Golden Age of Muslim Spain

The golden age of Muslim Spain was an age of cultural blooming. Stability in the Muslim Spain began in 756 by the Andalusia Umayyad era and ended in 1502.All the credit for the start of Muslim Spain goes to amir Abdulrahman, the reason is because he found the emirate of Cordoba and was able to get all the rulers of Spain to pull together into ruling it together. The reason this era was called the golden age of Muslim Spain was because lots of literature, poetry, architectural flourish some examples are the rubaiyat, Arabian nights, but both Muslims and non-Muslims helped in the creation of the, which is why it is described as the era of ethnic tolerance and interfaith harmony between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Life for non Muslims in the golden age of Muslim Spain

A life for some one that was Christian or Jewish in Islamic Spain was not as tough as you think they were treated better than most people would treat a defeated group of people (at least until 1050 when their present leader changed the rule)because of the following reasons .”They weren’t forced to live in any certain spots that were in bad condition” .They were not enslaved and forced to serve high noble people in the era .They were not forced to leave their religion and have it replaced with Islam so they could still worship their own religions .They were not ever forced to die under Muslim rule for no reason .They were not stopped from taking any jobs different than Muslims (they actually took on more jobs than the Muslims because some jobs were shunned by religion for Muslims to do so they do them).They were allowed to work in the Islamic civil service.They were also allowed to contribute to the Islamic society with stuff such as art and culture, but obviously they were only tolerated for special reasons only they had to do the following:.If they acknowledged the Islamic superiority .If they accepted the Islamic power .

If they paid tribute to the Muslim leader and pay the more on the taxes. If the avoided blasphemy .If they did not try to convert Muslims into their race .If they follow the rules stated by the leader (which are;anyone that is not a soldier cannot hold a weapon, the restriction on clothing and the need to wear a special badge, they cannot build churches or synagogues without an officials permission, they cannot receive an inheritance from any Muslim, they cannot bequeath anything to a Muslim, they could not have a Muslim slave,

dhimmi man could not marry a Muslim woman but a Muslim man can marry a dhimmi woman, a dhimmi cannot place any evidence in court, a dhimmi get lower compensation than a Muslim man for the same injury).

At some circumstances a person I not allowed to practice their beliefs to obviously (such a bell ringing or public chanting were frowned on and public processions were forbidden).

Soon many Christians became converting to Muslim they starting speaking Arabic, women started wearing the hujab, and some started changing there names into Arabic one so that their treatment was better. People who did this were call mozarabs.The Muslim rulers obviously didn’t treat non-Muslims fairly because as bat ye’or stated all people that are non-Arabic were at the bottom of the society. The society was divided into groups of ethnic races with Arabs in the top, then the Berbers who were never considered equals event though they are Islamic believers like them, next is the mullawadun converts ,and at the very bottom is the dhimmi Christians and then the Jews. A man named Bernard Lewis puts it that Arabs didn’t hate nor like the non-Muslims he stated “in contrast to Christian anti-Semitism, the Muslim attitude toward non-Muslims is one not of hate or fear or envy but simply of contempt”. Muslims must not message a Jew or Christian but must not throw away his refuse to clean his latrines as well. Why non-Muslims were tolerate There are a few reasons why the Arabs respected the Jews and Christians out of all the races in the world.

The Jews and Christians were respected because they both believe in one god so arguably they believe the same god despite the fact they don’t believe in the Quran and prophet Mohammad [which is why its arguably talked about] .The Christians outnumbered the Muslims so mass conversions or mass executions were not practical and outlawing so many people would be way to expenses. Bringing non-Muslims into the government because of loyalty (since many Muslims might sabotage government stuff because their from a certain group).One major reason is in the Quran it says that Jews and Christians should be tolerated if they follow certain rules.

Oppression in later Islamic Spain

Not all leaders were as kind as to be tolerant to Jews and Christians for example one leader named almanzoor looted churches and strictly enforced the rules apposing the Christians and Jews. Then soon the Arab empire started becoming more ….and more strict. New rules started becoming enforced such as Christians and Jews were not allowed bigger houses than Muslims, they had to make way for them in the streets, and they couldn’t hire Muslims as slaves. Also now they couldn’t show any religious faith outside of their houses they couldn’t even hold a bible outside people who did would be persecuted and put in jail.

The Arabic art and culture formed during the golden age

There were many cultural things that happened during the golden age some are the creation of new story genres such as adab, they also made many contributions to math,science,and medicine since they created algebra and discovered chemistry by the people called alchemist who kept trying to turn tin and copper into gold and

Silver and they discovered chemistry and gave up alchemy and they made a contributions to medicine by discovering many medicines that were mostly discovered by avinsinne a Persian doctor who knows much about medicine.

CONCLUSION

As the years passed on the golden age got closer and closer to its decline which is in 1502, one of the many reasons it declined was because there was a great increase of aggression if the Christian part of the state then the rot was coming from both center and extremities. The first of sign of decline is when they get broken into many small kingdoms and a big kingdom is conquered by the Christians. The kingdom was called Toledo and it occurred in 1085.but in 1086 with help from the Africans general yousif ibin tashfin defeated the Christians. Though it didn’t stay long after general yousif died in 1106 and then history repeated its self and the Islamic states were all over each others necks all over again. soon their unity was shattered and all hope was lost using this advantage the Christians started to take control and then the Arab kingdoms were disappearing one by one until Christians had total control and forced all of the Muslims to convert themselves to Christians and when they all refused and their plan failed they were forced to use brute restrictions so most of the era was now gone and that’s was the end of the golden age of Muslim Spain.