Hello /his/
Let's discuss the islamic andalusia
How was it? i know that there has been a great output of culture and sciences during that era, was it because of exchange of expertise? tolerance?
How did muslims coexist with non-muslims? did people there convert because islam was looking peaceful for them as muslims nowadays say or was it to avoid paying jizya?
>>939433
You could compare it to the Italian Renaissance in that a lot of cultural and philosophical output was facilitated by local aristocratic competition between rival emirs who had more money than military forces. It could also have been a consequence of an influx of eastern talent at a time when the Abbasid Caliphate was crumbling while the Spanish Umayyads were beginning to rise. Tolerance (and triumphalism) was more a consequence rather than a cause as it lowered the barriers for entry into the Andalusian Nation of Letters, but did not really lead to much influence until the later translation period under the Catholic kings.
Co-existence was largely done through segregation but with lots of interaction between segregated communities through trade and commerce. Apparently in the very early years it was common for Muslims and Christians to be buried in the same graveyards.
I honestly can't think of any examples of someone converting to avoid paying a poll tax like the Jizya. That seems more a modern assumption, and I would imagine if it was a major impetus driving conversion than the Martyrs of Cordoba narrative would have alluded to such a thing. Instead, the allure of the Moorish cosmopolitan culture seems to have been the greater cause.
>>939577
I see, thanks for the reply.
Is it true that this all was achieved by the laxity of adherence to islamic law or at least relatively?
I heard that the peaceful era and golden age if you can call it that was ended when moorish muslims decided that there's too much heresy going on and must go back to strict islamic rule (i think the moravid dynasty)
>>939609
>Is it true that this all was achieved by the laxity of adherence to islamic law or at least relatively?
By what measure? If compared to the modern era, most of Islamic history shows a laxity in adherence to Islamic Law which functioned more like Justinian's Code did for Western Europe: a good idea if no other authorities had something to say about a legal dispute, which was almost always outside of small family court matters.
>I heard that the peaceful era and golden age if you can call it that was ended when moorish muslims decided that there's too much heresy going on and must go back to strict islamic rule (i think the moravid dynasty)
The Almoravids were less the Muslim Inquisition no one expected and more xenophobes who saw everything that wasn't part of their religious world view as indulgence. More early Al Qaeda than early Taliban (who more resembled the Almohads instead).
>>939644
Thanks again, so the state deteriorated with almoravids or did it improve?
>>939653
Define state. If you mean the Emirate/Caliphate, that had collapsed some decades before the Almoravids. If you mean 'La Convivencia' there was some more harshness but it doesn't seem to have been any different than earlier short bursts of persecution that would blow over (which it did), much of it having more to do with the initial Almoravid generation being insular and not letting anyone rise in the ranks without being part of their tribal confederation.
>>939673
I see, i meant as in when the muslims were ruling themselves so i guess emirate/caliphate, may i ask what is your expertise in this field?
>>939683
Absolutely none, just thousands of hours reading thousands of pages of pdf books and articles in my free time when I should be studying or even sleeping.
>8 replies
>2 posters
Get a room lads
>>939716
That's awesome man wish i had free time to learn stuff like this.
>>939740
it's cute, anon, let it be
Muslim iberians drank wine, which is pretty impressive knowing that the Coran doesn't allow it.
>>940270
So did a lot of Muslims throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Hell, every single biography about a founding Turk dynast like the Ghaznavids, the Mughals, the Seljuks, the Ottomans, etc, all involve getting shitfaced drunk.
I believe at least one Ottoman sultan died when he tripped and cracked his head open while plastered.
>>939433
Which stage of Al Andalus do you want to discuss? Because it's basically
>Allah tier
Caliphate of Cordoba
Early Emirate of Granada
>Good tier
Umayyad province of Al Andalus
Emirate of Cordoba
>Ok tier
First taifa period
>Bad tier
Almoravids
Second taifa period
Late Emirate of Granada
>Dogshit tier
Almohads
>>940684
Well basically a muslim guy i know told me that al-andalus was great and everyone was tolerant of each other, and people there entered islam willingly not by force, i know those things are true but wanted to make sure the last one was correct (entering the islam thing), and i'd like to know how close or far they were from strict islam with examples if possible.
