222“These people also used certain characters …” for Diego Landa’s description of his incineration of Mayan culture, see Landa, Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, p. 82.
224“Indeed, the notion of re–conquest …”: Glick, ibid., p. 34.
“The European Conquest of the Americas …”: Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, pp. 291–292.
226“… the shadow of Spain …”: Stein and Stein, Silver, Trade, and War, pp. 3–4.
227“Spain’s decline had multiple facets”: Stein and Stein, ibid., p. 103.
228“What had been inherited …”: Stein and Stein, ibid., p. 159.
A country of seigneurial privilege: For a wealth of detail on the stratification of Spanish society during this complex period, see Stein and Stein, ibid., pp. 93–94, 104–105, 144, 158, 262–263, 266. On flow of silver to the other countries of Europe, see pp. 7–8, 17–18, 23, 25, 27, 48, 50, 52, 77. On the reduction of Spain to a commodity economy, see pp. 9, 34. On the enrichment of the rest of Europe, as it developed market, trading, and financial expertise, see pp. 16, 35, 55–56, 59, 63–64, 71, 101, 149–150, 266. On the ferocious demand of the military on the state treasury, see, for example, pp. 41, 43, 45–46, 53. For a look at how the process played out over time, see the summary statements in Nadall, El fracaso de devolución industrial en España, pp. 226–228. For another look at a later period, with respect to landholdings, see Harrison, An Economic History of Modern Spain, pp. 5–6. In the same book, for details of the failures of the 1800s, see the chapter “An Industrial Revolution Manqué,” pp. 43–65. For another dimension of the scholarly work of the period, see a few of the tables, for example, p. 14, in El legado económico del antiguo régimen en España. What is fascinating is that all the figures begin in 1500, as though Al-Andalus did not exist at all. So even though the earnings shown for inhabitants of Holland and England surge past and ultimately double those of Spain in the period 1500–1820, the figures still do not take into account that Spain, on every commercial, financial, and technical front, had an enormous head start on every other country in Europe.
230There will be bitter attacks: Anyone who has discussed these matters in educated company in Spain will know how deep and furious conversation can become, even in the present day, once anyone begins to address the history of Al-Andalus, the subsequent decline of Spain, or the civil war that began in 1936. It is as though fact is napalm, and the most straightforward statement can be taken as explosive attack on the national character of all of Spain. But this book does not in any way intend or imply any such attack. Though our subject is, in part, the history of the Albayzín, Al-Andalus, and Spain after Ferdinand and Isabel, the economic and sociopolitical evolution covered in this book is relevant to any society, and similar evolution can occur, and has occurred, in any society. I simply do not think that violent conversation is a good use of life, and I will not accept the notion that the presentation of facts obtained by honest effort makes any person vile and contemptible.
231exterminating angels: The reader will be aware that this view of mine is at variance, to put it as mildly as possible, with that of many esteemed historians who see Ferdinand and Isabel as admirable figures in history, whose greatness brought empire and honor to Spain. I encourage wholeheartedly the encounter with the work of such historians, so that the different views can be brought into focus. Two excellent contemporary examples are Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire From Columbus to Magellan. And in Spanish, Ladero Quesada, La España de los Reyes Católicas. Both these books offer detailed, scholarly, and laudatory engagements with the Catholic Monarchs.
232“… the suffering of women in the prison …”: Preston, The Spanish Holocaust, p. 511. Lest anyone think I am noting a rare abuse by Franco and his cohorts, let me emphasize that the humiliation, rape, and murder of women by Franco’s military was standard practice throughout Spain during the Civil War, and in its aftermath. See, for example, Preston, ibid., pp. 149, 156, 158–9, 160, 166, 204–205, 313, 333–4, 448, 478.
233The yoke and arrows: In the rhetoric of the military rebels and their allies in the Catholic Church, their political initiative was linked directly to Ferdinand and Isabel. See, for example, the written declaration of the fascist Onésimo Redondo, Preston, ibid., p. 46, in which he identifies the Spanish working class with the Arabs and praises Isabel for her militant fight against “the Moorish spirit.” See also the speech on National Radio by the canon of the cathedral in Salamanca, Aniceto de Castro Albarrán, quoted in Preston, ibid., pp. 197–198, in which he cries, “Up with the Spirit of Isabel la Católica!” And the speech by Franco on New Year’s Eve, 1939, in which he praised the Nazi aggressions against Jews, and links their actions, appreciatively, with Ferdinand and Isabel, Preston, ibid., pp. 471–472.
Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of the Yoke and Arrows: For the awarding of this honor to Himmler, see Preston, ibid., p. 490.
“… We must be listened to …”: Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, p. 199.
234“the only historic instrument …”: in an essay by Rivera, quoted in Payne, Fascism in Spain, p. 170.
“prepare to revolt …”: quoted in Payne, ibid., p. 171. José Antonio Primo de Ribero was one of the principal figures who led Spain into the cataclysm of Civil War. For his commitment to violence, see Preston, The Spanish Holocaust, p. 110. For his active direction of the Falange—the Spanish fascists—as he coordinated its work with the military conspiracy, see Preston, ibid., pp. 117–119. Jose Antonio thought that the Falange would “receive the laurels earned by being first in this holy crusade of violence,” Preston, ibid., p. 118.
“We regard Italian Fascism as the most outstanding…”: quoted in Payne, ibid., p. 162.
A FEW NOTIONS OF GEOMETRY AND REVELATION
237the city’s most bizarre stories: A useful account may be found in Jacobs, Alhambra, pp. 51–67. The book is full of artful, well-chosen color photographs by Francisco Fernández. For a finely written examination of the history of the building, see Irwin, The Alhambra, pp. 15–67. Irwin’s book is a searching and scholarly study of the whole complex, and his reflections are of exceptional value throughout. He suggests, for instance, that the complex around the Patio de los Leones may have been a school, since it so closely resembles schools in Morocco. Another recent, wonderful book is Puerta Vílchez, Leer la Alhambra, which gives us, for the first time, a complete translation into Spanish of all the poetry inscribed into the walls of the Alhambra. For those interested in the physical setting and the geological underpinnings of the Alhambra, see Salmerón Escobar, The Alhambra: Structure and Landscape, pp. 80–91.
240a book to which he gave his life and fortune: Any of us may go online to the Internet Archive and download this entire world-changing book onto a computer desktop. It gives the savor of the time and a sense of the infinite labors necessary to create such a volume. Fabulous drawings and illustrations of the Alhambra in the 1834–1842 period. The reference is Jones, Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra.
241Pythagoras thought that the world: For some reflections on the place of Pythagoras in the Islamic prophetic tradition, see Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, pp. 34–35. For his ideas on the change from qualitative mathematics to purely quantitative mathematics, see pp. 46–47. For Pythagorean harmony in relation to Western science, see pp. 193–194. For a more in-depth discussion of Pythagoras in relation to the great Ikhwan Al-Safa (The Brethren of Purity), see Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, pp. 34–39. Nasr gives crucial context for understanding how Pythagorean ideas, Islamic scientific work, and mystical experience informed the use of mathematics. For a much more full, detailed, and popular treatment of Pythagoras, see Ferguson, The Music of Pythagoras, passim.
242“laboring for some poor portionless man …”: from Walter Shewring’s brilliant translation of the Odyssey, p. 139.
243Its scholars took up the scientific and philosophical heritage: For a comprehensive look at the transl
ating work in Baghdad, see al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom, pp. 67–78.
244“the science of numbers …”: quoted in Critchlow, Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, p. 42.
246the idea that numbers mean something: The following exposition about the qualitative and associative properties of numbers is taken from a variety of sources. And the historical resonance of each number is far richer than I have portrayed in my condensed version. See, for example, the sections about each of the whole numbers, in Schimmel, The Mystery of Numbers. The best way to understand the use and meaning of the whole numbers, conceived as part of a sacred undertaking, is to read straight through Critchlow, ibid., who has unusual and revelatory material on the subject. To look at a modern scientific treatment of numbers in relation to geometry and natural form, see Stevens, Patterns in Nature, and Ball, The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature. These books are current, reverent treatments of universal patterns in nature, and so at least to this reader they bear upon the meaning of pattern as it unfolds in the artful tile work of Al-Andalus. For a more playful and participatory treatment, one might try Schneider, A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science, for example his chapter on threefold symmetry, pp. 38–59. If a reader wants to sit down and produce the intricate designs of the tile work herself, the indispensable book is Broug, Islamic Geometric Patterns. It is an excellent chance to see the way the most complex patterns spring to life, though you will be using nothing more than a compass and straightedge.
