168the musicians who performed these songs: For background on the Cantigas as sponsored by Alfonso the Wise, the famous Christian king of Al-Andalus, as well as images from original mss., see Menocal, Dodds, and Barbale, The Arts of Intimacy, pp. 222–228.
170the Spanish Kama Sutra: The book is Lopez-Baralt, Un Kama Sutra español. The original work of the anonymous author is pp. 347–388. The book sets this extraordinary essay in the context of Western theology and literature and specifically in the context of Spanish literature and erotic writing, such as it was. A scholarly, admirable, enlightening read.
171Beginning with Saint Paul: For a clear, comprehensive summary of early Christian writing and attitudes toward sexuality, see Lopez-Baralt, ibid., pp. 101–133.
177Ibn Hazm: The Arberry translation is the standard, Ibn Hazm, The Ring of the Dove. For a description of his notion of the transcendent dimension of love, and the iridescent joys of sexual union, see Ormsby, “Ibn Hazm,” pp. 245–246. For an intelligent look at the possible links between Ibn Hazm’s ideas and the tradition of courtly love, see Giffen, “Ibn Hazm and the Tawq al-Hamama,” pp. 435–437.
178the Zohar: A standard modern text is Matt, The Zohar. For explanation and commentary, see the shorter, earlier version of a small selection of the text, see Matt, Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. For writing on Kabbalah as part of the essence of Judaism, see Lancaster, The Essence of Kabbalah, pp. 27–32.
179the Sufis: The seminal work on these men and women is Shah, The Sufis. Material about them hardly fits in an endnote, but much more material and a host of references will be found in the chapter here entitled “A Lucid Work of Love and Helpfulness.” The influence of the Sufis in the development of Al–Andalus is demonstrable and crucial, yet it is just beginning to be understood.
Granada itself owes its origins to the Sufis: Harvey, Islamic Spain 1250 to 1500, pp. 29–37.
180two directly related Sufi texts: For an account of the superb scholarship that brought these sources to light, see Lopez-Baralt, “The Legacy of Islam in Spanish Literature,” pp. 530–532. al-Nuri’s book is from the ninth century.
Saint John of the Cross: Lopez-Baralt, ibid., p. 530, recounts how the legendary scholar Miguel Asin Palacios traced key symbols in the mystical poetry of Saint John of the Cross to Sufi writings, especially those of Ibn Abbad of Ronda. As to the poetry of Saint John of the Cross, a beautiful translation, with commentary and biographical information, is in Barnstone, The Poetics of Ecstasy, pp. 153–190.
181a source for Dante: The book is Asin Palacios, La escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia. In 1982, a fourth edition was issued in Spain. On this subject, it is worth looking into illustrated texts of about the miraj. A fine one is The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet, reproduced from a manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Looking at the book, anyone would think of Dante.
Dante scholarship has come round to the idea: See the enlightening summary in Martínez Gásquez, “Translations of the Qur’an and other Islamic Texts before Dante (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries),” pp. 79–92.
Color: This subject is treated in depth by Bolens, “The Use of Plants for Dyeing and Clothing,” pp. 1008–1012. For the details on Byssus, p. 1008. For a comprehensive look at the use of color in the art and culture of Islam, have a look at Bloom and Blair, And Diverse Are Their Hues, passim. A magnificent book.
183A spectrum of facts: These selected accounts are gathered from a wide variety of sources among the recent writings on Al-Andalus. They are a small sampling of the many examples of interfaith community in Al-Andalus. For my own selection of books helpful for understanding this era, see the Recommended Reading list. As to some of the volumes that relate the examples I cite, see, for example, the rich detail in Lowney, A Vanished World, pp. 106, 202–208, 221–223. For an account of the convivencia in the context of Jewish history, see Gambel, “Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia: Convivencia through the Eyes of Sephardic Jews,” pp. 15–22. For an account of conversions and interfaith marriages, see Fletcher, Moorish Spain, pp. 36–40; and in the same book, notes about interfaith wine-bibbing and an important rabbinical advisor to al-Mutamid, pp. 94 and 108. More information on interfaith marriages is in Snow, Spain, the Root and the Flower, pp. 111–112. For interfaith relations in the caliphate, and among the community of slaves, Guichard, “The Social History of Muslim Spain,” pp. 690–693. On dynastic interfaith marriages and their arrangement by means of ambassadors who were poets, see Boase, “Arab Influences on European Love-Poetry,” pp. 465–466. For an account of the religious, judicial, and commercial evolution in Al-Andalus, with all its contradictions and difficulties, see Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 187–202. For some overall historical context, see Lewis, God’s Crucible, pp. 202–207.
