The decline
Every
calamity is a consequence of people’s deeds. So when Muslims in North Africa in
711 CE moved to help the oppressed people in Spain, motivated by God’s call and
obeying His command, God helped them to reach excellent achievement. But when
they lost that lofty faith, and their behaviour declined, they no more deserved
God’s help.
God says: “O you who have attained to faith! If you
help (the cause of) God, He will help you and will make firm your steps” (47:7).
“ ...
victory comes only from God, the Mighty, the Wise “ (3:126).
And
if we look at History, we can also see that the problems started when the
Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and made their capital in
Baghdad (in 750 CE). Shortly thereafter came
the disintegration. A young surviving Umayyad prince named Abd-ar-Rahman Ad-Dakhil
came to Spain in 756 and fought against the ruler (Yusuf Al-Fihri) until he defeated
him and ruled in his place. The Abbasids then sent a band of soldiers to kill
him but failed. They were defeated and Abd-ar-Rahman declared Andalus
independent of Baghdad.
This
new ruler of Andalusia faced many parties of enemy: The Abbasids who wanted to
take revenge; King Charlemagne, who became the master of Europe, and some
governors who wanted to be independent.
For
Muslims, the spirit or the moral strength could only be held by two principles:
paying heed to God and His Messenger, and being united among themselves. God
says: “And obey God and His Messenger, and do not quarrel with one another,
lest you falter and your strength fades; and be patient, surely God is with the
patient” (8:46).
Muslim expulsion
According
to the historian Roger Boase (published in “History Today” Vol. 52, issue 4, 2002): “In December 1248 Seville
fell to Ferdinand III of Castile (1199-1252), as well as many other cities,
including Valencia, Murcia, Jaen and Cordoba. All had been captured and it
seemed that the end of Muslim Spain was imminent. However, it was not until
1492 that the Moorish Kingdom of Granada surrendered to Ferdinand V and
Isabella, and the final Muslim expulsion did not take place until over a
century later, between 1609 and 1614. This means that there was a large Moorish
population in Spain that held a millennium after the high point of Andalusian
culture in the eleventh century.
The
fall of Granada is the time of the expulsion where many atrocities were
committed: homes were destroyed and abandoned, mosques were converted into
churches, mothers were separated from their children, people were stripped of
their wealth and humiliated, armed rebels were reduced to slavery”.
The
Abbasids formed an alliance with the French kings and warlords who were
fighting Muslim Andalus from the north. The
Andalusians, in turn, allied with the Byzantine Empire who were defending their
falling empire against invading Muslims because they consider Muslims as pagans
and heretics who had to be destroyed. The
degradation continued and the succession struggle became so bitter that the
empire fell into pieces of city-states. It
became easy for the invading French to do their work.
The inquisition
By
the seventeenth century the Moors had become Spanish citizens, of whom some
were genuine Christian converts. Yet all were the victims of a state policy
based on racist theological arguments, which had the backing of both the Royal Council
and the Church, for which the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 provided an
immediate legal precedent.
According
to the terms of the treaty drawn up in 1492, the new subjects of the Crown were
to be allowed to preserve their mosques and religious institutions, to retain
the use of their language and to continue to abide by their own laws and
customs. But within seven years these terms had been broken.
When
the moderate missionary approach of the archbishop of Granada, Hernando de
Talavera (1428-1507), was replaced by the fanaticism of Cardinal Cisneros
(1436-1518), who organized mass conversions and the burning of all religious
texts in Arabic, these events resulted in the first Rebellion of the Alpujaras
(1499-1500) and the assassination of one of the Cardinal’s agents. This in turn
gave the Catholic monarchs an excuse to revoke their promises. In 1499 the
Muslim religious leaders of Granada were persuaded to hand over more than 5,000
priceless books with ornamental bindings, which were then consigned to the
flames; only some books on medicine were spared.
In
Andalusia after 1502, and in Valencia, Catalonia and Aragon after 1526, the
Moors were given a choice between baptism and exile. For the majority, baptism
was the only practical option. Henceforward the Spanish Moors became
theoretically New Christians and, as such, subject to the jurisdiction of the
Inquisition, which had been authorised by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478.
In
Roman Catholic Church history, inquisition
was a judicial institution (1232-1820) founded to discover and suppress any
opinion or belief that is or is thought to be contrary to official, which they
call it heresy. In the Muslim
Kingdom of Andalusia (711-1492) there was no such thing. All different
religious communities recognized by the authority. The Qur’an says:
“There shall be no coercion in matters of faith. The correct way has become
distinct from the erroneous; so whoever disbelieves in the false deity, and
believes in God, has laid hold of the most firm handle, unbreaking; God is
Hearing, Knowing” (2:256).
Coercion
is incompatible with faith, because faith depends on comprehension and will,
and these would be meaningless if induced by force. God observes and knows each
one. Human authority has only the right to observe and maintain the cooperation
of the all inhabitants and should try to spread tolerance among all different
communities.
But the
calamity that inflicted the Muslims of Andalusia, was caused partly because
they became less attached to their faith and loyalty to God, and little by
little lost their solidarity among themselves, while facing very fierce
enemies.
In
this context, an Andalusian poet, Abu-al-Baqa’
Ar-Rundy described the calamity in his famous poem written in Arabic and
translated by James T. Monroe as follows:
Everything
declines after reaching perfection; therefore
let no man be beguiled by the
sweetness of a
pleasant life.
As you have
observed, these are the decrees that are
inconstant: he whom a single moment
has made
happy, has been harmed by many other
moments.
And this is the
abode that will show a pity for no man;
nor will any condition remain in its
state for it.
For the
accidents (of fortune) there is a consolation that
makes them easy to bear, yet there is
no consolation
for what has befallen Islam.
An event which
cannot be endured has overtaken the
peninsula; one such that Uhud has
collapsed because
of it and Thahlan has crumbled.
The evil eye has
struck (the peninsula) in its Islam so
that (the land) decreased until whole
regions and
districts were despoiled of (the
faith).
Therefore ask
Valencia what is the state of Murcia, and
where is Jativa, and where is Jaen?
Where is
Cordoba, the home of the sciences, and many
a scholar whose rank was once lofty in
it?
Where is Seville
and the pleasures it contains, as well as
its sweet river overflowing and
brimming full?
(They are)
capitals which were the pillars of the land,
yet when the pillars are gone, it may
no longer
endure!
The tap of the
white ablution fount weeps in despair,
like a passionate lover weeping at the
departure of
the beloved.
Over dwellings
emptied of Islam that were first vacated
and are now inhabited by unbelief;
In which the
mosques have become churches wherein
only bells and crosses may be found.
O, who will
redress the humiliation of a people who were
once powerful, a people whose
condition injustice
and tyrants have changed?
Yesterday they
were kings in their own homes, but today
they are slaves in the land of the
infidel!
Thus, were you
to see them perplexed, with no one to
guide them, wearing the cloth of
shame in its
different shades.
And were you to
behold their weeping when they are
sold, the matter would strike fear into your heart,
and sorrow would seize you.
Alas, many a
mother and child have been parted as souls
and bodies are separated!
And many a
maiden fair as the sun when it rises, as
though she were rubies and pearls
is led off to
abomination by a barbarian against her will,
while her eye is in tears and her
heart is stunned.
The heart melts
with sorrow at such (sights), if there is
any Islam or belief in that heart!
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