249The golden ratio: For a summary and exposition of this abundantly present and beautiful mathematical relation, see Huntley, The Divine Proportion, passim.
257What if these tiles are meant to teach?: This whole discussion is derived from my own experience of the walls of tiles in the Alhambra and my discussion of the designs with many informed visitors, especially Alexandra Urza. It also takes up the Sufi insistence that beauty does more than enliven the mind and exalt the senses; beauty is instrumental, and may be used to create new capacities of perception.
258plane crystallographic group theory: For a discussion of the seventeen groups in relation to the geometry and symmetries in the Alhambra, see, for example, Irwin, ibid., pp. 118–120.
Penrose diagram: See Lu, “Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture.” For a newspaper summary of the article, see Wilford, “In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math.” The New York Times, 27 February 2007, Section D, page 2.
259As Jesus put it in the Nag Hammadi Gospels: The quotation is from the beautiful translation by Thomas Lambdin of the Gospel of Thomas in the Nag Hammadi Gospels, p. 138.
261The tambourine is in the hands of a woman named Fatima: The following material of the work, thought, and life of Ibn El-Arabi is condensed from many sources. For a couple of detailed, accessible accounts of the life of Ibn El-Arabi, see the two introductions of R.W.J. Austin to Ibn El-Arabi’s works Sufis of Andalusia and The Bezels of Wisdom. The material on Fatima is in Austin, Sufis of Andalusia, pp. 25–26. Fine and reflective material on the life of the mystic and poet may be found in Nasr, Three Muslim Sages, pp. 92–97. Additional information about his life and a valuable contemporary selection of passages from his poetry and philosophy are in Shah, The Way of the Sufi, pp. 83–89.
262Ibn El-Arabi met Averroes: The story of this encounter between two of the most influential men in the whole medieval period is told in Austin, Introduction, Sufis of Andalusia, pp. 23–24.
263“On another occasion …”: this quote by Ibn El-Arabi is in Austin, ibid., p. 27.
264“a slender child …”: quoted in Austin, ibid., p. 36. To read about Ibn El–Arabi’s statements that on the contemplation of God in women, see The Bezels of Wisdom, p. 275.
265“know that when worldly desires …”: quoted in Austin, ibid., pp. 44–45.
266How did they live?: All these practical and mystical friends of Ibn El-Arabi, and many more, of the most miscellaneous and fantastical capacities, are found in Sufis of Andalusia, passim.
269This is just what Sufism claims to possess: Once again, I must warn that these statements of mine are a few drops of water in the ocean of writing by and about the Sufis. There is simply no way at all to summarize in a chapter or a book, much less in an endnote, the many sources in poetry, stories, and expository writing for my brief summary. Yet one cannot write usefully about Spain and Al-Andalus without taking on the subject. For those who seek an initiatory essay on the Sufis which has its own extensive endnotes, see the introduction by Idries Shah to his collection The Way of the Sufi. The works of Idries Shah, in my view, offer an extraordinary portal into the Sufi tradition, and a partial list of his books may be found in the bibliography. Shah’s major works are all available in Spanish. For a beautiful sampling of Sufi poetry, see the work of the twelfth-century Hakim Sanai, The Walled Garden of Truth, in the translation by the gifted David Pendlebury. For a source in Spanish on the unity of revelation, see Ibn El-Arabi, Tratado de la unidad. A valuable contemporary and anonymous book in Spanish is Textos Sufis, published in Argentina. For a more academic exposition of Sufi ideas and many translations of poetry, see Schimmel, As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam.
270“The King sent a private mission …”: Shah, The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, p. 56.
271“Call yourself unlucky …”: Shah, The Dermis Probe, p. 56.
