I am sorry about my implication of stockholm syndrome Im am sorry I didn’t apprehend your ironic usage in the first two Yakaru,

Thanks for the information, but did you notice my quotation marks around the term golden age? My comment was brief and specific and not especially in conflict with any of the details you mention.

The summary of Bat Ye’or and Andrew Bostom’s article is
“The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility…Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later)…”
*************
I don’t believe in utopian societies where there is no pain and we are all in nirvana, but I do believe in improvement. My argument is Western society was able to increasingly and not always smoothly do away from really heinous stuff and make better life possible through practical technology
– and modern mores ARE better than ones in the 19th Century and before.

Islamic society needs to modernise – and become open to debate. – as Dario Fernandez-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise pp 92-94 points out even Visigothic Spain of the pre Islamic period had a clear separation of church and state – there was church law applying to itself and there was secular law, but Islam is the actual law of the land according to doctrine and practise – in medieval Islamic states and prior to the dissolution of the Caliphate in 1922 (e.g. Islamic lawbooks of Hanifa and Shaafi clearly show this, as does the Principles of Islamic Law, by Mohammed Hashim Kamali, and according to Patricia Crone, God’s Rule: Government and Islam political authority and religion have always been one in islam. TPart of this is because Christianity is more flexible (and in some ways weaker as an ideology) than Islam because of its philosophical tradition (it always allowed philosophical discourse to explain and defend some of its theology) and because of its division of church and state. Islam ultimately does not accept debate and empirical investigation if this involves theoretical questioning of the world. Translations of Greek and Persian works sparked initial inquiry patronised by some rulers but this was soon suppressed by clerical backlash. Revelation was then seen to be the basis of all reason – not dependant on any imperial observation and certainly not philosophical speculation. Some science continued to be acceptable e.g. Mathematics and optics was acceptable as long as it didn’t pose biological and moral questions) (e.g. Tanis Edris, An Illusion of Harmony and Edward Grant, A History of Natural Philosophy,

After the Reconquista and reestablishment of Christian rule in the fifteenth century Iberia, the North African Berber states began to sponsor piracy out of their ports, forcing some Western Christian states to pay tribute to have their shipping unmolested, and taking up to a million west European slaves from coastal raids. This went on for 3 centuries from 16th to 19th Centuries. The Congress of Vienna (1814–5), which ended the Napoleonic Wars, led to increased European consensus on the need to end Barbary raiding, but this did not entirely end until France invaded Algeria in 1830. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates
Even the Guardian ran an article about it a while ago

The Almohad Berber rulers in North Africa were not nice. Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif (1634 –1727) of Morocco was given the epithet “The bloodthirsty” for his legendary cruelty. In order to intimidate rivals, Ismail once ordered that his city walls be adorned with 10,000 heads of slain enemies. Legends of the ease in which Ismail could behead or torture laborers or servants he thought to be lazy are numerous. During the half century of Ismail’s rule, he is estimated to have killed 30,000 slaves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Ibn_Sharif
Ismail was of the Alaouite Dynasty – the dynasty in power for the last two hundred years of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsular. He kept at least 25,000 slaves at any one time, and treated them with extreme cruelty. When slaves died on public works, often of exhaustion, their blood would be mixed with lime and used as building material. He kept hundreds of concubines, whose girl children were strangled, and the boys, if they displeased him, would have their limbs cut off. The Sultan once famously said. “My subjects are like rats in a basket, and if I do not keep shaking the basket, they will gnaw their way through.”
http://lexicorient.com/e.o/moulay_ismail.htm © Copyright 1996-2007 LexicOrient. By: Tore Kjeilen Encyclopedia of the Orient
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6970555.stm

I don’t think it was “a wonderful cultural synthesis” at all. More like apartheid.
The myth of the Andalusian Paradise by Dario Fernandez-Moreira, ISI Books, Wilmington Delaware, May 2016 also
QUOTE FROM:
Andalusian Myth, Eurabian Reality, Bat Ye’or and Andrew G. Bostom, April 21, 2004 http://www.andrewbostom.org/2010/08/jihad-dhimmitude-and-muslim-spain/

Iberia (Spain) was conquered in 710-716 AD by Arab tribes originating from northern, central and southern Arabia. Massive Berber and Arab immigration, and the colonization of the Iberian peninsula, followed the conquest. Most churches were converted into mosques. Although the conquest had been planned and conducted jointly with a strong faction of royal Iberian Christian dissidents, including a bishop, it proceeded as a classical jihad with massive pillages, enslavement, deportations and killings.

Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut. In 730, the Cerdagne (in Septimania, near Barcelona) was ravaged and a bishop burned alive. In the regions under stable Islamic control, Jews and Christians were tolerated as dhimmis – like elsewhere in other Islamic lands – and could not build new churches or synagogues nor restore the old ones. Segregated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing. Subjected to heavy taxes, the Christian peasantry formed a servile class attached to the Arab domains; many abandoned their land and fled to the towns. Harsh reprisals with mutilations and crucifixions* [which is the qurannic punishment for rebellion against an Islamic ruler] would sanction the Mozart (Christian dhimmis) calls for help from the Christian kings. Moreover, if one dhimmi harmed a Muslim, the whole community would lose its status of protection, leaving it open to pillage, enslavement and arbitrary killing.

