Convivencia in Medieval Spain: Is the History Credible - Essay Example

However, Iberian convivencia was frequently volatile, and the centuries of relative concord collapsed abysmally in 1492 AD when Ferdinand and Isabella prohibited Islamic practices and banished Jews from the Iberian Peninsula (Lowney 229). Yet at its height the remarkable accord of convivencia contributed to a culture of profound scientific learning, outstanding secular literary works and superbly fine art of exceptional quality, leaving historians over the centuries intrigued with the uncommonly fertile and resourceful historical phenomenon (Cotter 27).

Al-Andalus was thoroughly Islamicized in a relatively few years after Abd ar-Rahman successfully occupied the Iberian Peninsula and set up Umayyad rule under the Caliphate of Crdoba (Menocal 29). Exiled Umayyad Muslim upper classes moved into the region and revitalized city life, while savvy peasant farmers invested labor and skill in the cultivation of rural areas. The conquered Visigoth commoners already living on the peninsula, superficial converts to Christianity at best, quickly espoused the Islamic faith.

Portions of the converted Visigoth aristocracy remained committed to Christianity, but the greater majority converted to Islam in response to the political incentive of being appointed by Muslim rulers to a regional governorship (Menocal 7). Jews already made up a well-established Sephardic community in the region and exercised a key influence in Iberian culture, continuing to assert a substantial impact on commerce and learning (Glick, Mann and Dodds 99).Islamic Iberia, known as al-Andalus, thrived for two and a half centuries under the Caliphate of Crdoba (Menocal 93).

The government of the caliph was an Islamic system of succession that united both religion and state under one head. European history and literature typically represent the Middle ages as a backward and barren period. Yet Medieval al-Andalus gave the rest of Europe the first translations of Plato and Aristotle, inspired love songs and secular poetry, articulated important advances in mathematics, constructed imposing architecture, and attained great competence in the physical sciences (Glick, Mann and Dodds 85).

The caliphs created academic institutions and libraries, advanced the scientific disciplines and higher mathematics, and introduced the detailed ornamentation of arabesque into Iberian architecture. The Muslim overlords developed the technology to explore mines, encouraged commerce and invention, and constructed elaborate irrigation systems, employing their technical know-how to transform Iberia's vast desert regions into flourishing orchards and exquisite gardens. The Muslim culture contributed more than six hundred Arabic words to the Iberian language (Lowney 59).

A substantial Jewish populace had settled the Iberian Peninsula centuries before the first Muslim invaders emerged in 711 AD from North Africa. Anti-Semitic exploitation at the hands of the Visigoths had been ruthless, yet under the new Ummayad Islamic rule both Jews and Christians were accepted as protected minorities known as peoples of the book or dhimmis (Glick, Mann and Dodds 15). All three faiths, in their distinct traditions, were heirs to the patriarch Abraham and venerated