FANATICISM
The fact that most of Spain was under Islamic rule between 711 and centuries thereafter (up to 1492 in Southeastern parts around Granada, but the whole Southern half up to in the 13th c.) contrasts with the fanatic Catholic Christian image Spain obtained by the 16th c., even battling against wayward Christian sects like Protestantism.
This fight against rising Protestantism - starting in Germany in 1517, with Martin Luther -, then expanding, in turn influenced national formations, such as of the Netherlands, over which a Spanish Catholic monarch ruled for a period. The Netherlands maintained a large Catholic minority in its South and parts of the East and West, but was – for who don’t know - founded as an independent Protestant nation by William of Orange (born as a German Protestant). Catholic Spain had to be kicked out, for that reason.The Netherlands declared itself independent in 1581, Spain recognized it only in 1648.
COLONIALISM
Spain’s wicked colonial adventures outside of Europe, notably the Americas, when Christopher Columbus convinced Spanish monarchs since 1492, to become one of the first colonizing countries, “discovering” (read: conquering) lands in the Americas on natives, and claiming them for Spain, also had a distinctly Catholic Christianizing “vibe” to it, at least formally: Christianizing the natives.
Predictably, historical sources point out that the Christianizing zeal of Spanish colonialism was in hindsight not so dominant as motive, as it was presented to the world. The two reigning Spanish monarchs in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, that Columbus got to back him, along with some rough Spanish “rough hands” and Portuguese examples, mixed Catholic and monetary, mercenary aims. Ferdinand was by historians known as “less Catholic or pious” in his faith than his wife Isabella, discussing mainly a lot of financial, exploitative, and economic advantages with Columbus, never minding harsh methods (slavery, force). Isabella on the hand at first actually opposed Amerindian enslavement.
Moreover, the documented behaviour and utterances of Columbus himself pointed more at power and monetary gain as his goals than at a pious Catholic stance. The latter was nonetheless maintained for what we now would call “propaganda” reasons: Christianizing the indigenous in the Americas for the Holy Church, via Catholic Spain.
The relationship between this fanatic Catholic image that Spain thus obtained internationally, and the Islamic rule by Moors in Spain not long before, can be seen as intriguing. Did one “religious fanaticism” trigger the other?, one might be tempted to ask. Or was the Genoese Christopher Columbus such a “smooth talker” that he might have convinced other countries if they had the funds? I guess we’ll never know.
The Moorish, Islamic rule in large parts of Spain between the 8th c. and 1492 – also for centuries in areas where many early colonizers of the Americas came from – remains relevant, though. Many of the (in)famous “conquistadores” of American and indigenous (Aztec, Inca, a.o.) lands came from Western Andalusia and Extremadura, once over five centuries under Islamic rule, shaping the regions partly.
FRANCO DICTATORSHIP
The dictatorship under Francisco Franco that held Spain hostage between 1939 and 1975 was known as “Fascist”, but in an own Spanish way, that Spanish way being the Catholic Church, and Catholicism became the state religion. Over time, especially after the fall of the “axis” (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) in 1945, the openly ideological “Fascist” aspects were downplayed in favour of a generalized Catholic, totalitarian ideology.
Franco was (unlike Hitler or Mussolini) a practicing Catholic, but had in fact cordial relations with some Islamic leaders, so this totalitarian ideology stimulating “Catholic Spanishness” was more to chain and repress people within Spain (no, not just Catalans or Basques), and fooling the masses with religion, so that they could be easily exploited by elites. This recurs throughout history. There was no “de facto” Islam (only as historical memory) in Spain to fight (unlike e.g. in Bosnia), so there was no ideological fight against Islam or even Protestantism, beyond some rhetorical nonsense in propaganda. It nonetheless confirmed for the outside world Spain’s “fanatical” Catholic image.
Some Spanish historians in fact pointed at the similarities with how the ayatollah regime in Iran used Islam against the people, with how the Franco regime used Catholicism. Women also had less rights than men in Spain then, and public restraint (tongue kissing in public was forbidden) stimulated as well. This became more moderate and less strictly upheld over time (since around the mid-1960s) than in Iran, but was still in formal legislation under that dictatorship.
