La Convivencia

La Convivencia often refers to the interplay of cultural ideas between the three religious groups and ideas of religious tolerance. James Carroll invokes this concept and indicates that it played an important role in bringing the classics of Greek philosophy to Europe, with translations from Greek to Arabic to Hebrew and Latin.[4] Jerrilynn Dodds references this concept in the spatial orientation seen in architecture that draws on building styles seen in synagogues and mosques.[5]

An example of La Convivencia was Córdoba, Andalusia in Al-Andalus, in the ninth and tenth centuries. Córdoba was “one of the most important cities in the history of the world.” In it, “Christians and Jews were involved in the Royal Court and the intellectual life of the city.”[6] María Rosa Menocal, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, further describes the libraries of Córdoba as "a significant benchmark of overall social (not just scholarly) well being, since they represented a near-perfect crossroads of the material and the intellectual." [7]

James L. Heft, the Alton Brooks Professor of Religion at USC, describes La Convivencia as one of the “rare periods in history” when the three religions did not either keep “their distance from one another, or were in conflict.” During most of their co-existing history, they have been “ignorant about each other” or “attacked each other.”[8]

The period of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula began in the early eighth century when Arab invaders took political control over the Iberian Peninsula, calling it al-Andalus. With the death of ruler Al-Hakam in 976, the Caliphate began to dissolve and fragmented into six large states and a number of smaller ones. Al-Andalus was briefly consolidated again by Muslim invaders and reformists, the Almoravids and the Almohads, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Christian kingdoms progressively expanded south taking over Muslim territory in what is historiographically known as the Reconquista, effectively confining al-Andalus to the southern emirate of Granada, ruled by the Nasrid dynasty from 1231 to 1492.[9]

The latter Almohad Muslim dynasty forced Christians and Jews to convert, and forced Muslims into their interpretation of the faith.[10] Among those who chose exile rather than conversion or death was the Jewish philosopher Maimonides.[11]

While the Reconquista was ongoing, Muslims and Jews who came under Christian control were allowed to practise their religion to some degree. This ended in the late 15th century with the fall of Granada in 1492. Even before this event, the Spanish Inquisition had been established in 1478. In 1492, with the Alhambra decree, those Jews who had not converted to Catholicism were expelled. Many Jews settled in Portugal, where they were expelled in 1497.[12]

Similarly the Muslims of Iberia were forced to convert or face either death or expulsion. This happened even though the Granadan Muslims had been assured of religious freedom at the time of their surrender. Between 1500 and 1502 all remaining Muslims of Granada and Castile were converted.[13] In 1525, Muslims in Aragon were similarly forced to convert. The Muslim communities who converted became known as Moriscos. Still they were suspected by the old Christians of being crypto-Muslims and so between 1609 and 1614 their entire population of 300,000 was forcibly expelled. All these expulsions and conversions resulted in Catholic Christianity becoming the sole sanctioned religion in the Iberian Peninsula.

As Anna Akasoy has summarized in a review article, Menocal "argues that the narrow-minded forces that brought about its end were external", both from the North African Muslim Almoravids and Almohads, and Christian northerners.[14]

Muslims celebrate Christian festivals in mid-ninth century
The first source is a collection of letters in which the Islamic leaders were asked about the legality of Muslims' observance and participation in Christian festivals.

“Do you think that it is a forbidden innovation, which a Muslim cannot be permitted to follow, and that he should not agree to accept from any of his relatives and in-laws any of the food that they prepared for the celebration? Is it disapproved of, without being unambiguously forbidden? Or is it absolutely forbidden? There are traditions handed down from the prophet of God concerning those of his community who imitated the Christians in their celebration of Nauruz and Mihrajan, to the effect that they would be mustered with the Christians on the Day of Judgement… So explain to us what you consider correct in this matter, if God wills.” He answered: “It is forbidden to do everything that you have mentioned in your letter, according to the ‘ulama (scholars of religious learning). Receiving presents at Christmas from a Christian or from a Muslim is not allowed, neither is accepting invitations on that day, nor is making preperations for it… whoever imitates a people, will be mustered with them.”[15]

Rules for the Christians from the early twelfth century
Rules Muslims should follow when living among Christians.

“A Muslim should not rub down a Jew, nor a Christian (in the baths), neither should he throw out their refuse nor cleanse their lavatories; the Jews and Christians are more suitable for such a job, which is a task for the meanest. A Muslim should not work with the animals of a Jew, nor of a Christian, neither should he ride in their company, nor grasp their stirrup. If the muhtasib gets to know of this, the perpetrator will be censured.”

“Muslim women must be prevented from entering disgusting churches, for the priests are fornicators, adulterers, and pederasts… they have made what is lawful unlawful, and made what is unlawful lawful. One must not sell a scientific book to the Jews, nor to the Christians, unless it deals with their own law; for they translate book sof science, and attribute them to their own people and to their bishops, when they are really the works of the Muslims.” “Muslims are forbidden to buy meat intentionally from the butcheries of the dhimmis (Christians and Jews)… Ibn al-Qasim said, about a Christian who willed that some of his property should be sold on behalf of a church, that it was not lawful for a Muslim to buy it, and that any Muslim who bought it would be a bad Muslim… He (Malik) abhorred traveling with them (dhimmis) in ships, because of the fear of divine wrath descending upon them.”