185the Blessed Ramon Llull: To get a sense of the variety of his works and read a fine, sensitive, scholarly introduction to them, see The Selected Works of Ramon Llull, translated by Anthony Bonner. See also the fine exposition of Llull’s oeuvre in Stone, “Ramon Llull,” pp. 345–356.
187“While the wise man …”: The Selected Works of Ramon Llull, ibid., p. 303.
188The convivencia was a dangerous experiment: The reader should be aware that there is still a debate about the nature, value, and details of the convivencia; that is, how the experiment of the three faiths living together actually played out on the ground. Though more is learned each year, the argument about the details and the significance can take on real venom, with all the complications of ideological or political motives a part of the exchange. For this writer, these debates are a tiresome and troublesome waste of life, a kind of conceptual tar pit. I do not think that the historians of the period I quote in this book have an ideological or political agenda. I certainly do not. That being said, the notion that Jews and Arabs, together with Christians, did something magnificent in Iberia, to the benefit of Europe and the world, is to some scholars and readers somehow inconsequential, or even offensive. I certainly do not wish to give offense, though I may do so, despite my efforts to focus on the facts, as I have selected and gathered them. I am, simple-mindedly enough, just trying to tell the story of one family living in Andalusia. I am saying what it meant to us. And to set forth that meaning, it is important to ask, among many other questions: What was accomplished in Al-Andalus? And why did it matter?
191the origins of the Inquisition: The literature of the Inquisition now fills whole archives, since this legendary institution kept such good records. I am drawing upon a variety of recent studies here, and the reader looking for all the useful and sordid complexity of Inquisitorial history and development, and its place in Spanish life, may find it as follows: For more on the scene in Toledo and details of the auto-da-fé, see the authoritative Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, pp. 205–213. In the same volume is a excellent chapter on Inquisitorial operations, pp. 174–192. And see also Kamen’s review of trials and punishments, pp. 193–213. Kamen has a superb review of the political background, pp. 28–65. For a condensed and brilliant study in Spanish of the Inquisition, look to Pérez de Colosia, “La Inquisición: estructura y actuación,” passim. For an examination of Inquisitorial trials, tortures, and punishments, and their relation to modern totalitarianism, see Perez, The Spanish Inquisition, pp. 133–175. In the same volume, for a concise review of the administrative organization, see pp. 101–132. And for the comparison to Stalinist trials and other forms of state terror, see his conclusion, pp. 222–225. For an examination of the Inquisition in relation to the modern world, including torture practiced by the United States of America during the administration of Richard Cheney and George W. Bush, see Murphy, God’s Jury, pp. 223–251. On the relation of the Inquisition to the Spanish pope, the sybarite and murderer Rodrigo Borgia, see Reston, The Dogs of God, 279–290. A reader wanting an account in English of a torture as it occurred, duly noted down, as well as a portrayal of an auto-da-fé, see Cowans, Early Modern Spain: A Documentary Hi
story, pp. 51–57. For two full descriptions of autos-da-fé, see Constable, Medieval Iberia: Readings From Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sources, pp. 330–342.
204the ideal occasion for what-if history: For a look at this genre of historical writing, there is a fascinating compendium of texts in Cowen, What If. I am not aware of a what-if essay having been written of the course of Spanish history after 1492, but it would be a most instructive and beneficial exercise, and I pray someone will take it on.
206to shape the destiny of Spain: Part of this durability is due to the genius of Ferdinand and Isabel for propaganda, noted, for example, in the preface of the scholar Peggy Liss in her biography of Isabel, Isabel the Queen, p. xiii. She is quoting the Spanish scholar José Manuel Nieto. As to the durability of Ferdinand and Isabel’s policies, take, for example, the decree of 1492 to expel the Jews from Spain, the so-called Alhambra Decree: It was not formally revoked until 1968. Recently, the government of Spain has begun, over five centuries after the expulsion, a program to welcome back to Spain Sephardic descendants who are currently members of the Jewish community. The program has attracted interest, criticism, and bewilderment.
