Andalusian Agony
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By Ameer U. Shaikh
One hundred and ninety one people died in the 3/11 bombings in Madrid. The pundits in the world are unanimously wondering: Why Spain? After all, sunny Spain, sultry Spain, Spain where even rain dissipates, Spain of bull-fighting and tomato festivals, Spain of the siesta, is such a benign and fun-loving place! Even former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support of the United States in the Iraq war, these pundits allege, did not warrant such a devastating retaliation from Islamic terrorism! Everyone seems to have agreed: it should not have been Spain.
For Muslims, Spain is not a country; it is an idea, a deep-seated fascination. Spain, for Muslims, is like a memory we have from childhood that, as we continue to grow older, we constantly keep reshaping to suit us. The idea of Iberia has taken on mythical proportions within Muslim political theology. And myths, just as they reveal the past, also illuminate the future of those who believe them.
Muslim Perspective on Andalusian History
Spain, or al-Andalus (the Arabic from which 'Andalusia' is derived) is an entrenched part of every Muslim's consciousness. The Islamic imprint on the country, its architecture, and its language, is deemed to be a given by every Muslim. Having pride towards historical Islamic Spain is not a phenomenon limited to Arab Muslims or the Muslims from North Africa who settled there centuries ago. The assertion that Spain once "belonged to us" is wide-spread and oft-used by Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia and North America. During Friday sermons when the imams at the mosques speak of Muslim accomplishments, historical Islamic Spain always gets a mention. To better understand the composition of the average Muslim's view towards historical Spain, it might be useful to know how average Muslims conceive of Islamic Spain.
I grew up learning the typical history lesson on Al-Andalus. By the year 1500, the lordship of Ferdinand and Isabella was fully entrenched in Spain. Inquisition was in full effect. Muslims, who had once been lords of the entire Iberian peninsula, had been given final defeat at Grenada. The Jews had been cast out. In 1503 Muslims, too, were given the option of death, deportation or conversion. In a last desperate attempt, Spanish Muslims wrote letters to the Ottoman Sultan Selim – his dynasty had risen to the forefront of Europe by capturing Constantinople in 1453 – pleading to him, asking to be rescued from their Christian oppressors. Selim refused to come to their military assistance. His immediate priority were the Dutch who had been threatening the Ottoman spice trade near Indonesia. Selim's indifference cemented the complete and total end of Islamic Spain. The Cross of Coronado had prevailed over the Crescent.
The golden age of classical Islam was finished. Eight hundred years of rule came to a swift and crushing end.
It had begun so magnificently. First the blitzkrieg of the North African Berbers, led by Abu Musa in the eighth century. Then the burning of the boats by Tariq bin Ziyad (for whom the rock of Gibraltar is named, i.e. Jabl-al-Tariq, the rock of Tariq). Then the advance past the Pyrenees that led to the Muslims' armies arriving at the gates of Paris (finally stopped by Martel at Tours). When the Abbasid caliphate rose in Baghdad and slaughtered the Umayyads - under whom Islam had gone from a phenomenon that barely encompassed the deserts of Arabia - the last remaining member of the Umayyad family somehow managed to escape the massacre of his entire family in Baghdad, found his way to Spain, and declared himself free to build a new, Western Islam. Ruling justly, he and his progeny laid the foundations for a tolerant cosmopolitanism; Christians, Jews and Muslims living in relative harmony – apparently, I was told, the only time in human history that such peace had pervaded in an area inhabited by the three Abrahamic faiths. Arabic, Spanish and Hebrew all combined to form unheralded new versions of language and poetry. In time the beautiful cities of Seville and Grenada arose. Cordoba held the world's largest library. Its baths and wide streets put the squalor of Paris and London to shame.
Muslim Spain came to hold a unique place in the world, at a time when Europe was mired in the dark ages and suffering from the plague. Muslim Spain became a place of learning. There was Ibn Rushd, the greatest expositor of Aristotle the world has ever known, single-handedly responsible for relaying Greek knowledge to fledgling European universities. Ibn Rushd's response to the Iraqi philosopher, al-Ghazali, called "The Destruction of the Destruction" saved speculative philosophy from becoming subsumed into theology.
