Andalusia

by Rain Trueax

I am a fan of documentaries. There are times when a movie just does not appeal to me. Almost always a good documentary will. On Amazon Prime New Year's Day night, we enjoyed 'When the Moors Ruled in Europe.' 

 

 

It's by a British historian looking at the architectural evidence for the Moorish presence in Spain from about 700-1500 AD. It presents a very different look at Muslims of that time and even today with the different ways Islam is seen. Beautifully filmed and quite interesting. This is the blurb for it:

'This program contends that the popular perception of the Muslim occupation of Spain toward the end of the first millennium is largely wrong. The eighth century Muslim invasion of the Iberian Pennisula was largely welcomed by the locals and rejuvenated the area with advanced technology, agriculture and a construction boom. This program describes these innovations. All this changed in the eleventh century when the regional government fragmented. That set the stage for the Christian invasion and the Islamic fundamentalist resistance leading to more of a civil war than a holy war that decimated the region with corruption, destruction and exile.'

To add to my interest, in this documentary, when I was doing past life regressions back in the summer of 1998, one of the lives was in Iberia (Spain today). I won't go into details here about what I got from that deep hypnotic meditation, but it fits with this time when for a while Muslims and Christians existed together and could cooperate. (For those of you suspicious of past life memories, this one did not end happily-- no HEA for the two who fell in love in the visions I got).

 

 This was a digital painting I did of a retrieved memory from that regression... In it, I knew there were multiple cultures living together in peace. Crossing cultural and religious barriers was still forbidden. Is that memory real, as in did it happen, or was it a creation of my mind? I am a vivid dreamer and a writer; so who knows. 

It's sad that in human history those kinds of peaceful times do not last long, as power is an aphrodisiac to some humans, and they will do what they must to get it. In the documentary that time was brought to an end by a Christian invasion, the time of the Inquisition, where heretics must be converted or killed; but there was another part of the Muslim people who used violence and that element also came into Spain before being driven out. Peace lovers seem to always lose to those who relish conquest.

After watching the documentary, I found myself asking, if that time of cooperation had been allowed to grow, what might have changed for the world? This was a time of scientific advancement on many levels as that sect of Islam valued books and education. When the Inquisition arrived, Arabic books were burned when they could be found-- many though survived and were seen in the documentary. 

 

The historian made the point that because the faction of the Muslims, who had first come to Spain, were oriented toward the arts, education, beauty, they were ill equipped to fight off the more warlike Christians also of that time. If you have ever played games like Risk and others where you build communities but also armies, you know how it works if there isn't enough military force to hold off the other players. We'd like to think times change-- humans grow wiser. Not sure there's a lot of evidence for it as history often seems doomed to repeat.

 

I also thought how sad that that beautiful side of Islam for at least a time has lost out to the more warlike one in terms of the Middle East at least. Fundamentalism, in all its forms, often is suspicious of education and its ability to teach but also to indoctrinate. Education for the pure joy of learning can be subverted by those warlike elements in our human nature. Sadly, not much has changed.

Anyway, if you are interested in history, archaeology, and the human story, I recommend it. I looked where it might be seen besides Prime. It looks like DVDs are available on Amazon but only through third party sellers. Reading reviews of it on Amazon, Christian viewers sounded offended by its perspective; so if that fits you, it might not be your thing. It was made in 2005 but I am not where where it was shown before this. Most of it was filmed in Andalusia with some in Fez, Morocco.