208a centerpiece for their financial policy: This is a fascinating macroeconomic story of the national decline of the most prosperous and advanced commercial and scientific culture in Europe. I am, just as in other sections of this book, condensing a wide range of material, as well as drawing on readings in macroeconomics in my own work in the investment community. The most comprehensive treatment, incomparable in its scope of reference and in the riches of scholarly detail, are the three volumes by Stanley J. and Barbara H. Stein: Silver, Trade, and War, Apogee of Empire, and Edge of Crisis. This achievement brings into focus the minutiae of the decline, the massive national corruption, and its disastrous cumulative effect. On the use of silver to support the empire, pay for military operations, and secure debt, see Silver, Trade, and War, pp. 40–56. In the same volume, to review the decisive commercial concessions of the Treaty of Westphalia, see pp. 57–67. For the resultant flow of capital to fund the industrialization of Western Europe, and Spanish collusion in corruption that enriched other countries, see pp. 77–89. For a concise portrait of the failure of Spain to establish a competitive textile manufacturing of woolen goods for domestic and colonial supply, see Apogee of Empire, pp. 210–218. In the same volume, on Spain’s structural economic defects and the inability of the country to invigorate the peninsular economy, see pp. 221–222. On the persistence of a rentier economy in Spain and the failure to develop manufacturing even in the late 1700s, see pp. 354–355. In the Edge of Crisis, to read about the dependence of Spain, as late as 1800, on the silver production and minting in Mexico, see pp. 163–174. For the makeup of Madrid’s budget deficits during this period, see pp. 214–217. For debt financing of military operations in this later period, see pp. 284–286. For the government use of the vast wealth of the church in Spain and the New World, see pp. 296–297. On the conjunction of war and debt leading Spain to crisis, see pp. 476–477. On the role that geography, poor roads, and above all, indirect and regressive taxation played in the painfully slow process of market integration in Spain, see Grafe, Distant Tyranny, pp. 244–245.
211“In 1557, for example …”: Stein, Silver, Trade, and War, p. 46.
default on his own people three times: Graphs and discussion of these defaults can be found in Reinhart and Rogoff, This Time Is Different, pp. 70–71 and 88–89.
212“Despite the esteem …”: Lewis, God’s Crucible, p. 327.
The commerce of Al-Andalus: Once again, this section draws upon a whole range of scholars. Preeminent among them is Olivia Remie Constable, in her Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain. For a summary and general conditions and evolution of trade, see pp. 4–12. For a discussion of ports and trading activity, see pp. 17–19. For the fame of the shipyards and markets of Andalusian cities, see pp. 23–27. For the centrality of the dirham of Al-Andalus in North Africa, see p. 35. For trade with the Christian north, see p. 47. On the fascinating tradition of merchant-scholars, see pp. 54–55. On the transition from Jewish and Muslim traders to Christian traders, especially the Genoese, see pp. 62–67. For a general description of the vigor and variety of this trade, see Constable’s article, “Muslim Merchants in Andalusi International Trade,” p. 759.
213merchant-scholars: See the enlivening material in Constable, ibid., pp. 54–55, 80–85.
practical knowledge pressed into action: For details on mills, textiles, paper, cork-soled shoes, ceramics, glass, clocks, and leathers, see Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 275–292. For some of the same goods and a sampling of agricultural exports, see Constable, ibid., pp. 169–203. For technology of dyeing, see Bolens, “The Use of Plants for Dyeing and Clothing,” pp. 1008–1012. For more specifics on the silk and furniture industries, see Constable, ibid., pp. 173–181.
214“… so many streets and lanes …”: This quote is from Bermudéz de Pedraza, and the full paragraph and a further description of the markets of Granada in Al-Andalus may be found in Dickie, “Granada: A Case Study of Arab Urbanism in Muslim Spain,” p. 95–97.
these markets throve: For an illuminating description of the commerce of the period in the context of Medieval Europe, see Lewis, ibid., pp. 206–208, 279–280, 335. See also a discussion of national income, monetary circulation, population, taxation, and overall economic vigor in Chalmeta, “An Approximate Picture of the Economy of Al-Andalus,” pp. 746–756.
Spanish words connected with market regulation: A set of these words, along with their Arabic roots, is in Messner, “Arabic Words in Ibero-Romance Languages,” p. 454.
