Level 5 Reading 11B

Reading 11B

WHEN THE MOORS RULED SPAIN From the Rock of Gibraltar, writer Thomas J. Abercrombie set out to explore a forgotten corner of Europe's past. "Perfect weather for a morning's sail—or an intercontinental passage," said my Spanish shipmate, Rafa, as I scanned the rising mists ahead. Suddenly a silhouette of our destination appeared above the haze ahead: Gibraltar. "Wow, what a beauty!" Rafa exclaimed. A beacon for mariners since the dawn of seafaring, the famous Rock of Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules (Jabal Musa, behind us on the northern coast of Africa, formed the other). For ancient Romans and Greeks, the pillars marked the boundary of the known world. For me, the stronghold marked the fist stop on a journey into a neglected corner of Europe's history, a distant time when Muslims ruled Spain and Islam had a powerful influence on the West. "Only recently have the Spanish begun to approach their Islamic past," Rafa told me. ln recent years, Rafa had presided over a Madrid-based institute that promotes cultural exchange between Spain and its Muslim neighbors. "We are finding that much of what we think of as 'pure Spanish,' our architecture, our temperament, our poetry and music—even our language— is a blend from a long Arabic heritage." Rafa and I were sailing in the wake of Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Muslim general. With soldiers and horses in four boats, he crossed from Ceuta camp on the narrow ledge below, on the African side—as did we— and set up camp on the narrow ledge below, where the town of Gibraltar sits today. In the spring of 711, he marched northward with 12,000 Muslims. At the Rio Barbate, south of Cadiz, the invaders met the hastily assembled forces of Spain's Visigoth king, Roderic. "Before us is the enemy; behind us, the sea," shouted Tariq, drawing his sword and invoking Allah for his blessing and support. "We have only one choice: to win!" The battle of Barbate proved a mortal wound for the weak Visigoth ruler. King Roderic was slain; his body was never recovered. Whole battalions of soldiers fled, and the Christian army collapsed. The Islamic conquest of Spain had begun. The creed of Islam had been revealed to the seventh-century prophet-statesman Muhammad in distant Arabia. It spread swiftly, embracing the entire desert peninsula by the time of his death in 632. Six years later, Syria and Palestine fell to the Muslims, and from their new capital in Damascus, Muslim armies spread eastward through Mesopotamia to India and Central Asia, westward to the Nile and across North Africa. A century after the birth of Islam, its call to prayer rang from minarets all the way from the Atlantic to the outskirts of China, an empire larger than Rome's at its height. History named the Muslim conquerors of Spain "Moors," probably because they arrived by way of Morocco, but the Moors themselves never used the term. They were Arabs, from Damascus and Medina, leading armies of North African Berber converts. Most married into Spanish and Visigoth families