By the end of the eighth century, the rulers of North Africa and of Andalusia had introduced Malikism, one of the most rigorous schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and subsequently repressed the other Muslim schools of law. Three quarters of a century ago, at a time when political correctness was not dominating historical publication and discourse, Evariste Levi-Provencal, the pre-eminent scholar of Andalusia, wrote: “The Muslim Andalusian state thus appears from its earliest origins as the defender and champion of a jealous orthodoxy, more and more ossified in a blind respect for a rigid doctrine, suspecting and condemning in advance the least effort of rational speculation.”

The humiliating status imposed on the dhimmis and the confiscation of their land provoked many revolts, punished by massacres, as in Toledo (761, 784-86, 797). After another Toledan revolt in 806, seven hundred inhabitants were executed. Insurrections erupted in Saragossa from 781 to 881, Cordova (805), Merida (805-813, 828 and the following year, and later in 868), and yet again in Toledo (811-819); the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33.*

The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage, with 300 notables crucified and 20 000 families expelled. Feuding was endemic in the Andalusian cities between the different sectors of the population: Arab and Berber colonizers, Iberian Muslim converts (Muwalladun) and Christian dhimmis (Mozarabs). There were rarely periods of peace in the Amirate of Cordova (756-912), nor later.

Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Thousands of people were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim “inquisitors” (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt.

Sorry Yakaru, but an invasion and colonisation of a western country for 800 years must be an “invasion for 500 years”? Its like Stockholm syndrome.

In Andalusian Spain the dhimmis (Christians and Jews) constituted the Lowest rung of society followed by recent converts to Islam. This is because Islam traditionally teaches that Muslims are superior to the kaffir (unbelievers). Thus NJ Dawood in the introduction to his translation of Quran (Penguin published) explains pp5&6 that scriptures from their prophets which the people wilfully distorted and that the correct view of their faith is actually Islam and the Quran as handed down by Muhammud the final Prophet whose coming was foretold by the earlier Abrahamic prophets. The Quran 9:23 says that the dhimmi are to “feel themselves subdued”. The Maliki school that the first Muslim conquers subscribed to say that the Jizya (special tax on Dhimmis) is imposed on them “to humble them”. The jizya could be increased at the whim of the ruler. p213 The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, Intercollegiate Studies Institute Books, Wilmington Delaware, May 2016 Dario Fernandez-Moreira,

The dhimmi had to present the money to a Muslim seated on an elevated platform, who would seize his throat saying “Oh dhimmi enemy of Allah, pay the Jizya that you owe us for the protection and tolerance we grant you”.(p 209) In Islam slaves are originally captured non Muslims who are not allowed to become dhimmis, ransomed or killed. In Islamic law all booty (including slaves) must be taken back to lands ruled by Muslims before it is formally distributed or used (Hidaya). Slaves are converted and their descendants are usually freed, or if they have child by the master, they must be freed when the master dies. Dhimmis and their descendants must always pay extra tax as long as they fail to convert. The third Caliph Umar advocated to the Muslims that they allow captives to be dimmis, not slaves, for :
“The Muslims of our day will eat [from the work of] these people as long as they live. And when we and they die, our sons will eat their sons forever, as long as they remain, for they are slaves to the religion of the people of Islam as long as the religion of Islam shall prevail.” (p 209) The Myth of the Andalusian paradise Dario Fernandez-Morera.

Islamic sharia law also prescribes much lesser penalties to physical offences against the non Muslim dhimmi living in Muslim lands than for a Muslim person (Hidaya guide to the Islamic laws of the Hanifis, p 209-10 Fernandez Morera) A Muslim must not initiate a greeting with a Christian or assist the Christian poor (this latter is acceptable in the Hanifi school only). Various laws existed for all the Sunni law schools which reduced sexual interaction between the faiths, except where conversion to Islam is involved. Muslim women may not marry non muslims, but a man may; however the children must be raised Islamic. Islamic law forbade a non muslim to be in a position of authority over a Muslim (p 221) The testimony of a dhimmi was not acceptable in any legal case involving only Muslims (also in other schools)