“If you do not want to be dismissed …”: ‘Ata’Illah, Ibn, The Book of Wisdom, p. 103.
“There is a light deposited in hearts …”: ‘Ata’Illah, Ibn, ibid., p. 152.
272“How can the laws of nature be ruptured …”: ‘Ata’Illah, Ibn, ibid., p. 78.
“I will not serve God like a labourer …”: Shah, The Way of the Sufi, p. 180.
“If you do not shave your head …”: a quotation from the fifteenth-century teacher Hakim Jami, selected and translated in Shah, ibid., p. 103.
273“The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant”: Shah, Tales of the Dervishes, p. 25.
ON FLAMENCO, POETRY, GENIUS, AND MURDER
281Lorca presented a lecture: Lorca, Obras completas, pp. 1067–1079.
282“The magical virtue of poetry”: Lorca, ibid., p. 1076.
283A bewildering and exultant variety of forms: For a description in English of the forms of flamenco, with learned commentary by a practitioner of the art, see Pohren, The Art of Flamenco, pp. 109–187.
285“A cinnamon angel …”: For the original Spanish of these and the rest of the cited verses, see Pohren, ibid.. This song is on pp. 149–150.
286“The world I live in …”: Pohren, ibid., p. 168.
“I saw her black eyes …”: Pohren, ibid., p. 171.
“Misfortune falls upon me …”: Pohren, ibid., p. 168.
287Lorca’s talk: The text of this presentation, called “El Cante Jondo,” is in Lorca, Obras completas, pp. 973–994.
“… cante jondo is like the trill of birds …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 975.
“preserve their Arabic and Moorish affiliation”: L.P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain: 1500 to 1614, p. 75, notes the Arab elements in flamenco music. For an extended examination and analysis of both Arabic and Jewish sources of flamenco, see Roldan, El flamenco y la música andalusí, pp. 15–30.
D.E. Pohren, when he constructed his genealogy: Pohren, ibid., pp. 112–114.
288“The gypsy siguiriya begins with a terrible cry …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 976.
“It is not a matter of coincident sources …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 976.
“The adoption by the Spanish church of liturgical chanting …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 976–977.
“… some Andalusian songs”: Lorca, ibid., p. 978.
289“… we must cry out in defense …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 979.
“It is deep, truly deep …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 982.
“It is the song of night …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 985.
290“All t
he poems of cante jondo show …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 987.
“Just as the siguiriya …”: Lorca, ibid., p. 989.
None other than Hafiz and Omar Khayyam: It is useful, I think, in reading Lorca, to get a sense of this mystical background. For an extended engagement with Omar Khayyam, I do not know of a better text than the translation and extended commentary by Govinda Tirtha, called The Nectar of Grace. It is a rare and exceptionally useful book. For a contemporary translation of Hafiz and the poets of his beloved city of Shiraz, see Faces of Love, where the verse is translated ably by the fine poet Dick Davis.
291The Concurso on June 13 and 14 of 1922: An extended description of this event is in Gibson, Federico García Lorca: A Life, pp. 112–166. Another account, which emphasizes Lorca’s close bond with Falla at the time, is in Stainton, Lorca: A Dream of Life, pp. 91–101.
292“When he read the Poem of Deep Song …”: quoted in Stainton, ibid., p. 100.
293La Barraca: This educational initiative coincided with the overall commitment of the Republic to education; thousands of schools were built. Accounts of Lorca in this period on the road doing theater are in Gibson, ibid., pp. 319–324, 330–334, and in Stainton, ibid., pp. 283–304.
295“… an effervescent child …”: quoted in Stainton, ibid., p. 335.
298He told the director, Rivas Cherif: The most complete account of the context and content of this conversation is in Stainton, ibid., pp. 412–114.
299“… a disastrous event”: quoted in Gibson, ibid., p. 439.
300“I am totally Spanish …”: quoted in Gibson, ibid., p. 439.
301On July 13, Lorca boarded the train for Granada: For the complete accounts of the lethal chain of events that led to his murder, see the pioneering work of Gibson, ibid., pp. 446–472. And the later biography of Lorca by Stainton, ibid., pp. 440–461.
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