Maimonedes, the famed Jewish contemporary of Ibn Rushd, wrote his treatise, A Guide for the Perplexed, in Muslim Spain. In addition, there were other intellectual giants that had called Muslim Spain their home: Ibn Tufayl, whose work, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, preceded Robinson Crusoe by four centuries; Ibn Arabi, whose ideas on the relationship between spirit and matter preceded Henri Bergson's creative evolution by seven centuries; and Ibn Hazm, whose work, The Ring of the Dove, is one of the earliest writings on the concept of chivalry and courtly love in all of Western Europe (long before it was made into a courtly game by two French squires). Muslim Spain, it was revealed by a Spanish Arabist named Miguel Asim Palacios, was instrumental in relaying the story of the Prophet Muhammad's miraj, night-journey to heaven, to the feudal courts of Italy where a relatively unknown poet named Dante came to learn of the sevens levels of heaven and hell, incorporating the ideas into his work.
But, as noted above, by the sixteenth century, all of this was no more. The Muslims of Spain, those who had not been killed, and those who had not changed their names and their religion, ran from al-Andalus, dissipating into North Africa. The Spain of legend and myth had to be relinquished to the "dirty" European. The demise of Islamic Spain signified the end of an entire tradition of Islamic thought, art, and culture. Although the Turkish Ottomans, the Safavids of Persia, and the Turkic-Indian Moghuls in India, would carry on in the name of Islam for another five centuries, many felt that the golden age of Islam ended with the fall of Grenada.
The Andalusia of Nostalgia
This is what I know of the story of Andalusia; I'd be surprised if other Muslims know it any differently. It was what was taught to me while I grew up; and it did not matter where I grew up, whether it was Saudi Arabia, Dominican Republic or Pakistan, the argument was always the same. Quite simply: "We" had everything once; "we" were the vanguards of the world's culture; and then everything was taken from "us" by "their" use of treachery and force. Only plaintive sighs remained. As time passed, and the reality of the Spanish loss settled in, Muslims expressed many feelings, from anger to dismay, to frustration.
By the twentieth century even the Ottomans, the once invincible Ottomans, were crumbling: the Holy Mosques were under British Dominion, both Persia and India were being settled and exploited, European Jews were settling into Palestine and colonialism was rife. The Muslim response was to juxtapose against their apparent condition of misery and servitude vainglorious memories of yesterday's grandeur. In the 19th and early 20th century, Muslims looking around, with foreign guns and foreign laws shooting like stars all around them, began to submerge in the intoxication of memory. There was the resurrection of the idea of the historical community of Muhammad's Medina, because of its austerity and rigor, through the effort of the Salafi movement. It came to represent the ideal form of Islamic religious practice. And in the same breath, the kingdoms of Islamic Spain, came to represent Muslim utopias – now lost.
The famed poet, Muhammad Iqbal, considered the brains behind the creation of Pakistan, and loser of the Nobel prize by the slimmest margin (to Rabinderanath Tagore), captured the nostalgic and apologist Muslim perspective towards Spain in his precise verses (although it would be unfair to define his philosophy as reactionary or apologist). In his poem, "A Prayer: Written in a Mosque in Cordoba" he wrote about the Muslims of historical Spain, suggesting that much of contemporary Spain smells of Muslim perfume:
Whose lofty, inspired vision blessed the East and the West,
Whose wisdom was a beacon in Europe’s Dark Ages;
Who left an abiding imprint on the Andalusian mind:
A cheerful spirit and warmth, a simple, genial soul.
Abundant in this land today is gazelle-eyed beauty;
So are the shafts that pierce the heart from those gazelle eyes.
Wafted on its breeze still is Yemen’s aroma sweet;
And in its sights and sounds is the holiness of Hijaz.
In the eyes of the gazing stars thy earth is exalted as heaven;
Alas! for long thy walls have not echoed with the sound of azan.
In his poem, "Spain" he would speak about Spain nostalgically.
Treasure the Muslim blood,
That sanctified thy soil;
Thou art pure and holy,
Like the holy precincts.
Buried in thy dust are imprints
Of heads that bowed in prayer,
And thy breeze at dawn
Echoes the sound of azan.
Granada, the eye of the world.
In the twilight of time,
Pierces the heart that bleeds
For glories that are no more.
Iqbal, in his book, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, was also instrumental in suffusing to the discussion surrounding Islamic Spain an element of Islamic pride. He was amongst the first Muslims to make the connection that much of contemporary European thought and science would not have been discovered or invented but for the knowledge that Islamic Spain's universities and science imparted to Europe during the Middle Ages. He was the first to have discovered the similarities between Hayy Ibn Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe and between Ibn Arabi and Bergon.
