Book Recommendation - The Myth of the Andalusian Paraside (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_936)
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Summary
The myth of the Andalusian paradise, Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic rule in the Middle East of Spain, is a myth. In reality, Islamic Spain was marked by religious and cultural repression in all areas of life, and the marginalization of Christians and other groups, of course, by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities.
Transcript
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Hey everybody, this is Gotsad. I wanted to do another book recommendation. This is a book
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that I covered, I can't believe it, more than eight years ago now. I hosted a historian from
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Northwestern University. This is the book. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. You can
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see it right here. I know it's backward. I don't know how to fix it. So it's the myth of the
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Andalusian paradise, Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic rule in Middle East of Spain.
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You often hear that, oh, you know, if Islam is so bad, then how do you explain the beautiful,
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loving Andalusian miracle where Jews, Christians, and Muslims just held hands and, you know, ate
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sweet candy and went for ice cream together and everybody loved one another. Nothing could be
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further from the truth. This whole story is, doesn't take into account, you know, this thing
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called reality, where under Islamic rule, Ahl al-Qutub, which means the people of the book,
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meaning other monotheists like Christians and Jews, could potentially be tolerated under an Islamic state,
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but be quiet, pet. Know your place, asshole. So we will tolerate you until we won't tolerate you. So
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it's not tolerance, as you understand it, in the West or equal rights. By definition,
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a dimmi, by the way, in English, it's written D-H-I-M-M-I, a dimmi is never one of equal status.
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They're second class at best, third class, fourth class, because there's a whole range of,
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uh, criteria by which they must abide. They can't fix their houses of worship. They can't serve in the
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military, but we will protect you as long as you pay the jizya, the protection tax. So in that sense,
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it's a protection pact. You're a dimmi. We will look after you. So you see, it's a, it's a terribly
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paternalistic way of viewing other people. See, we're very kind Muslims. We will tolerate the
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nejus, the disgusting kuffar amongst us. You just have to pay a tax given that, you know, we are
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protecting you so that, you know, we don't slaughter you. But then if we decide to slaughter
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you and rape your women, that'll be okay. So this goes into excruciating details. Let me just read you
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the inside. Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain, El Andalus,
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as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There's
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only one problem with this widely accepted account. It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book,
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Northwestern University scholar Dario Fernandez Moreira tells the full story of Islamic Spain.
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The myth of the Andalusian paradise shines light on hidden features of this medieval culture by
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drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological
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evidence only recently unearthed. This supposed beacon of peaceful coexistence began, of course,
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with the Islamic caliphate's conquest of Spain. Far from a land of tolerance, Islamic Spain was marked
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by religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life, and the marginalization of
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Christians and other groups, of course Jews, all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers
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and a class of religious authorities. The myth of the Andalusian paradise provides a desperately needed
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reassessment of medieval Spain, as professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate
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Islamic Spain for its, quote, multiculturalism and diversity. Fernandez Moreira sets the record
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straight, showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless. I didn't need to read this book.
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I lived it in Lebanon, as have any religious minorities who have existed in Islamic lands. Now,
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again, for those of you who say, well, how could it have been so bad if you existed for your first
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11 years in Lebanon and nobody killed you then? Well, in the same way that the guy was jogging and
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didn't have a heart attack until he dropped dead of a heart attack, right? In the same way that if you look
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at John Wayne Gacy's entire history, he only killed about 30 people, so 99.9% of all days that he existed,
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he did not kill anyone. So in reality, he's really a very nice guy. If you look at the totality of John
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Wayne Gacy's life, okay? So these are willful, orgiastic distortions of reality to always sanitize what is
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the truth. If you don't wake up in the West, it won't go well. Check this book out. Great, great book.
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The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise. And by the way, I posted on my
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X feed right now, I reposted, this is from eight years ago, my chat with Dario, the author of this
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book. It's The Sad Truth 461. So you can either go watch it on my YouTube channel, or you can now
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watch it as I'm uploading it on X. Take care, everybody.