Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain Book

."The ornament of the world" is the famous description of Cordoba given to her readers by the tenth-century Saxon writer Hroswitha, who from her far-off convent at Gandersheim perceived the exceptional qualities and the centrality of the Cordoban caliphate.




María Rosa Menocal (1953-2012)

Cuban-born scholar of medieval culture and history and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University … degrees from the University of Pennsylvania ... taught Romance philology at the University of Pennsylvania … director of the Yale Whitney Humanities Center for several years … co-editor of The Literature of Al-Andalus in the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature series … elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2011 and inducted into the Fellows of the Medieval Academy in March 2012. (Wiki)


The book - Forward & first chapter

The book was published in 2002, with the subtitle How Muslims, Jews, and Christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval Spain. Ironic, in light of the happenings of the previous September - to say nothing of the religious hatred and intolerance in the Middle East over the past many decades.

Harold Bloom, in the Forward, describes the book as "a love song addressed to the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian (mostly troubadour) poets of what once we called the High Middle Ages. He continues:I hesitate to nominate a single hero of the book (Menocal's heart seems to belong to the warrior-poet Samuel the Nagid, who reinvented Hebrew poetry), but I would vote for Ibn Hazm, also a warrior-poet, but in Arabic, whose The Neck-Ring of the Dove, a handbook on romantic love, is also a monument to devastated Cordoba, its great era forever past. Menocal presents Ibn Hazm as a Don Quixote, holding on to an aesthetics, an erotics, and a cultural tradition unrecoverable but unforgettable.
Here I will try to summarize, largely in Menocal's words, the first chapter of the book, in which she lays out her thesis of the significance of the Iberian peninsula to the history of Europe.


"Beginnings"

Menocal begins her tale, "Once upon a time in the mid-eighth century, an intrepid young man named Abd al-Rahman abandoned his home in Damascus, the Near Eastern heartland of Islam, and set out across the North African desert in search of a place of refuge."

Five years later Abd al-Rahman reached today's Morocco, the Maghrib to the Muslims, from whence Abd's mother had been brought east. There he found that his Berber kinsmen had pushed to the west and then the north, across the Straights of Gibraltar into Iberia. To there al-Rahman followed.

Who was al-Rahman, and why did he leave Damascus? He was a prince of the Umayyad branch of the Muslim religion, the Umayyads who had first led the Muslims out of the desert of Arabia into the Fertile Crescent, and who were the direct descendants of the Prophet. In that mid-eighth century, in 750 exactly, the Umayyads had been massacred in Syria by the rival Abbasid branch of the religion, who had thus seized control of the empire called "the House of Islam". Abd al-Rahman was essentially the sole survivor.

When the surviving prince of the Umayyads reached Iberia five years later, he found "a thriving and expansive Islamic settlement" on the banks of the "Big Wadi", the river now known as the Guadalquivir. The capital of the settlement was the old Roman city of Corduba, renamed by its more recent conquerers, the Visigoths, "Khordoba". These Arabic settlers were calling the land al-Andalus.

Menocal relates how the arrival of this assumed-dead Umayyad prince in the western settlement suddenly threw the politics of the region into turmoil. The local emir offered al-Rahman permanent refuge and his daughter's hand in marriage, but al-Rahman, "the successor to the Prophet and the supreme temporal and spiritual leader of the Islamic world, could not be so easily bought off." He assembled forces loyal to him, both Syrians and Berbers of these western lands, and defeated his would-be father-in-law outside the walls of Cordoba in May 756, thus becoming the new governor of the westernmost province of the Islamic world.

