The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

This history book opened a new world for me. I did not learn about this chapter in history from school. Mernocal writes in a balanced way about the complexities of life in the middle ages where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived and thrived side by side. for centuries. Then, she writes of the unraveling of this way of life through time by the fundamentalists in each religion.
To me, it spoke of the need today to look closely at our America values of freedom of religion and tolerance for that freedom that is inherent in our constitution.

The author writes with superb flair, panache, and eloquent style. However, if you do not read anything else on this topic, you will carry a very rosy impression of the rule of the Umayyad dynasty and of Abdul Rahman I and III. She openly disparages the Visigoths, and Christians in general, and has high praises for the Jewish intellectuals, poets, statesmen, and community leaders. Because the Jews suffered discrimination and even persecution under the Visigoths, if you are Jewish, antagonism to Visigoths is understandable. Because the Reconquista resulted in the expulsion of Jews as well as Muslims, Jews can hold an understandable perspective that the Reconquista was a horrendous catastrophe for civilization. Since the Almoravid conquest resulted in greater persecution of the Jews and Christians, the author justifiable disparages them. It leads me to compare them to the Taliban in their Puritanical excesses. I would further compare the following Almohad invasion to the rule of Daesh (The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). These provide the counter-point, or the dark background, against which the relatively better status of Jews during the Umayyad dynasty shines quite brightly. They still suffered as second class citizens, but had better conditions through-out the Muslim world, than in areas under Roman Catholic control.
The author's main point, that tolerance of others who are different provides an essential component for the development of science, philosophy, medicine, urbanization, and hence trade and commercial prosperity, comes through very clearly, and for that the book deserves attention.

I learned a good deal from this book in a relatively pleasant way. It focuses on the intellectual -- philosophical, literary, architectural and artistic -- aspects of Andalusia from the time the Umayyada arrived in the 8th century until Muslims in total were expelled or forced to convert in 1492. It is very lightly written -- it begins "Once upon a time in the mid-eighth century..." -- and sketches more than probes its topics, which are usually explored through brief biographical sketches of individual persons rather than other data.

It is a warm book, as the title and subtitle indicate, and reminded me how the middle ages were not quite as dark as commonly held. I thought the chapter "Banned in Paris" was one of the most brilliant things I have ever read, a sweeping panorama in a handful of pages of the challenge to major religions from nascent, or renascent, propositions of the secular philosophy of the ancient Greeks, which had been preserved by the Islamic community of Andalusia.

I was frustrated that there were no footnotes or endnotes that would have enabled me to see documentation of the more surprising facts, or to explore them in further reading. The bibliography is also negligible. There were a lot of themes that I wanted to see developed or learn more about and references would have helped.

A larger criticism is that the subtitle - "How Muslims Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain" - was wholly inaccurate. First, there's very little on the "How" in the book; that doesn't terribly shock me, because tolerance describes inaction, non-reaction, and you can't write more than a few pages showing 'How" someone didn't act, without repeating yourself and becoming dull. But, second, as occasional sentences reveal, there was a lot more intolerance than the subtitle suggests. There were at least three instances mentioned in the book of expulsion, segregation or physical assaults on Jews in cities in the region. Then, you have the Crusades, only briefly mentioned. Within the Muslim sector, there were repeated incursions from Berbers in North Africa who imposed a more fundamentalist regime on residents in the region for decades. And of course, the last four hundred years are a long slow series of advance by the Christian kings of northern Spain, ultimately turning into the Reconquest. I'm not impressed that their epoch was that much different from ours, actually.

I was, however, struck, toward the end of the book, although it wasn't very explicit, that the religious tensions seemed to grow as the secular philosophy of the ancient Greeks began to propagate throughout Europe, and the conflicts between religions may have arisen because each religion felt threatened not so much by the other religions but by the growth of reason and secular ways of thinking; and thereby became more insistent on their own creed, which caused them to lash out at the other creeds. Food for thought.

Overall, a very easy way to learn a lot of cool facts about the period.

Everyone who looks in confusion and consternation at the current state of the Islamic governments should read this book. Menocal clearly and intelligently shows how the varied monotheist in Spain lived and worked together to form peaceful and productive society over a long time, many different administrations, and large geography. Would it were that ISIS is doing chest thumping about their peaceful integration with the other monotheist to improve medicine, art and science instead of calling young men to rape preteen girls.

I read the kindle edition while in Spain and it made my trip so interesting! What a great story and told well. Maria can write readable long sentences but also excessively long and incoherent ones. Many, many typos and minor mistakes. These flaws could be easily fixed by a good copy editor.