Such a discourse was essential in the early twentieth century when Muslim people were starting to resist European colonization and classification. Whenever a European dared to allege that Muslims were savages or uncivilized, Muslims were quick to point out that it was Muslims who made Spain all it was and thus gave to Europe much of what it knew. Implicit in the response was that all of Europe's purported success was nothing more than an extension of previous Muslim accomplishments. The phenomenon is no different than when African Americans in the United States, in an effort to change how they were perceived, pointed out that Africa was "the cradle of civilization." As African Americans cite the majesty of historical Mali and Ethiopia, so Muslims invoke the grandiloquence of Islamic Spain.
The past, Muslims of the early 20th century were quick to add, was more just and righteous than today's Europe-controlled world. It was more environmentally friendly, more tolerant and multicultural; all in all, it was a better place to live. In other words, in the early parts of the twentieth century, Islamic Spain became the Muslims' answer any time an inventory of Muslim contribution to civilization had to be revealed. It became common for Muslims to cite Europeans like Nietzsche, who had lamented the destruction of what he thought had been the one truly authentic European city – Cordoba – and polluting the only authentic civilization to have mastered the art of living physiologically and spiritually well – Islamic Spain.
The Andalusia of Displacement
Perhaps if after achieving independence, Muslim states would have risen through the ranks of the world's political and economic hierarchy, they could have actually aspired to become the Islamic Spain of legends themselves. Instead, starting with the creation of the state of Israel, and then with the subsequent implementation of puppet-regimes in most Muslim countries (Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia) the dream of Islamic Spain was relegated and forgotten. Instead of the focus being on aspiring towards the mythical excellence of historical Andalusia, Muslim writers and thinkers super-imposed their present onto the past. Islamic Spain became a symbol of defeat. The physical expulsion and political ordeal of Palestinians in 1948 came to be likened to the displacement of Spanish Muslims during the Inquisition by treacherous adversaries.
For Muslims in the second half of the twentieth century, memory of Islamic Spain, no longer of Alhambra or Ibn Rushd, came to represent the tragedy of defeat, the humiliation of expulsion, and the horror of loss. The famed Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, captures that disconsolate conception of Andalusia in his poems. He writes in "Eleven Stars Over Andalusia" as follows. His words are indication that in the poetry of Muslims, Iqbal's idealistic attempt at Islamic pride had turned to Islamic despair:
On the last evening on this land we chop our days
from our young trees, count the ribs we'll take with us
and the ribs we'll leave behind…On the last evening
we bid nothing farewell, nor find the time to end…
Everything remains as it is, it is the place that changes our dreams
and its visitors. Suddenly we're incapable of irony,
this land will now host atoms of dust … Here on our last evening,
we look closely at the mountains besieging the clouds: a conquest … and a counter-conquest
And an old time handing the new time the keys to our doors.
So enter our houses, conquerors, and drink the wine
of our mellifluous mouwashah. We are the night at midnight,
and no horseman will bring dawn from the sanctuary of the last Call to Prayer…
Our tea is green and hot, drink it. Our pistachios are fresh, eat them.
The beds are of green cedar, fall on them,
following this long siege, lie down on the feather of our dreams.
In the words of Darwish, the Muslims of his time had become the exiled Muslims of 1503 to whose rescue no fellow Muslims will come. The clear message was that Muslims, specifically the Palestinians, though they are not the sole Muslim people under an oppressive yoke, have been the subject of a modern day reconquista. In the despair of Darwish we find the sorrowful message that the victory of Isabella and Ferdinand over Islam is ongoing. In his poem "Violins" Darwish expresses the idea using the ghazal form:
Here in his work we find the conflation of the use of violins with themes of loss and departure. The memory of al-Andalus has gone from being an idealized utopia to representing tragedy itself. I have argued that a Muslims' conception of Andalusia is an indication of his self-perception. By the time of Darwish and a host of modern writers and thinkers expressing themes of defeat, it must mean that Muslims consider themselves the victims of a historical law that has come to bite them once again, as it bit their ancestors five hundred years ago. It is like saying, my mother had AIDS, so it makes sense that I am HIV positive.