“The dhimmis must be prevented from having houses that overlook Muslims, and from spying on them, and from exhibiting wine and pork in the Muslims’ markets, from riding horses with saddles and wearing the costumes of Muslims or anything ostentatious. They must be made to display a sign that will distinguish them from Muslims, such as the shakla (piece of yellow cloth)…”[16]

Letter from Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) fleeing Al-Andalus

“Dear brothers, because of our many sins Hashem has cast us among this nation, the Arabs, who are treating us badly. They pass laws designed to cause us distress and make us despised. ... Never has there been a nation that hated, humiliated and loathed us as much as this one.”[17]

The idea of the convivencia has had supporters and detractors from the time Castro first proposed it. Hussein Fancy has summarized the underlying assumptions on both sides of the debate: "The convivencia debates were never about political ideologies or partisan politics, as they are often construed, but rather," as Ryan Szpiech[18] has argued, "about fundamental and unresolved methodological and philosophical issues. While Castro appealed to philosophical interpretivism, [Claudio] Sánchez-Albornoz appealed to scientific positivism."[19]

David Nirenberg challenged the significance of the age of "convivencia," claiming that far from a "peaceful convivencia" his own work "demonstrates that violence was a central and systemic aspect of the coexistence of majority and minority in medieval Spain, and even suggests that coexistence was in part predicated on such violence".[20]

Mark Cohen, professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, in his Under Crescent and Cross, calls the "idealized" interfaith utopia a "myth" that was first promulgated by Jewish historians such as Heinrich Graetz in the 19th century as a rebuke to Christian countries for their treatment of Jews.[21] This myth was met with what Cohen calls the "counter-myth" of the "neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history" by Bat Yeor and others,[21] which also "cannot be maintained in the light of historical reality".[22] Cohen aims to present a correction to both these "myths".

The Spanish mediaevalist Eduardo Manzano Moreno wrote that the concept of convivencia has no support in the historical record [“el concepto de convivencia no tiene ninguna apoyatura histórica“]. He further states that there is scarcely any information available on the Jewish and Christian communities during the Caliphate of Cordoba, and that this may come as a shock in view of the huge clout of the convivencia meme [“... quizá pueda resultar chocante teniendo en cuenta el enorme peso del tópico convivencial.”] According to Manzano, Castro’s conception "was never converted into a specific and well-documented treatment of el-Andalus, perhaps because Castro never succeeded in finding in the Arabist bibliography materials suitable for incorporation into his interpretation.”[2]

"[C]ontemporary ecumenicists appeal to the 'Golden Age' of tolerance" in the 10th and 11th centuries in Córdoba under Muslim rule, but, for the most part, they are not interested in what actually happened among the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Rather, they mention "tolerance", a concept that "would have had little or no meaning" at that time.[23]

• Al-Andalus (Moorish-governed Iberia)
• Pablo Alvaro (a Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Bishop Bodo (a Catholic convert to Judaism)
• Moors (Muslims in Al-Andalus)
• Morisco (Muslim converts to Catholism)
• Mozarab (Christians in Al-Andalus)
• Mudéjar (Muslims in Christendom)
• Muwallad (Christian converts to Islam)
• Sephardim (Jews in Iberia)
• Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain
• Islamic Golden Age
• Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula
• Muslim conquests

• Ariel, Yaakov: “Was there a Golden Age of Christian-Jewish Relations?” Presentation at a Conference at Boston College, April 2010.
• Catlos, Brian. The Victors and the Vanquished • Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050-1300, 2004. ISBN 0-521-82234-3.
• Esperanza Alfonso, Islamic culture through Jewish eyes : al-Andalus from the tenth to twelfth century ; 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-43732-5.
• Fernández-Morera, Darío : "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise" ; in: the Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2006, pp. 23–31.
• Mann, Vivian B., Glick, Thomas F., Dodds, & Jerrilynn Denise, Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain. G. Braziller, 1992. ISBN 0-8076-1286-3.
• O'Shea, Stephen. Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World. Walker & Company, 2006. ISBN 0-8027-1517-6.
• Pick, Lucy. Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain. Oxbow Books, 2004. ISBN 0-472-11387-9.
• María Rosa Menocal, "Ornament of the World • How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain", 2003. ISBN 0-316-56688-8.
• Boum, Aomar. The Performance of Convivencia: Communities of Tolerance and the Reification of Toleration. Religion Compass 6/3 (2012): 174–184, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2012.00342.x

• Sarah-Mae Thomas. The Convivencia in Islamic Spain July - August 2013
• Rageh Omaar An Islamic History of Europe. Video documentary of 90 minutes for BBC Four, 2005.
• Catherine Bott. Convivencia. Music CD of Spanish and Moorish songs from the period.
• Convivencia. International research project.
• Cities of Light is a 6 min video about collaboration between Spanish Jewish, Muslim and Christian scientists in 12th century Spain. It features the works of Maimonides (Jewish philosopher) and Averroes (Muslim philosopher).