Convivencia, Reconquista, and Romanticism

For some of my students in my early Islamic history course it is a bit strange when I bring up Spain. To be fair, Spain as we know it today did not exist in the first several centuries after the emergence of Islam and most people generally associate Islamic history with the Middle East, North Africa, and to Central Asia not southern Europe. However Islamic-rule in various forms shaped southern Spain or Andalusia for nearly 750 years. Prior to the Reconquista and Inquisition, Andalusia was home to large numbers of Muslims (Moors), Jews, and Christians, but following Queen Isabella’s conquest of Granada in January 1492, Muslims and Jews were given an ultimatum to convert or leave in the following decades contributing the Christianization of the Iberian Peninsula.

In the 20th century, Spanish historian Américo Castro used the term Convivencia, often translated as “living together” or “coexistence”, to refer to Islamic-rule in Andalusia. The historical narrative of the Convivencia argues that the Moorish rulers of Iberia promoted a form of religious pluralism in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians that was ahead of its times given that tolerance was not exactly common in the Medieval world. While Andalusia’s religious minorities generally fared much better under Islamic-rule than under their Christian counterparts; romanticizing the Convivencia ignores the complexity of Andalusia’s rich history.