Kingdoms of Faith

"The history of Islamic Spain remains central to popular understandings of Europe's past and present. In Kingdoms of Faith, the acclaimed historian Brian Catlos rewrites this fascinating era from the ground up, bringing to vivid life the violence, religious passions, and cultural and scientific achievements that characterized Spain under Muslim rule, while at the same time offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Catlos opens in the 7th century with the founding of Islam, charting the bloody expansion of Muslim domains spearheaded by Muhammed's ambitious successors. Within a hundred years, the Western thrust of the Muslim conquest had crossed the narrow sea between North Africa and the rock of Gibraltar; the society they established south of the Pyrenees would endure for nearly one thousand years. Scholars and the public alike too often interpret this era in the context of the political and religious conflicts that divide the modern Middle East. Depending on our politics, Catlos argues, we imagine Muslim Spain either as a romantic golden age of peaceful toleration, or as a period when the Christians of the Iberian Peninsula suffered under merciless Muslim rulers. Avoiding both nostalgia and polemic, Catlos explores in astonishing detail the complex relations among this hybrid society's religious communities. He reveals, above all, that religious identity was only one factor among many that shaped personal identity. The glories of Islamic Spain--in mathematics, theology, astronomy, textiles and more--spread far and wide, shaping the societies of the Mediterranean basin and helping create the foundation for European ascendance"-- Library of Congress.