Menocal, in the book, tells the story "of how this remarkable turn of events … powerfully affected the course of European history and civilization."Many aspects of the story are largely unknown, and the extent of their continuing effects on the world around us is scarcely understood, for numerous and complex reasons …
If we retell this story beginning with the narrative of that intrepid young man who miraculously evaded the annihilation of his line and migrated from Damascus to Cordoba, which he then made over into his new homeland, we end up with an altogether different vision of the fundamental parameters of Europe during the Middle Ages. … (The story) is about a genuine foundational European cultural moment that qualifies as "first rate", in the sense of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wonderful formula (from his essay "The Crack-Up") - namely, that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time." … Much that was characteristic of medieval culture was profoundly rooted in the cultivation of complexities, charms, and challenges of contradictions -of the "yes and no", as it was put by Peter Abelard, the infamous twelfth-century Parisian intellectual and Christian theologian.Finally, her method of telling this story, she says, will not be a "retelling of the history of the Middle Ages, or even that of medieval Spain". Instead, the book consists of "miniature portraits, that range widely in time and place, and that are focused on cultural rather than political events … they will, it is hoped, lay bare the vast distance between what the conventional histories and other general prejudices would have us expect (that, for example, Christians saw the Muslim infidels as their mortal enemy and spent seven hundred years trying to drive them from Spain) … they highlight stories that point to some of the unknown depths of cultural tolerance and symbiosis in our heritage, and they may begin to suggest a very different overall portrait of this "middle" age.


The rest of the book

Following "Beginnings" is a chapter called "A Brief History of a First-Rate Place". This is the longest chapter in the book, and is basically an introductory essay on the history of medieval Spain, which serves as a background upon which Menocal hangs her portraits. The chapter begins with the events that followed upon the death of Muhammad in 632; describes the expansion of Islam across North Africa and, via converted Berbers of Morocco, into Europe (Spain) in 711; and ends with the events of 1492 (see portrait In the Alhambra).

Then come Menocal's portraits, ranging in length from nine to eighteen pages. This main section of the book has been given the title THE PALACES OF MEMORY

Each portrait has a name, and below that on the first page, a general setting (place, year). Three of the portraits have more than a single section, in which case each section has its own place setting (but always a common year). The portraits are all listed below, along with a brief description of what's in them. I'm doing this because I think there are many people I know on Goodreads who might have specific interests in some of these portraits, to say nothing of the entire book. Also, for a couple portraits I've added a few personal comments.

The Mosque and the Palm Tree Cordoba, 786

Summary of the achievements of Abd al-Rahman … the relationship between the Franks and Islam in these early years … alliances and fraternization between Muslims and Christians … the building and expansion of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, which continued until nearly the year 1000 … several pages on poetry and the use of the Arabic language by Islam.

Mother Tongues Cordoba, 855

One of the main characters of the portrait is Paul Alvarus, "outspoken and widely respected Christian luminary of Cordoba" … topics include the use of Arabic and Latin at this time … the Arabization of Christians … the many languages used in Cordoba, including both the Romance languages and the development of vernacular ("mother tongue") languages … and the tale of the fifty so-called "Mozarab martyrs", who protested the gradual and peaceful conversion of their Christian and Latin world by blaspheming the Prophet, the one thing forbidden by the Islamic ruler - thus losing their heads, and serving the purposes of generations of Christian chroniclers in future centuries.

A Grand Vizier, a Grand City Cordoba, 949

The story of the caliph Abd al-Rahman III, the descendant of the original al-Rahman … during his reign (912-961) "the Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba made the sweeping and plausible claim to absolute primacy within the House of Islam" … during his reign, a man promoted higher and higher, eventually to the prestigious and powerful office of foreign secretary to the calaiph, a man who identified himself as "Hasdai, the son of Isaac, the son of Ezra, from the sons of the Jerusalem exile who now live in Sefarid" - a man who was the nasi, the prince, of his own Jewish religious community.

The Gardens of Memory Madinat al-Zahra, South of Cordoba, 1009

Madinat al-Zahra, the wonder-city of the Umayyad caliphs, built by Abd al-Rahman III as part of his declaration of the caliphate … destroyed in 1009 by Berber mercenaries who resented the claims of the Umayyads. "As a ruin it served for centuries as a romantic and complex touchstone, an image of a once-glorious Umayyad past."

