Was Moorish Spain’s Democratic Model, 711 – 1492 (before Ferdinand 11 and queen Isabella 1, 1492 – 1504) A Better Model For The World Community?
“IF WE SIMPLY LOOK AT DEMOCRACY AS A FORM OF POLITICAL RULE, WE EXCLUDE A WHOLE RANGE OF ISSUES THAT OUGHT TO BE ATTENDED TO IN DISCUSSIONS ABOUT DEMOCRACY. “
“WHY IS IT THAT THIS MYTH OF THE UNITED STATES AS THE FIRST DEMOCRACY CONTINUES TO COMMAND SO MUCH ATTENTION? AS YOU SAID, IT WAS ACTUALLY A DEMOCRACY OF THE MINORITY, WHICH OUGHT TO BE OXYMORONIC.”
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" Isabella I of Castile was born on April 22, 1451. Her cousin Ferdinand II of Aragón was born on March 10, 1452. They married in 1469, the year Isabella became queen of Castile. Their two kingdoms were formally united when Ferdinand became king of Aragón in 1479.
In the 1400's, Spain was made up of several kingdoms. Aragón, Castile, and Navarre were controlled by Christians. But another kingdom, Granada, was ruled by the Moors (Muslims from North Africa).
Ferdinand and Isabella were called the Catholic Monarchs. They wanted Spain to be inhabited only by Christians. In 1483, with the cooperation of Pope Sixtus IV, they revived a brutal organization called the Inquisition. It was first organized in the 1100's to root out heretics (people who did not believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church). Ferdinand and Isabella hoped a new Inquisition would unite the Spanish people under one religion and make them loyal subjects. Many heretics were burned at the stake."
At the same time, Ferdinand and Isabella fought to drive the Moors from Spain. In 1492 they captured the kingdom of Granada. Then they ordered the Moors—and also the Jews—to either convert to Christianity or leave Spain. Thousands fled.
That same year, the monarchs sponsored Christopher Columbus on a voyage to find a new route to Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean. Ferdinand and Isabella supplied Columbus with money and ships. But instead of finding Asia, Columbus discovered what came to be known as the New World. He claimed the land and all of its wealth for Spain.
Thomas Jefferson (one of the founding fathers of the United States of America), a man in constant search of ways to increase his knowledge, must have believed that the Moors were on to something because included in his library of books was a copy of the Koran.
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Excerpts from ‘IRONY”:
Based on information we have gathered, we can ascertain that the Moors, within a short turnaround time, made Al Andulus into a stronghold of culture, commerce, and beauty.
Here we can observe Moorish understanding of the value of acquiring and preserving knowledge. As you can see, the Moors were the best thing to happen to Spain. They worked in harmony with the indigenous people of this new land. They brought skills, knowledge, new items, and asset of economic stability and growth to a place that was in dire need and did not possess these things.?The Moors brought much to the table to Spain. Without the arrival of the Moors, Spain might still be in the Middle Ages. Their Renaissance might not have ever come.
The beginning of the ninth century saw Moorish Spain as the gem of Europe, with its capital city Cordova in southern Spain. Cordova became the intellectual center of Europe and with the establishment of Abdurrahman III – “the great caliphate of Cordova” – ushered in the golden age of Al-Andalus.
The writer noted, “at a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". (Digest, 1973, p. 622) "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries." (Burke, 1985, p.38).
This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. Tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Moorish Spain, "thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords."
Because tolerance was promoted by all, the Moors, inadvertently showed, that they were practicing the tenets of Christianity. Their stance resounded with words taken from the book of Isaiah 11:6 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid”.??This is true for all of the animals, including us, Homo sapiens, the highest form of animal life that God Has created.
?The society had a literary rather than religious base. Economically their prosperity was unparalleled for centuries.?The aristocracy promoted private land ownership and encouraged Jews in banking. There was little or no Muslim proselyting. Instead, non-believers simply paid an extra tax! (Burke,1985, p.38). ...