216a dramatic shift in attitudes toward work: For example, Constable, ibid., p. 67, notes how early this attitude took root, writing that “in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries no Castilian of social standing would have considered a commercial profession.” There are long and valuable discussions of this change in Castro, The Spaniards, pp. 245, 317–321. He writes, for instance, on p. 319, “No other European country so stigmatized manual labor.” In the same volume, on the disdain for commercial and intellectual activity, see p. 159. On the debasement of economic affairs, see p. 364.
217the animals ate Iberia alive: To learn about the Mesta, see Lowney, A Vanished World, pp. 113–144. On the rise of wool to dominate the export economy of Spain, see Constable, ibid., pp. 227–229. On the peninsular reach of grazing herds and the participation of military orders in the south with extensive landholdings, see Fletcher, Moorish Spain, p. 147. On Ferdinand and Isabella’s dependence on revenues from the Mesta to finance their military adventures and other crown expenses, and the concentration of land among the nobles and military orders, see Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp. 276–277. On the long-term ecological damage of such transhumant pastoralism, with its cumulative destruction of the once-verdant landscape of Andalusia and Castile, see Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 105–109. For a brilliant analysis of this phenomenon in a wider Mediterranean context, see Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden, pp. 211–212.
irrigated agriculture: An excellent source is the pioneering and careful work of Carmen Trillo San José. To gain a pictorial sense of the transition from dry agriculture to the irrigated systems of Al-Andalus, see her Agua, tierra y hombres en Al-Andalus, pp. 171–176. Illustrations of how irrigated land was owned and managed, along with some statistical figures on ownership, are on pp. 161–170. On the pertinent Islamic customs and the family organization of agricultural lands, see pp. 157–159. On coming of irrigation to dryland agriculture and the subsequent division of irrigated land among a multitude of small holders, see pp. 35–59. As to Granada itself, see Carmen Trillo San Jose, Agua y paisaje en Granada. For her analysis of the sociopolitical dimension of irrigated agriculture and discussions of polyculture, see pp. 83–101. For a treatment in English of the agricultural variety of Al-Andalus, the so-called Arab “green revolution” in Iberia, see Glick, i
bid., pp. 70–75.
218“The ordered landscape …”: Glick, ibid., p. 105.
219the latifundia: For a historical discussion of their essentially feudal nature, see E.V.K. Fitzgerald, “Latifundia,” pp. 204–205. For more details on the system of the latifundia as it evolved and the failure of agrarian reform in the early nineteenth century, see Harrison, An Economic History of Modern Spain, pp. 25–26. For statistics on the dominance of the latifundia, the harsh labor conditions, and the relation to rural anarchism, see pp. 105–108. Since a theme of this book is the remarkable durability and influence of some of the important initiatives of Fernando and Isabel, it is instructive to consider the crucial role the latifundistas played in the military rebellion of 1936 that began the Spanish Civil War, and their active participation in the campaign of extermination that followed. See Preston, The Spanish Holocaust, pp. 20, 30, 32–33, 55, 57, 67, 70, 125, 135, 141, 148, for a sampling. The book is replete with examples of the close and murderous cooperation between large landowners, the rebels, and the fascist party.
“… came to possess almost half the arable land in Spain.” Castro, The Spaniards, p. 245.
220Education declined in quality in Spain: See, for example, Crow, Spain: The Root and the Flower, pp. 234–235. On the banning and burning of books by the Inquisition, the most concise account is Perez, The Spanish Inquisition, pp. 177–195.
221in a wholehearted effort to find the eminent Spaniards in science: Take, for instance, the Smithsonian Timeline of Science, which catalogs and illustrates the scientific progress of humankind. In the period from 1492 to 1900, I found only two Spaniards: the sixteenth century physician Michael Servetus, who spent almost all of his professional life outside of Spain and was a Protestant, and Diego Aguilera, who in 1793 flew a glider.
book-burning: Perez, ibid., pp. 180–182. See also Baez, Historia universal de la destrucción de libros, pp. 125–129. Baez notes, as well, that books, for example, of Ibn Hazm were burned in Seville in Al-Andalus. And in Al-Andalus, the books of the Sufis were sometimes burned by Islamic fundamentalists. It was not only Christians who burned books.
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