Victorious in Exile The battlefield of Argona, between Cordoba and Granada, 1041

The ascendency of Granada over Cordoba, under the warrior-poet Samuel - Ishmael in Arabic, his native tongue; Shmuel in Hebrew, the language in which he spoke to God - known as Samuel the Najid. … the flight of the Jews of Cordoba, many prosperous, well-educated, from the highest classes of government and scholarship, eventually settling in Granada … Hebrew poetry

Love and Its Songs

Just West of Seville, on the Road to Huelva August 1064
Ibn Hazm, "an outstanding intellect in Andalusioian history, one of the keenest minds the caliphate had ever produced" … dying in the backwater of Niebla, after a lifetime spent defending the hopeless Umayyad cause … of his four hundred books, few remain … his masterpiece love poem The Neck-Ring of the Dove

Barbastro, in the Foothills of the Pyrenees, on the Road to Saragosa August 1064
Norman invasions of that same summer … siege of Barbastro … beginning of the period in which peoples on both sides of the Pyrenees had much more contact, usually of a military nature … vernacular language, singing, Andalusian invention of "ring songs"

The Church At the Top of the Hill Toledo, 1085

The Christian Reconquest of Toledo … the church redesigned to commemorate the reconquest pays tribute through its architecture to the supplanted Islamic culture … Toledo becomes the capital of the kingdom of Castile …Ferdinand I … Alfonso VI … the fundamentalist Berber Almoravid dynasty invades the peninsula to aid their Muslim brethren … Toledo "the radiant intellectual capital of Europe, a Christian city where Arabic remained a language of culture and learning"

An Andalusian in London Huesca, 1106

Huesca, in Aragon, the foothills of the Pyrenees … Petrus Alfonsi, an Arabized Jewish convert to Christianity, becomes widely known for his book Disciplina clericalis (loosely, Priestly Tales) - the predecessor, in his "framed tale" format, to both Chaucer and Boccaccio … likewise his Dialogue Against the Jews becomes the standard form "for laying out the cases of the competing religions of medieval Europe".

Sailing Away, Riding Away Alexandria, 1140

Judah Halevi, "the revered pillar of the Andalusian Jewish community, and the most celebrated poet of his age" arrives in Alexandria, having chosen to exile himself from al-Andalus … the last of the Golden Age of Andalusian poets, who had redeemed Hebrew from its profound exile, locked inside temples, never speaking about life itself … some of the great works by Halevi - Bookof the Khazars, and his over eight hundred poems, among which "his gorgeous love songs to Jerusalem and Zion", and his rousing Song of the Cid about Rodrigo Diaz, as he prepares to ride into exile from the court of Alfonso VI.

The Abbot and the Quran Cluny, 1142

Cluny, France, its famous abbey dating from the tenth century, in 1142 one of the centers of the Latin Christian world, with the largest church in Christendom … the head abbot Peter the Venerable, and the enfant terrible of the day Peter Abelard … the Abbot's journey into Iberian Christian territories to find translators to work on the sacred book of the Muslims, the first systematic Christian project to study Islam, and the first translation of the Quran into Latin … Robert of Ketton, Englishman living in Toledo, turned out to be the man he was looking for.

Gifts a triple-decker: Sicily, Cordoba, Granada - all in 1236

Frederick II, emperor of Sicily and one of his favorites, Michael Scot, physician, astrologer, necromancer, translator of Arabic and Hebrew texts … translation into Latin from Arabic in Cordoba … (Saint) Ferdinand III, king of Castile strikes a bargain with Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr - Nasr and his people (250 years' worth of his descendants) get Granada, Ferdinand gets Cordoba.

Banned in Paris Paris, 1277

Paris the intellectual center of Europe in the thirteenth century … the story of the commentaries written by the Cordoban Averroes exploding on Europe, banned in Paris in 1210 … but this genie was out of the bottle … the "old" Aristotle, nothing but a few books of the Organon translated by Boethius, challenged by the arrival of the Arabic Aristotle, from Cordoba, where it had arrived many generations previously from Baghdad … and the "detailed, line-by-line, book-by-book, limitless universe of the new Arabic Aristotle" being taught in Paris increasingly as the century wears on, despite prohibitions …

I found this portrait to be the most interesting in the book. I had known something about Averroes and his contributions to the European understanding of Aristotle, but to nowhere near the depth that Menocal gives, even in these few (fifteen) pages.

