Al-Andalusia … Decline of a Plural Culture

Cities of Light: The Rise & Fall of Islamic Spain

Documentry at PBS

http://www.pbs.org/citiesoflight/

Re: # 57

A few months ago PBS showed a program on Muslim heritage of Spain. According to the researchers, the Muslim heritage, until now was being deliberately suppressed. It is only now in recent decade or two that the scholras over there are begining to take interest in that part of their history and they have begun to translate the Arabic record into Spanish or English. They showed some remarkable books on science mathematics, numeral system and algebra which were being translated. The most interesting thing was that they found Arabic architectural and masonary markings on some the 14th century churches and palaces in England suggesting that Spanish Muslim architects and woodworkers may have built those buildings. The documentary may still be found on PBS website. The thing is that at least Europe is waking up its repressed memories of the civilization from whom they inherited what they have today.

Re: # 56

The answer is at least two pre-Islamic festivals are celebrated in Saudi Arabia. Both festivals are also the two major festivals in Muslim world at large.

The first festival is the Eid-al-adha, or festival or sacrifice that goes back to approximately 5000 years before Islam dating back to Ibraham (pbuh) who tried to sacrifice his own son Ishmael (pbuh). The comemoration of that event (with sacrifice) continued among Jews for thousands of years except that the conside Jacob (pbuh) as the son who was to be sacrificed.

The second major festival, eid -al-fitre, or festival of feast has also roots in pre-Islamic tradition. It was originally a sort of festival of harvest.

These two festivals are the major festivals celebrated through the Muslim world now.

"How many pre-islamic festivals are celebrated in Saudi Arabia?? "

Both Eid and goat/cow chopping eid are preislamic festivals. Even Haj is pre-Islamic.

thanks urstruly..but these dont look like festivals which celebrate the great pluralism of mooring rule. i was wondering if there is folk-lore lamenting the glorious era bygone..lament form the locals about what was lost...esp incontrast to the dark periods of inquisitions.

#55 Hamed

And what about saudi arabia, afghanistan and pakistan? This is the question I have asked 10 times.

How multi-cultural are they? Or is it irrelevant to your noble discussion?

How many pre-islamic festivals are celebrated in Saudi Arabia??

Re:#47 Pmishra2

Many Muslim societies are more tolerant and multicultural than Western ones.

A good example on a grand scale is Indonesia. Look at the affirmation from the Whitehouse following 9-11:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010919-2.html

I seek simply to remind others in responding to you since I am deeply concerned that your mind is already made up and you come here not to learn, share or instruct, but simply to hate.

You and harimau should join a club or something and work out your furstrations in a gym or so something positive instead of contributing to the problem you claim you are so outraged by: namely, intolerance.

It is not good to feed that poison in your head and in your heart.

wow, urstruly, thanks for the information. These spanish people reminded me of pre-Islamic Arabs, and King Ferdinand and Isabella the original sufis!

Re: # 49

There are two festivals that are still celebrated in Spain to this day.

The first festival is called "San Vicente de Martir festival". In this festival the main event is throwing live goats from the church towers onto the pavement below. In an HBO show on cruelty to animals they showed that most of the goats die instantaly upon impact while others get each and every bone of theirs farctured and then later put to death by the mob gathered below. The following footage of the festival will give you an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmcoYYCtDo4

According to HBO, which I confirmed from other sources, the tradition started right after when armies of Isabella and Ferdinand wrestled Spain away from the Muslim. At that time Muslims were regularly thrown off from the church spires or from ridges for resisting christian armies or simply for refusing to convert to Chritianity. Since, the famous Spanish Inquisition immediately followed that period, the condemned now became the Jews, heretics, and those Muslims who until then were able to hide their true belief under cover of Christianity. The tradition continuesd for couple of centuries later and then human beings were replaced with live goats.

The second festival is the famous "First April's Fool festival". This festival started right after the collpase of Muslim rule when defeated Muslims requested King Ferdinand and Isabella to be given safe passage to Mauritania or Morroco along with their families. The generous kind accepted their request and thousands were hauled into ships leaving for African coasts. When those ships reached in deep waters, spanish warships that were escorting them turned on them and sank all of them drowning thousands of Muslims women, children, and men. The court of King Ferdinand was expecting the "good news" and as the news of "mission accomplished' reached the court; the court celebrated. That was the day of April the first. (I am forgetting the year). The court declared that day the day of national festivities every year, commemorating the fool's who drwned. This is one of the reasons one can hardly find a family on the North Africal coastline who can claim that their ancestors returned from spain. They were all drowned. This festival is now celebrated around the globe including Muslim world, without realizing that it is based on the one of the most horrible and horrendous attrocities in the history of mankind.

#48 Eklavya

Thanks for your reply. It is a real groveling "dhimmi" reply, one that did NOT answer my question. Why am I not surprised?

Good luck to you - maybe you can move to Saudi Arabia and serve as a PR person there? They need more people to propagate this "religion of peace" nonsense.

"surely the folks of those lands must have memories, folk-lores etc about the great muslim rule. are there any festivals, rituals"

Now I am not al-andulusia but I can answer that. Many rituatls and festivals die with the passage of time. If the current residents had an aversion to the symbols of the arab rule in al-andulusia, they would have gotten rid of all that. They are making money of those symbols is a one big example of how much they love them.

There are lots of people of spanish descend in South america and they still have names that are arab in origin such as ahemd and othe variations of different arab names. These are obvious symbols of attachement to the culture in al-andulusia.

Just to make a point: al-andulusia is not a symbol of some muslim plurality, it is showcase of arab rulers and their ability to make alliance with the local population to keep themselves in power.

How could a religion promote plurality? it is sheer nonsense that comes out of these Jamaat Islami inspired types.
Why do we get these uneducated from the ghettos of bombay also?

Al-andulusia is celebrated, all the time. In Pakistan.

jang, this concept of non-Muslim 'land' is what we have to forget.

i have one question on al-andulusia..surely the folks of those lands must have memories, folk-lores etc about the great muslim rule. are there any festivals, rituals wtc which celebrate this great pluralistic rule today? what is the memory of it amongst the people of those lands? e.g. hindus clebrate dussera as victory of (good) ram over (evil) ravan.

Mishra ji, but we see Muslim societies as monoliths when they are not. They are tolerant. From sufism to wahabism, there is a huge amount of of pluralism.

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Someone also asked why we have to read one article every two weeks (that used to be the standard for the Dawn when I used to scan through it) on the 'forgotten' achievements of a prince on the fringes, someone who was actually kicked out of his place, or about the Deen-E-Elahi follower Akbar as torchbearers for Islam.

Well, the reason is, that all others were always much 'better.' Think of it this way: if these people whom few would accuse of being the mainstream were so good, how good the mainstream would be?!!

Hopefully, when Mahmood Mahmood bhai writes his next article on Averrroes as the great and celebrated scholar and scientist of Islam, he will make all these things clearer (whether we will get it or not, given our unfortunately closed hearts, is a different matter).

#45 Eklavya

So how come we never get to discuss the return of pluralism to Afganistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? Why is it always inconvenient to discuss this topic?

There are 100s of these "muslims societies were tolerant once" discussions and papers and ZERO discussion of how to make muslim societies tolerant TODAY.

Why is that? Why the deafening silence??

Multiculturalism will take a big leap forward when somebody nukes Mecca. at the height of the Haj season.