CÓRDOBA
It is, even when putting aside Spain’s colonial endeavors or dictatorial past, an interesting part of Spain’s national history itself, as a South European nation. I noticed this all the more in Córdoba, in South West Spain, Andalusia, - which I recently visited - which was for some centuries the largest city of the Islamic Moors in what they called Al Andalus (Islamic Iberia): with over 300.000 inhabitants (!) around the year 900: only after 1100 it started to decline. It was then a period the largest city of Europe!
Islamic rulers ruled over large parts of Spain, whereby those from the Almoravid dynasty or Umayyad caliphate (Arab elite, Berber middle class) made of Córdoba their main city for some centuries (10-12 c.): a then quite advanced center of power, science, development, and administration. In some senses relatively advanced compared to the rest of Europe, notably in exact and practical sciences like maths, engineering, and agriculture, albeit not very culturally tolerant toward non-Muslims, neither very enlightened regarding what we now call “human rights”: it still knew slavery (also of sub-Saharan Africans), lower classes, and female subjugation. People who did not want to convert (Christians, Jews) were tolerated, but as second-class citizens, required to pay extra taxes.
Photo above: entrance to the Mezquita-Catedral in Córdoba city.
Visiting it recently, including museums and historical sites, I found that this history still is present in Córdoba, and not just for tourists, as cynics might balk. The big Mezquita (Mosque) from those Umayyad Islamic times is quite central in the old part of the city of Córdoba (now, 2026, with about 250.000 inhabitants), presently not much more than a provincial capital, smaller than other Andalusian cities like Seville or Málaga (with over 600.000 and around 500.000 inhabitants respectively). The Mezquita area is close to the erstwhile Judería (Jewish quarter), with narrow streets, where known philosophers and rabbinic scholar scholars like Maimonides lived.
The Mezquita was so big, that later a cathedral was built in it after Christian reconquest. This Cathedral still functions as such, so the many tourists visiting the Mezquita-Cathedral are told to respect it as a "house of worship", but now only for Catholics. The remaining parts of the former important Mosque. include Visigoth-borrowed "horse-shoe motifs", and some Arabic and North African motifs and decorations in its architecture.
(Underneath a short impression film I made within the Mezquita-Catedral of Córdoba.)
Córdoba is, I found, a very monumental, picturesque, and actually pretty city (also qua architecture), with much maintained history in most of the city. It is not one of those cities with mainly semi-modern monotonous apartment blocks or flats. These were only found on the outskirts.
There was an equally big Cathedral built in that large Mezquita, but also other smaller Catholic churches throughout Córdoba were built on sites of former mosques from that time, bearing often visible vestiges/remnants of them (see photo under). So does much of the architecture and city planning (and place names) in older Córdoba. The Moorish, Islamic history is also still present in some maintained, somewhat adapted, cultural, daily customs (culinary and otherwise) of present inhabitants.
Yet, Córdoba now is at the same time clearly a Catholic city, as e.g. other South European towns, like say Naples, Palermo, or Toulouse. Sure, modernized and secularized more and more, as elsewhere, but less so than in once Catholic cities in Northern Europe, like e.g. Brussels, Eindhoven, Munich, or Cologne, that “secularized” much stronger in the present time. In Andalusia relatively more people still marry in churches, visit churches, or consider themselves Catholic. Of course, the older people more than the young, as elsewhere. That’s the intriguing irony of Córdoba, and perhaps wider Spain: it maintained its Catholic culture and beliefs relatively more than other places in Europe that never were under Islamic rule.
IDEALIZED?
While not only interesting for the commercial tourist industry - but certainly also for “history buffs” like me -, I noticed that Córdoba’s Mosque-Cathedral area was indeed a site of mass tourism in this day and age. I even got a Benidorm or Torremolinos vibe at its worst moments: from many kitschy souvenir shops, to bothersome street hustlers (stereotypical gypsy fortune tellers, or otherwise) seeking prey at some point, even harder to avoid than those shops.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM
Is this the result of an idealization, a hype? Raymond Ibrahim is a podcaster and US historian of Egyptian (Coptic Christian) descent, who is very critical of Islam’s “violent” intolerant history. He argues that Islam’s image of mostly “peaceful” is unjust.