Muslim law maintains that Muslims must not touch food, clothing, water and other items touched by dhimmis as it had become unclean, and mandates that they should not adopt the ways of speaking, manners or customs of dhimmis. Dhimmis in Spain and elsewhere (eg the Ottoman empire) were allowed their own religious laws under the overall sovereignty of Islamic law. However they had to wear distinctive clothes bearing no resemblance to Muslim clothes, could not wear religious emblems (such as a cross) They were forbidden to build new religious buildings, and often from repairing existing ones (this is in the Hidaya of the Hanifas also) Additionally Christians could not ring church bells or hold services or parades outside, or proselytise, and their churches could not be much taller than any mosque, which meant that pre-existing large churches and cathedrals were converted into mosques, although a mosque could not be converted into a church. Dhimmis had to stand up in the presence of Muslims, they could not carry weapons and could not ride, except donkeys, and then only mounted sidesaddle as a mark of humiliation.) In cities that had offered resistance, churches were destroyed and mosques built on the site or converted. Some rulers destroyed churches, statues and relics in peacetime. All settlements towns and landmarks were given Arabic names, and dhimmis had to speak, read and write Arabic in their commercial, social and political transactions. If dhimmis wanted to escape all this , they only had to convert, although they would then not be treated as equal to a Muslim until their family had been converts for generations. pp 210-16

Jews were treated badly in Visigoth Spain prior to the Muslim conquest, which encouraged them to side with the Muslims. pp 219-222 when ..According to Bat Yeor

The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Bat Ye’or, 1985 revised edition, Associated University Press, Cranbury, New Jersey, see Chapter Two explaining the condition of dhimmitude
Also give reference or references on situation of Serbs (from part 5 of early versions of book perhaps)

Jews however, were also dhimmis and did not have an easy time in Adalusia, which was as I mentioned ruled first by the Almoravids and then by the Almohad dynasty. Despite the Qur’annic protection of the faith on condition of dhimmitude, Jews were forced to convert in North Africa under the Almohads, and later in Yemen, Morocco and Baghdad. Jews were first required to wear the yellow badge as a marker in the ninth century, under the command of Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil.
H.E.W. Young, British Vice-Consul in Mosul (northern Iraq), wrote in 1909:

The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.

In 1066 around five thousand Jews from Granada are thought to have been killed in the pogrom that followed the crucifixion of the Jewish Vizier there, thirty years prior to the first Crusade. It is likely the pogrom was inspired by the writings of the poet Abu Ishaq (1029-1087), who inveighed:

“Put them back where they belong and reduce them to the lowest of the low … turn your eyes to other [Muslim] countries and you will find the Jews there are outcast dogs … Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them … They have violated our covenant with them so how can you be held guilty against the violators?”

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim “inquisitors” (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned Jewish philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Maimonedes said “..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us…Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they..”
Andalusian Myth: Eurabian Reality, By Bat Ye’or and Andrew Bostom 21 April 2004
http://www.andrewbostom.org/2010/08/jihad-dhimmitude-and-muslim-spain/

Fernandez Morera’s book outlines a history of extortion, humiliating subordination, and periodic uprising followed by fierce punishment (crucifixions of participants, enslavements of women, looting). The Bat Ye’or and Bostom article summarises the situation succinctly
The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility…Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later)…

Averroes attitude to women was exceptional amongst the medieval Muslim intellectuals; according to Patricia Crone God’s Rule (she was a fluent Arabic speaker and reader and a third of her references are in Arabic) was the only one who explicitly didn’t regard women as stupid, not fit for any education, and appropriately kept at home, out of the workforce in semi purdah, breeding.

Heather, we were talking about Daesh and the erroneous claim that Islam is the only reason gays are being thrown from roof tops by them. I wouldn’t make the same argument if we were talking about what Saudi does to it’s own population, but what they do is not relevant to my argument re Daesh.

Ken, this ignores the fact that there are several countries, which are allied with the West, Saudi Arabia being the most prominent example, where it is illegal to be gay and it is punishable by death, and this sentence is carried out on a regular basis. This was happening long before the West screwed things up there and will keep on happening as long as conservative Islam is in charge of those countries. The only thing that will change that is reform of the religion.

Yakaru, you must know how simplistic that argument is, given our repeated debates. I’m really not sure why it remains so attractive after all this time. It is generally accepted that the events that brought Daesh into prominence have hugely to do with western imperialism, from the original funding and training of military jihadists groups by the west, to the destabilisation of Iraq. Even the tactic of killing gays and others in gruesome ways is meant to get western attention and provoke further intervention. Of course it is true that if Islamists weren’t involved, their particular atrocities would not occur, but focusing solely on Islam as the thing in need of change is to miss the huge forest for a few trees. When it comes to terrorism, our goal is surely to reduce it, so we need to focus on what actions will make a difference. Complaining about even true things about Islam just won’t. There is no way that we can ever prevent crazy people from using some theology to justify grotesque acts. What we can do is address what enables them to be in a position to practice their grotesqueness, particularly when our actions have played such a great role. So not only is western imperialism wholly relevant in a causal sense, but changing our approach in the ME is also the main lever we have to keep many more people from being thrown off buildings in the future. Hence ignoring it is not just academically wrong, but morally wrong too.

@Ken,
The reason ISIS kills gays is entirely Islamic. (And for Paxton, yes, the Bible also says to kill gays, and if more Muslims realized the Koran is largely derived from the Bible rather than the final word of God, they might find it in themselves to reflect more on their attitudes to gays — which *is* a massive problem in Muslim culture worldwide.)