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Dreaming of Al-Andalus

by Daniel Pipes
October 11, 2007

updated Jan 8, 2008

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Translations of this item:

The Islamic religion contains within it a deep assumption that a land conquered and settled by Muslim becomes part of an inalienable Islamic patrimony, a waqf; should it then fall under non-Muslim rule, that is an unnatural and intolerable circumstance that eventually must be reversed. For example, has Bernard Lewis noted the Muslim reaction to the early modern loss of territory in Spain and the Balkans in The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), p. 182: these were "Islamic lands, wrongfully taken from Islam and destined to be returned."

The Caliphate of Cordoba in about the year 1000.

Even centuries after the reconquista of 1492, Muslims continued to long to recreate Muslim Andalusia. Like Palestinians today, refugees from Spain kept the keys to their abandoned houses as a palpable symbol of their intent to return home. The Saudi Gazette reports that some descendents of refugees from Muslim Spain living in Morocco still commemorate the fall of al-Andalus with "symposiums, Andalusian music and shows portraying the sufferings of their ancestors."

Of late, proponents of recreating Al-Andalus have become more outspoken; "Despite the passage of over five hundred years, the memory of Islamic rule in Spain has become increasingly part of the discourse in radical Islamic circles," Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi notes in a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs publication,"Al-Qaeda: The Next Goal Is to Liberate Spain from the Infidels." (In fact, his title is not quite accurate, for it's not just Al-Qaeda that raises this topic.) He documents this phenomenon:

Comments: (1) This drive at re-reconquista cannot be appeased politically. Dahoah-Halevi, a former advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, correctly points out that "Neither the Spanish withdrawal from the Coalition's war against the Iraqi insurgency, nor proposals for a Spanish dialogue with Hamas, have abated in any way the anti-Spanish hostility coming out of radical Islamic movements in recent years."

(2) That some Spaniards feel a certain sympathy for the Muslim claim will only encourage it.

(3) This dream could well grow to the point that, in some years, it inspires major terrorism and acquires security and political importance. (October 11, 2007)

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