Ibrahim, as of Coptic descent, might be a biased Christian, but he nonetheless is an actual historian, basing himself on historical sources, also in Arabic, which he can read. I find it hard to ascertain whether he is selective in his sources or examples, but he paints overall a negative picture of violence, oppression, and intolerance of Islamic conquests since the 7th c. from the Arabian peninsula, this way even conquering and converting once main areas of Christianity (North Africa, Turkey, Middle East). In Europe Iberia (most of Spain and Portugal) was conquered, as the Moors were held back in France.
Accordingly, he also sheds a different light on the Almoravid or Umayyad caliphate period of Córdoba around 900 and 1000 AD, considered in common parlance - and even by scholars - as relatively advanced and tolerant, pointing instead at sadistic punishments under Moorish rule of Christians at times, a repressive regime, and inequality in society. In the same vein, he stated how heralded scholars in that time like Averroes. only “did what they always did”, and were just Córdobese Jews finding some free spaces under Islamic rule, not because of it, but despite it.
I do not know if this Raymond Ibrahim is totally right – or exaggerated because of bias or his background - , but I consider him as one of several knowledgeable sources.
Tourism stereotypes, and the bias of religious people (both Christians and Muslims), also make it difficult to assess neutrally the veracity, the real situation about Moorish Spain, from written sources.
DHIMMI
What is documented, and sheds another light on Islam's supposed relative tolerance in Spain, was the mentioned tribute/tax - for protection - Christians and Jews (as people of the book) had to pay: tolerated for being also Abrahamic religions, but as second-class citizens: if they did not convert to Islam. This is called "dhimmi" in Islamic tradition.
This was under the Almoravid dynasty. The even more fanatic Almohad dynasty took however over rule in the Maghreb and remaining Spanish/Al Andalus territory (more and more of Spain was by then reconquered by Christians) from 1130 to 1265. They found the preceding Almoravids "too lax" and stopped the Dhimmi/tribute for protection for Christians and Jews, instead forcing conversion. Basically: convert to Islam, die, or flee. Many left. Seville - elsewhere in Andalusia - became Moorish Spain's main town under the Almohads, as Córdoba was in decline at that point. The Christian reconquest progressed by then however, and Córdoba was reconquered in 1236, and Seville (then a main Almohad center) in 1248.
Spain was fully “reconquered” finally by Christians by 1492 (when the last kindom around Granada fell), and afterward knew intolerant epochs against remaining Muslims and Jews, even if formally converted. The same fanaticism and intolerance, however, was thus shown by several Moorish rulers in Spain, as explained before.
If Columbus did not point at and pave the way for the colonial adventure, maybe Spain would have remained just an inward-looking Catholic Christian country with some intolerant epochs, but hopefully diminishing and improving over time, just like – say – Poland, Russia, Ethiopia, or Greece.. to name some other proud nations and countries with longer histories of Christian rulers and cultures.
Information in museums and educational centers in Córdoba I visited were quite neutral and unbiased in tone about the Moorish, Islamic period. I appreciated this: quite realistic, and hardly any “idealizing”, though some simplifying. The interesting Archaeology museum of Córdoba pointed out that Islamic rulers did not like public music or parties, that were therefore kept private, also among wealthy Muslims. This somehow contradicts the “paradise” image in some circles about Moorish Spain. Common secretive parties are usually not a sign of democracy or “free societies”, then and now.
BATHING
Bathing and baths - "hammam" in Arabic - were historically important for Muslims – partly due to Islam’s beginning in the dry and hot Arabian desert - then, and many public baths did arise in Córdoba during that time, relatively many to cater to the 300.000 inhabitants, the city then had. Men and women had different bathing times, and were separated in other areas as well.
I visited the largest remnants of such a Moorish bathing complex in another Andalusian city and provincial capital (Jaén) in NE Andalusia, - built in 1002 on a Roman bath - which interestingly related how several baths had different temperatures of water. It was meant as repose and “entertainment”, for lack of a better word, but unfortunate slaves did the hard work (e.g. oven work) for it..
Jaén as town and provincial capital had some nice parts (like the narrow streeted-old Jewish neighbourhood, some pinturesque streets around the nice-looking renaissance-style cathedral), but was smaller and overall less monumental and historical than Córdoba. The Moorish bath house – part of a wider museum complex now, including modern art – was either way interesting.
