Walking Holidays in Andalucia
Books
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims,
Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval
Spain - by Maria Rosa Menocal
“ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
MID-EIGHT CENTURY, AN INTREPID young man named Abd al-Rahman
abandoned his home in Damascus, the Near Eastern heartland of...” |
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In stark contrast to the headlines blaring
from the Middle East these days, Maria Rosa Menocal shows how
Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexisted in peace for over 700
years. “The Ornament of the World” tells of a time and
place - from 786 to 1492, in Andalucia, Spain - that is largely
and unjustly overshadowed in most historical chronicles. It was
an era during which three cultures - Judaic, Islamic, and
Christian - forged a relatively stable (although occasionally
contentious) coexistence.... Menocal's history is one of palatine
cities, of philosophers, of poets whose work inspired Chaucer and
Boccaccio, of weeping fountains, breezy courtyards, and a
long-running tolerance 'profoundly rooted in the cultivation of
the complexities, charms, and challenges of contradictions',
which ended with the repression of Judaism and Islam the same year
Columbus sailed to the New World. |
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A rich and thriving culture where
literature, science and religious tolerance flourished for 700
years is the subject of this enthralling history of medieval
Spain. Living side by side in the Andalusian kingdoms, the
'peoples of the book' produced statesmen, poets and philosophers
who influenced the rest of Europe in dramatic ways, giving it the
first translations of Plato and Aristotle, love songs and secular
poetry plus remarkable feats of architecture and technology. This
evocative account explores the lost history whose legacy and
lessons have a powerful resonance in today's world. |
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