God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World by Cullen Murphy Page B
Authors: Cullen Murphy
Ads: Link
tolerated and protected Jews and Christians. Though he later emigrated, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides was born in Islamic Córdoba (and wrote largely in Arabic). Scholars today disagree on just how cordial this so-called
convivencia,
or “living together,” actually was.The historian Henry Kamen cautions that whatever the degree of tolerance, the arrangement “was always a relationship between unequals.”
The
convivencia
idea is under stress even now, but the modern tourist industry understands that it is good for business. In Córdoba and Seville, you’ll hear the claim made that the Spanish exclamation
“Ole!”
is a corrupted form of “Allah,” though this is not true.Hawkers on street corners sell T-shirts bearing a trio of symbols—the Crescent, the Cross, and the Star of David—above the words “The secret is in the mixture.” Exaggerations aside, it is generally true that the Muslim sultans behaved better toward Christians and Jews than their Christian successors would behave toward Jews and Muslims. Among other things, they allowed Christians to pray in the very mosque from which Muslim prayer is now prohibited. Passing a newsstand after leaving the Mezquita one day, I saw a photograph of Josef Ratzinger on the cover of the magazine
El Semanal
. Inside was a quotation from Ratzinger that took up half a page:
“Dios tiene un agudo sentido del humor”
—“God has a sharp sense of humor.”
Islamic rule, though fragmented, extended over the bulk of Iberia for centuries, even as Christian warlords, pushing south, chipped away at Muslim territory. It finally came to an end in 1492, when King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile expelled the last sultan and brought all of Spain under a unified Catholic monarchy. The final chapter took place at the Alhambra, in the Hall of the Ambassadors. The room is three stories high, every inch of its walls etched with passages from the Koran. Latticework covers the windows, dappling the interior with sunlight. In this chamber, the sultan capitulated to Ferdinand and Isabella, who promptly moved into his palace. A few months later, at a meeting in the Alhambra, the monarchs told Christopher Columbus to go ahead with the speculative voyage he had been pestering them about (which would be underwritten by a loan from the
converso
financiers Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez).Not long afterward, in this same room, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the order to expel from Spain all Jews who would not convert to Christianity. I once overheard a guide at the Alhambra capping his account of all this activity with the bright summary “It was a very busy year,” which elicited guarded laughter.
The original copy of the Edict of Expulsion is held (with other documents) at the Archivo General, a fortress in Simancas, near Valladolid. The parchment has yellowed, and the ink has browned. It begins: “In our land there is no inconsiderable number of judaizing and wicked Christians who have deviated from our Holy Catholic Faith.” It goes on: “We have, therefore, decreed to order all Jews of both sexes to leave the confines of our lands forever.” With a calligraphic flourish in their own hands, Ferdinand and Isabella concluded the edict with the words,
“Yo, el Rey,”
and
“Yo, la Reina”
—“I, the King,” and “I, the Queen.”
Spain was not the first kingdom to expel its Jews. In England, Jews were considered royal property, and it was in England that the anti-Semitic “blood libel”—the false accusation that Jews slaughtered Christian children and used their blood for ritual purposes—seems to have originated.England expelled its Jews in 1290. France followed suit in 1306. But the Jewish population of Spain was by far the largest in Europe. Nor would expulsion stop with the Jews: in 1609, Spain began to expel large numbers of
moriscos.
(Some of them would be shunned as “Christians” in the Muslim countries to which they fled, and a number
convivencia,
or “living together,” actually was.The historian Henry Kamen cautions that whatever the degree of tolerance, the arrangement “was always a relationship between unequals.”
The
convivencia
idea is under stress even now, but the modern tourist industry understands that it is good for business. In Córdoba and Seville, you’ll hear the claim made that the Spanish exclamation
“Ole!”
is a corrupted form of “Allah,” though this is not true.Hawkers on street corners sell T-shirts bearing a trio of symbols—the Crescent, the Cross, and the Star of David—above the words “The secret is in the mixture.” Exaggerations aside, it is generally true that the Muslim sultans behaved better toward Christians and Jews than their Christian successors would behave toward Jews and Muslims. Among other things, they allowed Christians to pray in the very mosque from which Muslim prayer is now prohibited. Passing a newsstand after leaving the Mezquita one day, I saw a photograph of Josef Ratzinger on the cover of the magazine
El Semanal
. Inside was a quotation from Ratzinger that took up half a page:
“Dios tiene un agudo sentido del humor”
—“God has a sharp sense of humor.”
Islamic rule, though fragmented, extended over the bulk of Iberia for centuries, even as Christian warlords, pushing south, chipped away at Muslim territory. It finally came to an end in 1492, when King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile expelled the last sultan and brought all of Spain under a unified Catholic monarchy. The final chapter took place at the Alhambra, in the Hall of the Ambassadors. The room is three stories high, every inch of its walls etched with passages from the Koran. Latticework covers the windows, dappling the interior with sunlight. In this chamber, the sultan capitulated to Ferdinand and Isabella, who promptly moved into his palace. A few months later, at a meeting in the Alhambra, the monarchs told Christopher Columbus to go ahead with the speculative voyage he had been pestering them about (which would be underwritten by a loan from the
converso
financiers Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez).Not long afterward, in this same room, Ferdinand and Isabella signed the order to expel from Spain all Jews who would not convert to Christianity. I once overheard a guide at the Alhambra capping his account of all this activity with the bright summary “It was a very busy year,” which elicited guarded laughter.
The original copy of the Edict of Expulsion is held (with other documents) at the Archivo General, a fortress in Simancas, near Valladolid. The parchment has yellowed, and the ink has browned. It begins: “In our land there is no inconsiderable number of judaizing and wicked Christians who have deviated from our Holy Catholic Faith.” It goes on: “We have, therefore, decreed to order all Jews of both sexes to leave the confines of our lands forever.” With a calligraphic flourish in their own hands, Ferdinand and Isabella concluded the edict with the words,
“Yo, el Rey,”
and
“Yo, la Reina”
—“I, the King,” and “I, the Queen.”
Spain was not the first kingdom to expel its Jews. In England, Jews were considered royal property, and it was in England that the anti-Semitic “blood libel”—the false accusation that Jews slaughtered Christian children and used their blood for ritual purposes—seems to have originated.England expelled its Jews in 1290. France followed suit in 1306. But the Jewish population of Spain was by far the largest in Europe. Nor would expulsion stop with the Jews: in 1609, Spain began to expel large numbers of
moriscos.
(Some of them would be shunned as “Christians” in the Muslim countries to which they fled, and a number
Similar Books