There was thus – even with repose or “fun” - an emphasis on sobriety, chastity, and cleanliness. Under the Moors, many fountains and water works were added to patio’s and such throughout Spain, which are of course not a bad thing, seeing the hot climate.
Sometimes the Moors in Spain built forth on Roman examples, took something from other cultures (e.g. the Visigoths or Byzantines) in shaping architecture forms, practices, or lifestyles, a “borrowing” which is in itself neither good or bad. Also the architecture had nice decorations, mostly geometric, so there was undoubtedly some sense of art and beauty in Moorish buildings, besides technical advancement.
CIVILIZATION?
It can be called by itself an interesting “civilization”, just like other preceding and following ones: Roman, Visigoth, Byzantine, Christian. Yet, like those other “civilizations”: also with inherent inequalities, favouring an elite and in-group, warfare, and violence. The term “civilization” can be applied, if not taken too literally. For some reason, though, the term “Moorish civilization” is seldom used by historians, unlike “Roman” or “ Greek civilization”.
By the same token, after all, Roman “civilization” had harsh slavery, hierarchies, and female subjugation too, while the Visigoths – while later heralded as precursors to Catholic Spain – were initially a community that closed itself off from the locals, while fighting internally. Only when the Visigoths replaced the Arianism variety of Christianity with Catholicism, they came closer to local Spaniards, albeit hesitantly, from around the 7th c.
And then (711 AD) the Islamic Moors invaded.
History is often complicated and contradictory. Certainly multifaceted.
POLITICALLY CORRECT
Another aspect which make assessing the reality of Moorish Spain difficult, is what Raymond Ibrahim also lambasts as “woke”, politically correct historians from the political, multicultural Left. These then would paint through their ideology/wishful thinking everything non-European as better, more peaceful and humane, than European Christians. Again, Ibrahim might exaggerate, or listen too much to Right-wing podcasters or commentators, who also have an ideology or religion, namely blaming the Left (however they define it) for all the wrongs in this world, or making an uncontrollable monster from “woke” influence. That is also simplistic nonsense, in my opinion: whatever power “woke” has (often ignorable), pales in comparison to the ultra-capitalist “neoliberalism” which by now has a larger hold on Western societies and economies.
What I do agree with, however, is that there is an equally simplistic “political correct” school of history on the Left, specifically about the Islam. Sometimes these are led by Muslims or Islam-sympathizers themselves, but either way these tend to obscure factual (negative) aspects of Islam’s history, also regarding Moorish Spain.
Also, in some strayed “Black Power” circles – which contains much sensible insights too – there is however also said by some that “Africans taught Europeans civilization" and even have introduced regular “bathing”, during that Moorish time in Spain. This fits yet another ideological stance. Some claim that the Moors were “Black”, while most were North Africans, so not sub-Saharan African (these were more often slaves), and even besides this: over time many Islamic people in Moorish Iberia were converted locals (indigenous Spaniards and Portuguese, even several remaining “blonde, blue-eyed” Visigoths converted to Islam). The Moors – who first indeed came from North Africa (albeit led by Arabs) - brought some scholarship and advanced methods in their enlightened stages, somewhat disregarded in Iberia by then, that much is true.
The belief in Islam was so strong and overwhelming, though, that the Moors considered themselves more as Muslims than as Africans, even if indigenous Berbers or Imazigh (or sub-Saharan African). This type of thinking still remains nowadays in parts of North Africa, by the way: Islam identity-wise outweighs Africanness.
Moreoever, Islamic further conquests stimulated slavery of non-Muslims, including also many Africans (not just, and not even mainly, “White Christians” as Right-wing commentators falsely claim), Most were in many cases African slaves, but in some areas Muslims indeed also had European slaves.
The information on panels about the Moorish bath house in Jaén (NE Andalusia, Spain), also pointed out that the “hard work” for the multi-temperature baths (which involved in pre-electric times, ovens, and more) was done by slaves. Especially, élite Moors and Muslims in Islamic Spain tended to have slaves and servants.