Although it is little remembered, and its cultural setting little understood, this moment of intellectual crisis in Paris was a watershed in Western cultural life. At its heart lay the lifework of an Andalusian thinker, Averroes, as well as the whole intellectual and cultural complex of Islamic Spain. Ironically, by 1277, there was very little left of anything one could properly call "Islamic Spain" - only the embattled corner that was Granada. Yet its intellectual and cultural impact on the rest of Europe was in some ways reaching its peak - perhaps nowhere more than in the rooms where Parisian philosophers and theologians talked about what men thought and how men understood, about what was truth and what was revelation.
… the entire thrust of Averroes' efforts - and this was likewise the core of the work of his countryman and contemporary, Maimonides - was to establish a model for the relationship between philosophy, which meant not just speculative thought, on the one hand, and theology, or faith-bound thought, which accepted the teachings of Scripture and its official interpreters, on the other.
By the way, the portrait includes several pages on Maimonides (Musa ibn Maymun).

Visions of Other Worlds Avila, 1305

Moses of Leon and his almost mythical manuscript Zohar, "the very heart and soul of the Jewish mystical tradition called Kabbalah" … Alfonso X ("the learned") abandons Latin as the language into which the Arabic scientific and philosophical corpus is being translated, in favor of the vernacular Castilian language.

Foreign Dignitaries at the Courts of Castile Seville & Toledo, 1364

Ibn Khaldun, the most influential philosopher of history to have written in Arabic … his masterpiece Muqaddimah (Introduction to History) now read alongside writers such as Vico and Gibbon … Islamic architecture … the use of the Great Mosque of Seville as a cathedral, preserving most of it … architecture of the Great Mosque, and the "new vogue" in architecture, arabesques … the extravagantly ornamented buildings of the Alhambra … Arabic writing as ornament and decoration … Jewish as well as Christian incorporation of Islamic architecture and decorative Arabic writing.

In the Alhambra Granada 1492

The Agreements of Capitulation secretly arranged between the last of the Granadan Nasrids and the Christian monarchs Ferdinand V and Isabella, king and queen of Castile in the fall of 1491, turning over Granada to the Castilian Christians … within a fairly short time the triumphant monarchs abrogated their pledge to allow Muslims to openly practice their faith … this followed in short order by the edict expelling all Jews from Christian Spain.

This portrait, a recounting of what probably every Spanish school child knows, or should know - is I believe known by few people in the U.S. I cannot say that I knew about the suppression and expulsion of both Muslims and Jews from Spain in 1492 … or, at any rate, gave them a choice of leaving, or converting to Christianity. In the U.S. 1492 is, of course, looked on as a landmark year because Columbus discovered the Americas in that year. Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
in fourteen hundred ninety-two … Just another example of the shallowness which limits an understanding of history. To think instead how 1492 was, from the point of view of those then inhabiting the Americas, pretty much a disaster - the title of the 1992 film, "1492: Conquest of Paradise" pretty well nails it - but, to think further how masses of people were expelled from Spain because of their religion …………………… well, not a proud moment for Spain, though I suppose many Spanish, for a great number of generations, believed it to be. I have no idea what the view would be in Spain today.

Somewhere in La Mancha 1605

Jews and Judaism in Toledo … Cervantes & Don Quixote de la Mancha … libraries, book-burnings … the Muslim "Moriscos" and their Jewish counterparts, the "Conversos" … Cervantes' masterpiece as it relates to this lamentable end to the Ornament of the World.

Last Words

Other stuff in the book; a Postscript concerning 9/11; 9 pages of suggestions for further reading; a very useful Index; three full page maps; & 8 pages of black and white photographs.

I reread parts of the book to construct the review, and find that now I really wish to read again the entire book.


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