Islamic customs and traditions were prohibited. Arabic books were burnt in public squares. Some well-to-do Muslims left the country. But the vast majority was forcibly converted to Catholicism. The newly converted adopted Christian names and outwardly accepted Christianity but in private continued to practise Islamic rituals. Although they were officially classified as “Moriscos” (baptised Moors), in reality they were not considered as true Christians by the authorities but as crypto-Muslims (secret Muslims). After a series of repressive measures, in 1609 and 1611 (more than one hundred years after the fall of Granada), a policy of “final solution” of the Morisco problem was put into practice. Royal decrees were published ordering the expulsion of all the Moriscos to Africa. Tens of thousands were massacred and the lucky ones escaped with their lives to Africa.

To justify all this, the Church worked out a long-term strategy. From the pulpits across the country, the priests demonised Islam and the Muslims- they were the enemies of God and country. Thus religious and racial intolerance were allowed to take root in the collective psyche of the people and the Muslims as a community came to be considered as irredeemably “the other”. Revised language and belief systems were introduced and propagated by the dominant group to perpetuate its hegemony and power structure. The Church certainly did a good job. To the ordinary Spanish mind, Islam and the Muslims came to be considered as things utterly negative. Thus eight centuries of Muslim presence in the peninsula was brought to an unworthy end. The Catholic Church certainly deserves a lot of credit for the final victory of the Catholic kings over the Muslims and the subsequent demonisation of Islam but in reality, the Muslims were responsible for their own defeat. The incessant fratricidal wars among the Muslim kings and princes which plagued the entire period of the existence of the Hispano-Muslim civilisation were primarily responsible for its final downfall.

Today there are no legal bars to practise Islam. Article 16 of the Spanish constitution guarantees ideological and religious freedom to all Spanish citizens and foreigners living in Spain. According to reliable estimates, today there are approximately 600,000 Muslims in Spain, most of whom are immigrants (many of them illegal). A little over 100,000 are Spanish citizens of Arab origin who live in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa. In recent years at least twenty thousand Spanish Christians have voluntarily converted to Islam. The largest immigrant group comes from Morocco. According to unofficial estimates, there are approximately twenty thousand Bangladeshi immigrants in Spain, most of whom work as street vendors, small shopkeepers or restaurant owners.

In their quest for a better life, every week, hundreds of illegal Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India try to enter Spain from Africa. In the process many of them drown in the turbulent waters of the straits. Even then they come and try to find work in “the black economy” as temporary agricultural or construction labourers. They live in precarious conditions but they practise their religion with firm conviction. Leaving aside the grand mosques in Madrid, Valencia, Marbella, Ceuta and Melilla, there are at least three hundred other small neighbourhood mosques or prayer halls in Spain, which are maintained by small subscriptions from Muslim immigrants. Unfortunately, in some cases, these prayer halls operate in a clandestine manner because of the difficulty in obtaining permits. In other places, licences to build mosques have been denied by the authorities because of hostile reaction from the local population. In spite of the difficulty involved in Friday being a working day, the faithful pack many of these prayer halls on Fridays. Ramadan is observed with rigour. Small shopkeepers, restaurant workers and unemployed immigrants gather at prayer halls for Iftar and evening prayer. These places also function as community centres where the needy are given food and warm clothing. Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Azha are celebrated all over the country with fervour. On these occasions the Muslims shed their day-to-day garb and wear long Islamic clothes, perfume their bodies and go to their neighbourhood mosques to pray. After the prayer, different communities like the Bangladeshis or the Moroccans or the Malaysians get together with other members of their respective communities for lunch and to exchange gifts.

After almost five centuries of exile, Muslims are now coming back to Spain. In comparison with other European countries, the Muslim immigrants receive much better treatment here. Most modern Spaniards are not hostile to them. The government and the majority of Spaniards appreciate their contribution to the economy. But unfortunately, Bush's so-called war on terror has created an atmosphere of suspicion and fear among some Spaniards. The government and some cultural organisations are trying to counter its negative effects by taking initiatives such as the Alliance of Civilisations or organising seminars and exhibitions on Islam. Looking at the great Hispano- Muslim civilisation in the wider context of human history, no self-respecting Spaniard can deny the fact that “it (the Hispano-Muslim civilisation) embodied what came before and illuminated what came after”.