ARCHITECTURE
In Moorish Spain, now, there were quite some African slaves owned by Muslims, as well as European ones. These also built – for instance – the Alhambra palace in last Moorish stronghold Granada in Spain, and some other “iconic” buildings in Moorish Spain and Portugal, giving “nice-looking” and artistic buildings a cynical touch.
Photo above: the Alhambra palace in Granada (SE Andalucia, Spain), the last Moorish stronghold up to 1492.
The White House in the US was also built by (African American) slaves, but I do not consider that sober, Protestant building as “pretty” to look at. Catholics and Muslims seem better at pretty buildings, haha
The Moors, in fact, did leave behind many visually pleasing, decorative buildings or architecture throughout Spain, even mixed as an enriching architecture legacy. These are often maintained or even restored regularly, as historical legacy. The Alcazaba (fortification) buildings of the Moors, for military purposes, were less artistic or interesting, though from a distance standing out somewhat dramatically in mountainous landscapes surrounding e.g. Málaga or Jaén, also when lit at night as in Málaga.
Moorish architecture was a difference with a later occasion when Islam conquered parts of Europe, namely the Turkish Ottomans conquering a large part of the Southeast, from Hungary and the Balkan to Greece. These left little material cultural legacies (no “beautiful buildings”), - some cultural influence -, though it did leave behind still practicing local Muslims in parts of Europe (Bosnia, Albania..): ethnically Slavs or Albanian, but Muslims..
CHRISTIANIZATION
The intrigue is also there with the Christianization after the Christian reconquest. In the case of Córdoba this was in the later 13th c. Developed local, neighbourhood churches with social work, according to historians, helped spread Catholic Christianity among the populace of areas once under Islamic rule. This gave Spanish Catholicism an “informal” nature, and space for “popular Catholicism”, with own festivities devoted to local saints or shrines.
Christian art after this Islamic time changed in that human portrayal – forbidden in Islam as idolatry – became very common: of Jesus, Mary, and other Biblical figures, or local patron saints. This was already part of Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christianity elsewhere, but represented a remarkable shift toward “human relations”, seeming more social/socializing than abstract, if artistic, notions in Moorish art and decoration before. Human portrayal thus appeared in Cathedrals, and other Catholic places, while “the divine” became more human as well: Jesus was unlike Muhammad not just the “messenger” of the higher God, but was God itself.
With religions changed artistic notions, shown well in Spain’s history. Unlike Protestantism, Islam did allow beautifying buildings (albeit more in the interior) leaving many artistic decorations in monuments. Of course, also did Catholicism, leaving also many excellent Cathedrals and other buildings, sometimes with partly Moorish architecture influences.
Again, this points at irony, but also at how art influences other art, even across cultures.
Besides both being Abrahamistic, monotheistic religions, Islam and Christendom shared an idea of “magic” in daily life, worked out in Spain, but also serving as power tool for rulers. Marx’s “opium for the people”, one might say. At the same time, though, culturally, and artistically fascinating, with room for creativity.
This Christian, monotheistic “drive” in Spain seems an historic continuity beyond Christianity or Islam.
Even the infamous bullfighting is in fact connected by historians to early Christianizing/conversion. The ancient Iberian, Celtic and other “tribes” in Spain were known to worship “bulls” as god-like. The bullfighting symbolically represents the victory of Catholicism over such local “pagan” notions or practices in Spain.
INTERACTION
Maybe the crux of the Islamic legacy in Spain is in that it was not just a conflict, but an “interaction”. Islamic aspects - architecture, food, some customs - became absorbed within dominant Catholic Christianity. That interaction focused more on material culture and less on actual belief, though neither the latter was absent, e.g. Moorish period musical/vocal influences on Christian praise songs later in Spain’s history, or some daily customs.
Those “interaction”, cultural mixture, and “absorption” aspects have been overlooked, I think, in Spain’s history, by both “Right-wing”/conservative, or “Left-wing” historical scholars, emphasizing simplistic conflict or “lost paradise” ideas, related to religious conquests.
Both –lets’ face it – power- and conquest-focussed religions like Islam and Christianity had intolerant, repressive periods, and recurring attacks on certain ”heathen”, Jews, or free thinkers, showing at times abuse of power in - male led! - hierarchical (religious) societies.