or took fair-skinned Galician slaves as wives. From this mix of race and culture sprang a civilization that would have a major influence on Spain, including its language: the name Gibraltar descends from Jabal Tariq, Arabic for "Tariq's mountain." From Gibraltar, I followed Tariq's footsteps northward. After the victory at the Rio Barbate, he moved swiftly, with Spanish cities falling to him in quick succession. Early in 712, his soldiers rode through the gates of the Visigoth capital, Toledo, where the remaining Christian armies were forced to retreat to the northernmost mountains of Spain. The Moors' hold of Toledo lasted for over 300 years. In 1085, it fell to Alfonso Vl of Castile and Leon, who thereby initiated the Reconquista—the Reconquest of Spain by the Christians. For several centuries after Toledo's recapture, the city remained liberal, tolerant, and bilingual. Alfonso X supported an important 13th-century translation school where Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars collaborated to translate manuscripts into Latin— works by the Greek scholars Aristotle and Ptolemy; empirical studies of algebra and mathematics by al-Khwarizmi; and the Canon of lbn Sina (Avicenna), which remained Europe's standard medical textbook for 500 years. Today, the whole city of Toledo has been declared a national monument, and it remains the country's religious capital. Mosques and synagogues have been restored and splendid palaces opened to the public— museums to display Toledo's abundant cultural heritage. But there is a dark side, too, to the region's history. In 1469, Prince Ferdinand of Aragon wed Princess Isabella of Castile, uniting Christian Spain under their rule. They waged war against Moorish rulers to the south and persecuted Muslims and Jews in their own lands. In 1480 they established the Spanish Inquisition. Before it was over, three centuries later, thousands of Muslims and Jews had died, and an estimated three million people had been driven into exile. Having lost many of its leading businessmen, artists, and scientists, Spain found itself a victim of its own cruelty. From Toledo, a train ride south brought me to Andalucia, a region where Islamic culture sank its deepest roots. Perhaps it is not surprising: Southern Spain, with its warm, gentle landscape, grape vines, and olive and citrus trees, is almost a mirror of parts of Morocco and the eastern Mediterranean. Here the Arabs felt at home. In 756, Prince Abd-al-Rahman, whose dynasty had been overthrown in Syria, planted his capital at Cordoba in Andalucia's heartland. Under his successors, Cordoba blossomed into a city of half a million people with more than 20 suburbs, 500 mosques, 300 public baths, 70 libraries, and long stretches of paved, lamp-lit streets. The largest city in western Europe, Cordoba rivaled Baghdad and Constantinople as the greatest cultural center of the world. The highlight for most visitors to Crdoba is its Mezquita-Catedral, or Mosque-Cathedral, which in 1986 celebrated its 1,200th anniversary. Begun by the first Abd-al-Rahman, it is a shrine that rivals in size Islam's holiest in Mecca, and that still today retains its status as the crown jewel of Moorish architecture.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, l wandered through a forest of more than 800 columns and Moorish arches. My footsteps led me to the mosque's domed mihrab, or prayer area. Arabic calligraphy decorated the walls, declaring "... praise to Allah who led us to this place." In the dim vastness, I hardly noticed the cathedral. After the Christian Reconquest, Catholics began using the Mezquita as a church and for 300 years held services there. Then the clergy persuaded Emperor Charles V to raise a cathedral in its midst, despite strong protests from city leaders who felt that amending the building in this way would violate its sanctity. Later, when he inspected the rather banal addition to the extraordinary mosque, Charles confessed disappointment: "By installing something that is commonplace," he declared, "you have destroyed what was once unique." When Cordoba fell to the Christian Reconquest in 1236, and when Seville fell 12 years later, the Moors found themselves confined to a 320-kilometer strip along Spain's southeast coast, curving from Gibraltar to Almeria. Here sultans of the Nasrid dynasty ruled from their stronghold at Granada. From 1248 to 1354, they raised their masterpiece, a clay-red palace-fortress known as the Alhambra. I climbed the hill leading to the Alhambra with Professor Miguel Jose Hagerty, a lecturer on Arabic poetry at the University of Granada. "Arab Spain nurtured scores of poets, and many of its rulers—Abd-al-Rahman I, for instance— were poets in their own right," Professor Hagerty said. Strict Islamic tradition discourages the making of "graven images," so painting and sculpture never flourished among the Moors. Instead, they channeled creative energy into language. With its wealth of vocabulary, its distinctive sounds, its flowing calligraphy, Arabic is well suited to the task. "Little has been translated," he said, but he quoted some lines that survived the journey into Spanish in English. From Ibn al-Sabuni: I present you a precious mirror Behold there the beauty that consumes me O furtive love, your reflection is more yielding And better keeps its promises The Nasrid rulers' mansions of the Alham bra make up the most visited site in Spain. It is a miracle that they survived the centuries: They have been abused by squatters, eroded by neglect, and suffered various appendages, including a massive addition built during the Renaissance by Charles V. The integrity of the Alhambra endures nonetheless, a sublime Moorish mix of artifact and nature. Here the walls themselves speak—if you know Arabic. We found quotations and poems in the calligraphy of the walls, archways, and fountains. One marble fountain declared: No greater mansions I see than mine No equal in East or West. I had to agree. Even in the oil-rich Arab countries of today, architects with unlimited budgets have yet to match the Alhambra. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella sealed the fate of the weakening Granada sultans. In 1492, the same year that they launched Christopher Columbus on his historic voyage across the Atlantic, the king and queen rode into Granada to preside over the abdication of the last Moorish ruler, Muhammad Abu-Abdullah—Boabdil, as the Spanish call him. On the way out of Cordoba, I paused at a pass above the city called Suspiro del Moro, "the Sigh of the Moor." It was here Boabdil stopped to look back and shed a tear over his lost kingdom. According to legend, his domineering mother, Aisha, berated him for passively allowing his kingdom to fall: "Fitting you cry like a woman over what you could not defend like a man." The remote villages of the Alpujarras, halfway up the southern slopes of Mulhacen, Spain's highest peak, were the last domains of the Moors in Spain until they were finally driven into exile in 1609. Many towns still wear their Arabic names, as does Mount Mulhacen and the Alpujarras itself. I descended from the mountains via a series of sharp turns to a very different world: Spain's Costa del Sol—tropical, cosmopolitan, and booming. In 2018, 82 million visitors came to Spain, nearly two for every Spaniard. "It's an invasion— but a peaceful one," says Costa del Sol Tourist Board promotion manager Diego Franco. All over the coastal region are signs of modern-day Moors; signs in Arabic script point you to the Lebanese Delicatessen, the Banco Saudi-Espanol, to Arab doctors, a Muslim cemetery... Near the Andalucia Plaza Casino, I drank coffee with Mokhles "George" El-Khoury, a Christian Arab who moved here from Beirut to run a building-management firm. "[Andalucia] reminds me of Lebanon—without the wars and politics," George said. "You have the mountains, the sea, the fine climate of olives and palm trees. The Spanish are a warm people, not stiff and formal like many Europeans. The food is much like ours, so is the shape of the houses and the towns. To an Arab— well, Andalucia feels like home." Nowhere is this more true than in the old Muslim capital of Cordoba, where I spent my last Spanish days. I was awakened there early one morning by the noise of workmen at the Mezquita across the street. No other artifact more richly evokes the golden age of the Moors, a stormy millennium that brought together two faiths, two cultures, two continents. Throughout, while king and sultan fought bitterly for the hand of Spain, ordinary life prospered as people of different backgrounds worked together to create the brilliant civilization that helped lead Europe out of the Dark Ages. Ultimately the Moors themselves faded into history, leaving behind their scattered dreams. But Spain and the West stand forever in their debt. THE ART OF FLAMENCO Arabic poetry was crafted, above all, for recital and song. In Morocco and Spain, the soul-stirring music of cante jondo, the deep song of flamenco, is still played and sung by descendants of ethnic minorities who survived the Inquisition centuries ago. Throughout Spain the art of flamenco is threatened by its commercialization in shows called tablaos, characterized by dramatic lighting and loud amplifiers. Sacrificed in the process is flamenco's most distinctive aspect, its duende: soul. But after midnight, it is still possible to sample flamenco puro ("pure Flamenco") in the bars of Granada's Albaicin area, when locals gather to recall the moods and rhythms of a lost age.

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