It was a land under occupation and persecution, which was not under the rule of its indigenous inhabitants. It was not the Muslims who initiated the idea of conquering it, rather they rid the land of an unjust occupation and it turned into a Muslim land whose inhabitants chose to follow Islam and become part of the Islamic state.
>>942948
>al-andalus was great
See >>940684
First of all, Al-Andalus wasn't a country: it's a name for the whole of muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula.
There was a brief glory period under Aberrahman III who ruled a centralised state, promoted the arts and philosophy, and ensured a kind of peace throughout the whole of the Iberian peninsula, but there were also periods of near constant warfare and chaos.
>everyone was tolerant of each other
Again, at times they were, other times not so much. Al-Andalus was generally marked by a kind of minority rule: a smaller population of muslims ruling a larger population of christians and also jews. Islam proscribes good treatment of 'people of the book' (christians and jews) as long as they pay a tax and generally forbids forced conversion, and this was widely practiced in the early period of Islam. Abderrahman III again is known as particularly tolerant to both. Later the Almohads and Almoravids were much less tolerant and forced conversions on people, and sometimes committed sectarian massacres of populations.
>and people there entered islam willingly not by force
There was voluntary conversion to islam in Al-Andalus. But later dynasties also practiced forced conversions.
>>942973
Wew lad
The Visigoths weren't native to Iberia for sure, but by the time of the muslim conquest they had been there for almost 300 years. Not a lot is known about the Visigoth kingdom, but it doesn't seem to have been a particularly terrible place considering there aren't a lot of records or rebellions(though again, there's not a lot of records about anything - we only know most of the names of their kings from fucking coins). Ethnic nationalism didn't exist in the 8th century, and the people of Iberia at the time probably didn't think of themselves as being under foreign occupation. The muslims are at least as foreign as the Visigoths anyway.
The muslim conquest of Iberia was initiated by a large Berber raid which apparently destroyed most of the Visigoth aristocracy in a single clusterfuck of a battle, and conquered the rest of the peninsula over the next couple of years. This pattern of Berber invasions from the Maghreb overthrowing domestic rule repeated itself two more times during the history of al-Andalus, with the Almohads and the Almoravids. They weren't coming to liberate the Iberians from the evil Visigoths and bring them the enlightened rule of Islam.
>>943088
"But their authority was not well established in the land at first, because of the religious conflicts that occurred between them and the original people, and because of the disputes that occurred among their rulers. Hence throughout the sixth century the land was subjected to civil wars and the chaos and problems that resulted from them, until the time of the last Visigoth ruler, whose name was Roderic (in Arabic, Dahweeq). What is clear and indisputable is that the man felt that he was not fully in control and all his life he feared an attack from his many enemies. These enemies were not only the sons of Wittiza, whose kingdom Roderic had usurped, rather they included most of the Iberian, Roman and Jewish people, i.e., most of the people of the land which the Goths had invaded. "
-Husayn Mu’nis Fajr al-Andalus (p. 8, 18-19)
>>943088
The Visigothic Kingdom is one of the most pathetic Kingdoms to have ever existed. It was 3 centuries of continual regicide and civil wars.
>>939433
Actual local Andalusian here.
Muslims were fine, most cities in here surrendered to them. They were tolerant and used techs from the muslim world and western world.They taxed the christians way a lot more but just that. But then, the Almohavids revolted and took over. They weren't so friendly to Christians. All the choices they gave was basically;
-Die
-Gtfo
>>943878
So if almohavids treated christians like that how come there are still christians in that area? like wouldn't they be expelled? or maybe they did but returned?
>>944125
In general, these sorts of things are almost always limited to the major cities where a zealous governor had direct authority. Townsfolk and villagers usually just went on with their lives without much noticeable difference. Intolerance usually just meant people kept their heads down and waited for it to pass like always, or they moved to another nearby city and then might move back when things blow over.
Just google dhimmitude.
It certainly wasn't great for kafirs.
>>945987
>Just google dhimmitude.
I honestly can't think of a single good piece of scholarship that unironically uses the phrase dhimmitude, so he's better off reading a more technical and peer-reviewed book.
