A Golden Reign Of Tolerance

THE BOTTOM LINE

Adapted from nytimes.com/2002/03/28/opinion/agolden-reign-of-tolerance.html

A thousand years ago on the Iberian Peninsula, an enlightened vision of Islam had created the most advanced culture in Europe. Al Andalus, as the Muslims called their Spanish homeland,
prospered in a culture of openness and assimilation.

The cultural prosperity of the Caliphate was based in Cordoba, where the library housed some 400,000 volumes at a time when the largest library in Latin Christendom probably held no more than 400. What strikes us today about Al Andalus is that it was a chapter of European history during which Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived side by side and, despite intractable differences and enduring hostilities, nourished a culture of Tolerance.

For many who came to know Andalusian culture throughout the Middle Ages, whe ther at first hand or from afar — from reading a translation produced there or from hearing a poem sung by one of its renowned singers — the bright lights of that world, and their illumination of the rest of the universe, transcended differences of religion.

It was during this time that men of unshakable faith, like Abelard and Maimonides and Averroes, saw no contradiction in pursuing the truth, whether philosophical or scientific or religious, across confessional lines. This was an approach to life — and its artistic, intellectual, and religious pursuits — that was contested by many, sometimes violently, as it is today. Yet it remained a powerful force for hundreds of years.

Whether it is because of our mistaken notions about the relative backwardness of the Middle Ages or our own contemporary expectations that culture, religion, and political ideology will be roughly consistent, we are likely to be taken aback by many of the lasting monuments of this Andalusian culture. The tomb of St. Ferdinand, the king remembered as the Christian conqueror of the last of all the Islamic territories, is matter-of-factly inscribed in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Castilian.

The caliphate lasted for several hundred years—roughly the lifespan of the American republic to date—and its downfall was a series of terrible civil wars among Muslims. These wars were a struggle between the old ways of the caliphate — with its libraries filled with Greek texts and its government staffed by non-Muslims — and reactionary Muslims, many of them from Morocco, who believed the Cordobans were not proper Muslims. The palatine city just outside the capital, symbol of the wealth and the secular aesthetics of the caliph and his entourage, was destroyed by Muslim armies.

But in the end, much of Europe beyond the Andalusian world was shaped by the vision of complex and contradictory identities that was first made into an art form by the Andalusians. At this point in history, we should remember those moments when it was Tolerance that won the day.

REFERENCES

These links provide a wealth of reference information on the topic of Tolerance and all its nuances. You can use them to further your knowledge of Tolerance, keep up with current events related to Tolerance, and look up concepts you may come across in the future which you may need help understanding.
splcenter.org/teaching-tolerance
nea.org/archive/12969.htm