Yet, despite and within all that, art and culture interacted beyond religion, showing today in much of Spain’s culture, still under the Catholic Christian “umbrella”. It however also disputes in a pleasant way, that religious zealotry or fanaticism, does not need to have the last say. Culture can have that too.
Spain – and most Spaniards – see practicing Islam as historically but no longer the essence of Spain: that station is passed. Unlike in Bosnia on the Balkans, or in Albania, no nation or groups of still practicing Muslims remained in Spain. The legacy is more subtle and beyond religion, organically developed during a rich history. It is absorbed within a wider Catholic-based culture, especially in Central and Southern Spain, despite intolerant epochs of that Catholic Church.
Further, the Castilian language ("Spanish") has due to the Reconquista and that interaction incorporated many Arabic loanwords from Moors in Al Andalus, for even daily things, including many words for household, food, and agriculture. About 8% of Spanish/Castilian's vocabulary is even of Arabic origin, to a lesser degree also Catalan and Portuguese. More than other Romance languages, due to Spain and Portugal's Moorish Islamic past. Arabic loanwords include words of common usage like the words for bed, cup, carrot, carpet, plug, neighbourhood, mayor, renting, as well as more "mental" words like "spirited", while also the stereotypical praise term "olé" in Spanish culture is originally a Moorish loanword for the religious saying "by God's will".
CURRENT VIEWS
Finally, it is interesting to study how the average present-day Spaniards (young and old) view their country’s Moorish past. Not much scholarly research has been done on this theme, though there are some known serious studies. I say “serious”, because much what is said about this is based on not much more than anecdote or only some sources. I know and heard those too, being a half-Spaniard (Spanish mother) with roots in the Southern part of Spain (with Moorish vestiges). In fact, my roots are not far from Córdoba.
“They (the Moors) left us some palaces”, some common Spanish folk I heard state, going not much deeper than that, perhaps adding patio’s and some foodstuffs (cold soup, rice with milk desserts). Common knowledge about historical epochs should – as everywhere and always –not be exaggerated. Only intellectuals, historians, or “history buffs” tend to study it more, also in Spain.
My personal impression is, talking with Spaniards, family and others, and listening to scholars, politicians, and fools (haha!) appearing in the media, that Spain's Moorish past is accepted and taken for granted, as one of those historical epochs of their country, with some remnants, especially in the South, and in sometimes appreciated material or culinary culture. Celebration as a "paradise lost" I heard or read less, maybe due to the conflictive past, and the Christian culture that became more shaping, even if (like elsewhere in Europe) now less influential in these modern, secular times.
Then there is the Internet and social media. I am not one of those who “blames” social media for misinformation. I blame certain ideologies and people who use it, perhaps. Stupid mindsets like you have in daily life too, mixing with sensible, positive people, also find their way to social media.
DNA
Regarding the theme of Spain’s Moorish part, and with the rise of genetical or DNA studies (developed since the 1950s, since expanded) a lot of strange, selective “revelations” are presented, on social media. Revelations which are often untrue, or, at most, nothing new.
The fact that present-day Spaniards might have some DNA from Moorish times – actual scholarly studies point in different directions – which seems logical, seems to offend some people, due to racial and cultural preferences. They present or distort facts from studies, showing that the promise of “genetics don’t lie” neither holds true. Especially in scholarly, scientific methods, DNA data can just as well be selective or manipulated, to fit wanted outcomes, even if we’re dealing in name with an exact science. I have worked in the academic world (with information), so I learned this.
Most studies – the more impartial ones – concluded that the genetic mixture of local Iberian people with Arabs or Berbers from that time was not as extreme as people think, but was neither absent (some 7% admixture overall), and furthermore affected by later (post-Moorish period) migrations, or even between Moorish and Christian kingdoms during the Reconquista period. It is hard to distinguish from earlier Semitic or Hamitic migrations (even in pre-Roman times) as Phoenicians and Carthiginians (partly mixed with Berbers/Imazigh) affected parts of Spain too (also the South) since 2000 BC. The African continent lies very close by, after all.