The Andalusia of Revenge
In one of his videotaped statements, Usama bin Laden once declared "that the tragedy of Andalusia would not be repeated." When this statement first came out, many thought that it was an indication of bin Laden's plans on Spain. However, in light of Darwish's conception of historical Andalusia, it is perhaps clearer that bin Laden's comment is one of defiance, and vengeance. In realistic terms, it was an attempt to install his views upon mainstream Muslim consciousness by invoking Andalusia, but in a much different way than both Iqbal and Darwish.
Clearly, someone out there heard his message. Feeding off the nostalgic and tragic impulse associated with the idea of historical Andalusia already prevalent amongst Muslims, it must have been quite easy to transform mourning into massacre. What's worse for Muslims this time around, it is not a poet or a writer who has established a link between the Muslim community and Spain. The poetry of last century – no matter how ineffectual and self-effacing – came from the pens of thinkers; now, the words being spoken by Muslims are not even words at all, but blasts and bombs. The symbolic meaning of the mode of communication should not be lost. Violence has an entirely different conception of beauty than words. Rather than syllables and symphony it seeks to decorate the land with death and devastation.
After the Madrid attack, a group named the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, sent a message to a London-based newspaper explaining the reasons for attacking Spain. "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain…" In other words, the Moor's sigh has turned deadly. And now, rather than being satisfied with ringing in the skies as a plaintive ghazal, it seeks, and has succeeded a few weeks ago in Spain, to recreate the same injustice that it claims to have felt so many centuries ago.
The Agony of Andalusia
Spain is more than just a country; for Muslims, Andalusia is an idea, part and parcel of everyday Islamic political theology. The way Muslims perceive the idea of Andalusia often reflects how they perceive their own station in the world. In the twentieth century, Muslims understood Andalusia nostalgically, then after a few decades, tragically. In this new century, Muslims have approached the idea of Andalusia defiantly, with a sense of revenge and calumny, thus setting the stage for a problematic and violent future.
Things seem headed in the wrong direction. The Moor is threatening to become louder, until his sighs turn into the frothing bellows of a beast. Such a future should be unacceptable to Muslims; it threatens to plunge into oblivion any chance of recreating a mythical Andalusia in the near future. Violence is pregnant with a sentiment of meaninglessness and confusion that clouds Muslim eyes. In the brief moment of explosion, extremist Muslims may feel that they have risen to stand with the stars, but after the throes of the bombs they have made, even the stars crumble down in the blasts, revealing a hideous world and a naked sky.
Muslims must stand up to their own brethren to suggest that there are alternative ways, besides those of bin Laden, to conceptualize the idea of Andalusia. Otherwise, I fear that the idea of Andalusia, already so prone to shifting its meaning, will become synonymous not just with violence, but all out insanity, or even oblivion.
If Muslims intend on keeping Andalusia a part of their discourse, they must make certain that the meaning assigned to it is beneficial and inspirational; that it promotes reformation rather than degradation; that it stands for thought rather than the desecration of life. The irony is that on one hand Muslims bemoan the loss of Andalusia for the grandeur it represented, and on the other hand, they denigrate its accomplishments by killing in its name. Whether Muslims in the world today will stand for such radical distortion of their history at the hands of their reactionary brethren remains to be seen. The resounding silence that has clogged the collective Muslim throats, however, suggests that most Muslims have little problem with conceding the notion of Andalusia to a number of veritably illiterate ideologues.
Muslims should realize that the bombings in Spain are much more than an allegedly deserved response for Spain's participation in the war against Iraq. What they must realize is that extremist Islam has extended the breadth of its already expansive realm over the Muslim world. Whereas before the reactionaries of the faith only killed in the name of the presently dying in Palestine and Kashmir and Afghanistan, they are now destroying in the name of history. Soon, there might not be any more history left to destroy.
Only a few years ago Spanish Muslims had succeeded in erecting a mosque in the shade of the Alhambra, after almost five hundred years of there being no mosque. Not Alhambra, but that mosque in the shadows is now at siege, and it is not Ferdinand and Isabella banging at the gates, but the specter of ignorance and cruelty. Five hundred years ago Muslims fled Grenada in defeat. Boabdil's mother chided her son for not fighting: "Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man." If Muslims do not cut through the infamy of this immature fascination with revenge, soon it might be Islam, which was once able to galvanize civilizations, that they will have to shed tears for.
Ameer U. Shaikh is a writer trapped in a law student's body. He lives in Philadelphia and is currently working on a novel about American Islam. He can be reached at uberameer@aol.com.
