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The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise

Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain

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The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise

By: Dario Fernandez Morera
Narrated by: Bob Souer
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About this listen

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony.

There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth.

In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise shines light on hidden features of this medieval culture by drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological evidence only recently unearthed.

As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight - showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless.

©2016 Darío Fernández-Morera (P)2016 Tantor Christianity Europe Islam Judaism Spain Middle Ages Middle East Iran Africa Mythology Ottoman Empire Imperialism Ancient History Portugal Crusade Spain Myths

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All stars
Most relevant  
The "Myth", as the author sees it, lies in the modern notion that convivencia, or Living together, was somehow a golden time of cooperation. While it was a period of living together, it was racist, religiously intolerant, brutal and coercive. So apologists will argue that this is in itself, anti-islamic, anti-christian or anti-jewish, while in fact, they were all pretty awful. It was an awful brutal time. While the Jews, for example, fared better under the Muslims than the Visigoths, they were still treated like disposable slaves...a better disposable slave, but still a slave.

Both muslims and christians were all too happy to oppress the other and both wish to be seen as victims. The Jews, who never held the upper hand, oppressed their own people, just as did the christians and muslims, each who was as willing to slaughter their own as the other.

Not a pretty picture of any of the participants, and certainly not an Andalusian "Paradise".

Pretty good historianship

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Absolutely relentless in his approach to combating the lies of modern academia, and there attempts to sanitize life in Muslim Spain.

A great book

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Full of information and enjoyable narrative. A must for those who have hunger for truth over fairy tales.

An inconvenient truth

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Brilliant, engaging, and meticulously researched, this book ought to be required reading in high schools and for any adult who wishes to be more knowledgeable about the true Islamic impact on Spain.

Brilliant

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Whether interested in history, religion, Spain or good old fashioned myth busting, you will enjoy this masterpiece of setting the record straight.

enlightening read

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This author clearly has an axe to grind,,which always pollutes and poisons anything he has to say whether it be true or no. There is more than a whiff of a Joseph Ratzinger about his anti-Islamic bitterness.
If the mosque at Cordoba was built from Christian laces of worship the cathedral bang in its centre doesn’t get a mention. Perhaps our author might write a sequel to this book about how Jews and Muslims were treated subsequently by the church not to mention Protestants!!
This is an unpleasant and aggressive piece of writing with tedious quotations from various academic authorities that your average reader won’t have heard of, so they could be entirely fictitious for all we know or care.
I looked forward to an informative balanced account of a society that enriched Spanish culture and that of the rest of the world and what we get is a rant.

A rant.

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This is a book that if it wasn’t in audio form, I would probably have never got past the first chapter. However.... hearing it narrated - it grips you and I have gained new knowledge and information on this important era - and there are many lessons that can be applied to today’s political arena.
I have always suspected that the so called ‘golden era’ probably was more of a dark period - and the author has unearthed records to back this up. As I listened to this book whilst driving - I found myself on breaks searching for more info on Visigoths - a group that had never previously been brought into my narrative on this era.
This book is a must listen - especially when we see seismic changes happening around us today in the West.

Explodes the myth of the golden era....

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Turns out the popularly held Andalusian tolerance is significantly exaggerated. Jews were mistreated, and Christians were castigated. Both were impoverished by the high jizzya tax, and at the bottom rings of society, with persecution becoming more or less severe depending upon the whims of whoever was leader of the caliphates at the time, Umayyad or such.

Just a glimpse of what may happen to western Europe soon.

Exceptional scholarship utilises primary sources

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The myth is well and truly busted by this truth bomb, narrated so well. Just one error, Al Andalus is derived from the Vandals, not Atlantis. Viva Espana!

Compelling listening

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Referencing a vast collection of Muslim, Christian and Jewish sources past and present the author clarifies Islam as an ideology of conquest whose ultimate expression in armed Jihad and goal quite literally world domination expressed explicitly in the Quran and numerous Hadith. Contrary to fashionable whimsical contemporary academic analysis the Muslim conquest of Spain.and its subsequent rule was brutal and uncompromising designed foremost to uphold the supremacy of Arab Muslims over its conquered subjects, prevent them "contaminating" Islam and extort from them protection money in the form of special taxes - all practices mandated by the Quran and upheld by Islam to this day.

An important book with relevance for now

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