Yet, even stating that Spaniards have a bit more North African or Semitic (Phoenicians and Carthiginians spoke a proto-Semitic language, w. origins in what is now Lebanon) DNA – at most between 7% and 10%, with regional differences within Iberia, than other Europeans, ticked certain people off, wanting to downplay it. At the same time, these same people often exaggerate the Germanic influence in Spanish DNA, which is even smaller (only above 8% in parts of Galicia and Catalonia). Central-European DNA in Spaniards come mostly from Celts, neither being majoritarian, not even in NW Spain (about 30%). Older peoples, probably related to what would become Basques, left a higher imprint, along with various Mediterranean peoples, in the course of time. The population's genetic or DNA-base was thus largely formed when the Moors came, adding further some genetic admixture. That’s simply how history goes.
This shows several things. Most non-intellectuals (or fake intellectuals) do not like actual, serious, impartial studies, and it shows that many still think that “race” (or genetics) and “culture” are necessarily the same, as a kind of biological determinism around “pure races”, that also shaped European racism in colonial times, as well as in Nazi Germany.
In the case of Spanish history it is even more absurd, as it conflates “race” and religion (something of the mind), which stems from Spanish history, and some intolerant epochs up to the 17th c., when remaining, converted Jews or Moors were still mistrusted by Christian rulers for having no “limpieza de sangre” (“clean blood”). This sounds kind of “Nazi-ish”, but did lead to the ousting of some, not to their mass murder, but still: the same absurd thinking. Especially from densely populated Valencia and the East Coast (parts of Catalonia), many converted Moriscos (Moorish descent) and converted Jews (“conversos”) were ousted (Castile less strict), which therefore (as densely populated and wanted land) might relate to economic and territorial interests as well. Much of this – like all these religious conflicts and wars – seemed of course as much about power and interests, as about faith.
POWER
Religion is after all about “power”. That’s why I myself – not member of a powerful elite, nor wishing to have power over people - am more into “spirituality” and humanity, as I hope more people are.
The fact that both Islam and Christianity tend to emphasize a "better life" or "paradise" after death, while stimulating a fear for punishment during life, betrays in my opinion that they want to keep the masses subdued and controlled, not rebelling against the "powers that be". That is just my opinion, but I respect other people choosing to worship God/the divine in such structured religious settings - offering also a sense of community, I imagine. Power abuse aside, Christianity further has as base a well-written book and engaging story - and a sympethetic, kind-hearted protagonist in Jesus -, while Islam is a bit more "military" and tribal in focus, but in turn offers clear rituals and guidelines for one's life. To each his or her own.
As always in history – also during Moorish Spain – most common people had little say in power politics and went on to live their life, as much as they could, despite obstacles, or repressive laws. Many fake conversions took place, pleasing of authorities, bribes, in-between stances, etcetera.
This was also the case in the so much praised earlier Roman era, also shaping Spain in part, also linguistically: the elite made the laws, the populace had to adapt, and were partly discriminated. The Moors were no better, especially as Christians and Jews who did not wish to convert to Islam were “tolerated”, but as said only as second-class citizens, having to pay the rulers taxation/tribute (in their own country). Dhimmi: a kind of "protection money", so to speak. This is the historically common oppression and behaviour of occupying forces, or conquering, powerful “empires”, as we would later see with European colonialism, when European colonizers exploited and taxed Africans in their own countries, for economic gain (while so-called “civilizing” them).
NEUTRALITY
Still, also that Moorish history in Spain had own, intriguing characteristics, which are interesting for those interested in history, especially without taking any racial, cultural, or religious sides. This seems difficult, when dealing with a proud, emotional religion, or with politicized, ideological pro-Western (Right-wing) or anti-Western (Left-wing) stances.
I was therefore pleased that the information given in museums and at monumental sites in the South Spanish, Andalusian cities I recently visited (like Córdoba) seemed very neutral und “un-ideological” to me: just what historical sources showed and told. Not even own Christian Spanish intolerance in certain periods (since the 16th c.) was ignored, but objectively told. This is not even the case in some English or Dutch cases, by the way, known as more advanced nations, where own faults – colonial exploitation - in some museums or sources are still downplayed.
With such neutral information at historical sites, no ideology is imposed, but one truly learns about history and even human behavior. That shows progress, and represents in my view true civilization..
