This book, particularly the title, sounded a bit over the top when I began reading it, but I gave it a chance, and I am very glad that I did so. As the book continued, it went from what felt like possibly undeserved praise to excellent documentation and even the occasional comment on social conditions at that time and place in comparison to such conditions now in the United States, and with impressive details that convinced me to check out his bibliography for more sources, both economic and social.

He starts by detailing much of the advanced civilization in Bagdad and the Caliphate which was centered in Damascus before moving to the dependency and then independent Caliphate in Cordova. His description of the building up of the civilization there and both economic and social conditions was moving and instructive. This book is worth reading not only for those interested in Islamic-led Spain, but also for those interested in how the principles of what we would now call Good Governance, such as tolerance, openness, transparency, and acccountability allowed the emergence of a society based on mutual respect, opportunity for all, and learning to thrive and to spread learning from east to west/north.
Monday, 10 July, 12017 HE
16 Tammuz, 5777
15 Shawwal 1438 ( )

This book, particularly the title, sounded a bit over the top when I began reading it, but I gave it a chance, and I am very glad that I did so. As the book continued, it went from what felt like possibly undeserved praise to excellent documentation and even the occasional comment on social conditions at that time and place in comparison to such conditions now in the United States, and with impressive details that convinced me to check out his bibliography for more sources, both economic and social.

He starts by detailing much of the advanced civilization in Bagdad and the Caliphate which was centered in Damascus before moving to the dependency and then independent Caliphate in Cordova. His description of the building up of the civilization there and both economic and social conditions was moving and instructive. This book is worth reading not only for those interested in Islamic-led Spain, but also for those interested in how the principles of what we would now call Good Governance, such as tolerance, openness, transparency, and acccountability allowed the emergence of a society based on mutual respect, opportunity for all, and learning to thrive and to spread learning from east to west/north.
Monday, 10 July, 12017 HE
16 Tammuz, 5777
15 Shawwal 1438 ( )

From the flyleaf: "This engaging history...begins when the last members fo the roman provincial middle class were still living amid faded glories, complaining of high taxes, too man people on welfare and too much crime in the streets. Then came the Visigoths rampaging through the country, raping, burning and looting, with the Jews as their special targets. The Arabs were brought in as saviors, their entry paved by Jewish soldiers, advisers and diplomats.
Elmer Bendiner describes Cordoba at its zenith in the beneficent reign of Abdar Rahman III and his Jewish diplomat and physician, Hasdai ibn Shaprut. He gives us the tastes and smalls of Cordoban banquets and the sounds of music that accompanied them. Here is Ziryab, the setter of fashions who taught women how to wear [their] hair and how to set their tables. Here also are the scholars, rabbis, poets, pirates, conniving eunuchs and the women who wielded a power that was never formally granted to them. And here are Andalusian troubadours, both Jews and Arabs, who sang of sacred and sensual love and wine more than of war."
This is a highly informative and entertaining book, including a wonderful chapter on Jewish traders. ( )

Not a scholarly text, although the author did do serious research, this book gives a very readable history of al-Andalus. There are no footnotes, but there is a bibliography.