Cordoba II

In my previous article, Cordoba I, I concluded by saying that the hatred that motivates both extremes in the Islamic-Judaic relationship is ingrained to a degree where it is impossible to reason with those thoroughly indoctrinated in their respective ideologies.

The extremes rule, and this is true far beyond the current Judeo-Islamic conflict.

In Europe, we saw Serbian Orthodox forces annihilate Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in the nineties, Russians try to destroy Ukraine through its invasion that continues to take thousands of lives, and China where we hear that authorities oppress and imprison their Muslim Uyghur minority.

Unscrupulous leaders use religious nationalism, the media and even violence to manipulate, exert power, and subjugate people to their will in order to achieve their personal goals.

Does history repeat itself?

I believe it does.

In my previous article, I wrote about a cosmopolitan Islam that lived side by side with Christianity and Judaism in the Cordoba Caliphate, including Christians and Jews in the administration of government as well as in education and cultural life. 

This Islam was open to diversity, respected and sought the knowledge and wisdom that comes from science and philosophy. It embraced wisdom rather than dogma, and humanism rather than fanatical religious orthodoxy.

When the Christian King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel expelled the last Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Christian Spain reverted inward, embracing the suffocating and teachings of the Catholic Church in Rome, establishing the Inquisition, and embracing an expansionist and extremist Catholic theology that condemned those who refused to follow its diktats to face torture and execution if they refused to convert.

This was fifteenth century Europe. 

Religious warfare took millions of lives, the Church interfered with and condemned scientific advances, and saw enemies everywhere. Lost was the message of Jesus Christ – love one another – seemed to have been replaced with “obey or die”.

This philosophy carried on through the expansion of European colonialism, where the sword opened the way for the cross, and where indigenous populations everywhere were considered chattel and expendable.

Does his remind you of anything?

Today, Islam is in its fourteenth century.

Its basis has been hijacked by those who detest change, hate the “other”, seek to kill all infidels, have an overriding goal to rid the world of unbelievers, and seek to impose an orthodoxy that simply didn’t exist in Islam’s glorious era of the Cordoba Caliphate.

Is today’s terrorism aimed at control of land, or control of minds?

Are today’s enemies of Islam those who deny Palestinians of their rights to a state, or is it, in the words of a senior Hamas leader just days ago, a need to rid the Middle East and indeed the world of Jews and conquer the globe in the name of Islam?

In November of 1095, Pope Urban II delivered a famous sermon calling for the liberation of Jerusalem from Muslims and reclaim the Holy Land with a cry of “Deus vult” (God wills it).

As head of the Papal States and supreme leader of Europeans through the stranglehold that the Church held over society, declaring “holy war” was his solution to the increasing power of kings who posed a threat to the overall control the Church exercised over society.

Islamic terrorists and their supporters seek to end the rule of secular Arab leaders and any democratic form of governance who pose a threat to their religious ideology and their power over the masses. 

Under the cry “Allahu Akbar” they seek to rid the Islamic world of earthly influence and establish the Kingdom of God through wanton murder and psychological enslavement. 

They seek the same absolute and theocratic power that the men of the Catholic Church sought centuries ago. Indeed, the new Speaker of the U.S. Congress is a fundamentalist Christian who seeks to impose a biblical notion of government and whose followers in the United States number in the millions.

Not much has changed.

As long as people ascribe human qualities to a deity – envy, vengeance, violence, and exclusion -- they will use this deity’s perceived desires to justify whatever cruelty and viciousness they decree necessary to maintain their superiority over others.

As long as people give religion a critical role in governance, people will use it to exclude those who are different and build walls instead of bridges.

And as long as nationalism, orthodoxy, and exceptionalism are perceived to be the will of a deity, it will be used to justify war, injustice, and oppression.

Unfortunately, nothing will change as long as human nature remains the same.

Sadly, human nature has changed little since the dawn of time, and there is no sign that humanity is learning from the tragedies of the past and the present. 

Cordoba remains an unattainable dream for now. Will its time ever come?

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Read the first part:  Cordoba

Edición: Fernando Sierra