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| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
Umayyad ruled Islamic Spain was one of the only bastions of religious tolerance in the known world for several hundred years, it was also the most advanced state in the world providing major advancements in alchemy, medicine, chemistry, astronomy, architecture, sanitation, art, et al, which proved to be the catalyst for the Renaissance (without which there would have been no Renaissance for at least another few hundred years) It was the first place in the world where Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scientists worked together in the name of Science.
It's bitterly ironic that when Islamic Spain was threatened by Christian revivalists in the North they enlisted the help of Islamic mercenaries from Morocco (the Moors?) which prooved to be their downfall. These North African Muslims were so disgusted at this display of tolerance towards Christians and Jews that they turned against the Umayyad Emir - and while Muslim fought against Muslim the Christians annexed more and more land ultimately ending 800 years of Islamic rule.
There's also a few more Islamic leaders but my memory is hazy so Shaolin will deal with that |
I asked what good Muslims had done for non-Muslims, and simply tolerating their existence would not fall in this category. I'm talking about behaviour so good that it justifies Muslims to look down their noses on the efforts of the West today.
As to the contributions to science and the arts, I don't consider those good deeds, as they were (and are) primarily made in order to benefit one self. That others subsequently gets benefits from imitating you and build on your techniques doesn't make the original act of development "good".
Adding an aside to that, I would say that your description seems to be a little on the too rosy side: I did a wiki search and of the two articles dealing with Muslim Spain, the most optimistic one has this to say:
| quote: | Tolerance or Repression
The treatment of non-Muslims (specifically Jews) in the Caliphate has been a subject of considerable interest from scholars and commentators, especially those interested in drawing parallels to the co-existence of Muslims and non-Muslims in the modern world. Some argue that - for at least part of the history of al-Āndalus - Jews were treated significantly better in Muslim-controlled Spain than in Christian Northern Europe. However, the exact extent and nature of this period of tolerance (sometimes called a "Golden Age") has become a subject of debate and is often used to back personal or political agendas.
Bernard Lewis in Chapter 1 on page 4 of his book "The Jews in Islam" states:
The claim to tolerance, now much heard from Muslim apologists and more especially from apologists for Islam, is also new and of alien origin. It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam have begun to assert that their socety in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam,’ and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.
Princeton University Professor Mark Cohen, in his 1995 book on the subject, Under Crescent and Cross, discusses how the belief of a so-called "Golden Age" of peaceful co-existence in al-Āndalus (between Muslims and dhimmis, especially Jewish ones) was bolstered in the nineteenth and twentieth century by two sources. On one side, Jewish scholars like Heinrich Graetz used the story of tolerant Al-Andalus to draw contrasts to the increasing oppression of Jews in mainly Christian Eastern Europe; European intolerance of Jews did eventually lead to the Holocaust. On the other side, Arab scholars who wanted to show that modern State of Israel shattered a previously existing harmony between Jews and Arabs in Palestine under the Ottoman rule pointed to the supposed utopia of the Golden Age as an example of previous relationships. Cohen argues that the image is overstated, but that the "countermyth" of persecution is also an oversimplification.
The debate about the conditions of non-Muslims continues however. For example, María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University, has argued that "Tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society"[1]. Menocal's 2003 book, The Ornament of the World, argues that the Jewish dhimmis living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were still better off than in other parts of Christian Europe. Jews from other parts of Europe made their way to al-Āndalus, where they were tolerated - as were Christians of sects regarded as heretical by various European Christian states.
The work of Menocal and other such scholars has been the subject of criticism from commentators such as Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom, who regard Menocal's description of al-Āndalus as a myth that ignores the realities of dhimmi life. These critics cite Muslim restrictions on dhimmis: they could not build new churches or synagogues or repair old ones, they had to practice their faiths quietly and privately, and they were not to proselytize. Dhimmis were required to wear an identifying belt called the zunnar, which was easily recognized because of its color - blue for Christians and yellow for Jews. Dhimmis were also prohibited from employing Muslims and had to pay a poll tax (jizya). They were also forbidden from holding public office. According to David Wasserstein of Tel Aviv University, however,
In economic life there were scarcely any real restrictions on Jews, or dhimmis, qua Jews or dhimmis. In religious life real constraints on Jewish practice were minimal and relatively unimportant... In literary activity, there was scarcely any discrimination against Jews, and indeed it may be argued, with great force, that, at least in literary terms, the Jewish encounter with Arab Islam was highly productive, and especially so in al-Andalus (1995, p. 103).
Other proponents of the "tolerant Andalusia" theory point out that there were many examples of dhimmis holding state offices, despite the technical prohibitation. One notable Andalusian example among these is that of Hasdai ibn Shaprut (915-990), a prominent Jew who controlled the customs (among other duties) in Córdoba, but other Jews served as Viziers or court physicians. Proponents argue that dhimmis enjoyed considerable autonomy within the Islamic state; in matters of family law and religious practice, they were governed by their own authorities. These authorities collected the poll tax and mediated between the state and the dhimmi community. Within their allotted bounds, the dhimmis had a certain freedom, yet were always second-class citizens when compared to Muslims.
However, it must be noted that non-Muslims were treated with much more tolerance in Islamic Spain than non-Christians or even non-Catholics (Arians) were in the rest of Europe at the time, as well as for many more centuries to come. |
While I do agree that the treatment given to non-muslims are far better than those given by other religious groups to outsiders in that period, I have severe troubles seeing it as "good" treatment. If you counter that we should not judge people of the past by the norms and standards of today, then the whole issue becomes a non-issue, and we are back to observing Muslims' treatment of non-Muslims today (Darfur, Somalia...).
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I'm not denying that this happened, these acts were very commonplace in that day and age, but an 800 year rule is a very long time and the two sources that i used to make my post(a documentary and book - but admittedly i watched/read them along time ago 
) stated that while non-muslims did pay a tax to practice their faith they were "tolerated" far better than in any other country where they would have been a religious minority in that time period. Which is more than i can say about the Christian Revivalists during the Spanish Inquisition after Islamic Spain fell.
