"Cordoba House," the name initially given to the projected Islamic cultural center in downtown New York in the vicinity of Ground Zero, has receded into the background and been replaced by "Park51," a name derived from the address of the location. The name "Cordoba" had been chosen because it recalls the culture of pluralism and mutual tolerance that is thought to have reigned among Muslims, Jews, and Christians in medieval Spain. Apparently the project organizers came to feel that the name "Cordoba" was too contentious.
Quite apart from the political debate about Islam raging in New York and, increasingly, around the country, it would be useful to clear up some misconceptions about Córdoba.
In 711 the Muslims conquered Spain, at that time ruled by the Roman Catholic Germanic Visigoths. This came less than 100 years after the rise of the new religion of Islam in Arabia and its unprecedented expansion from Iran and Central Asia in the East to the Straits of Gibraltar in the West.
While the conquests brought much death and destruction, and while pagans were offered the choice of "Islam or the Sword," others -- monotheistic "People of the Book" -- were granted peace treaties in return for accepting subjugation within the new religious polity, paying a kind of protection tax, and exercising humility before their Muslim rulers. This was a form of toleration, though not the equality of religions that we value today, and which was won in the West only after centuries of infernal warfare and religious intolerance.
When the Muslims invaded Spain, which they renamed al-Andalus, they found a mixed population of Christians and Jews. In the decades preceding the invasion, the Jews had suffered violent Visigothic persecution. They evidently welcomed the Muslims. They may have heard that Islamic policy toward People of the Book in conquests elsewhere had been relatively non-violent, that in return for their own submission they would benefit from becoming "protected people," ahl al-dhimma. Submission wasn't a bad price to pay in those days for security and religious freedom.
In the Islamic capital of Córdoba -- the grand and much-admired city, with its beautiful mosques and highly developed urban landscape -- Jews and Christians experienced substantial security and economic prosperity. Apart from their respective religions, members of all three faiths shared a common Arabic culture. Inspired by the Arabs' reverence for their holy Arabic language, Jews, who both spoke and wrote Arabic, studied their own holy language, Hebrew, to understand its beauties. Like their Muslim counterparts, the Hebrew poets of Córdoba regaled their patrons using Arabic poetic structures and wrote "secular" poems dealing with nature, love, beauty -- even, in the case of one poet, war. Muslim and Jewish philosophers confronted the same intellectual challenges and often discussed these with one another in formal settings.
This cultural exchange, which was not limited to Córdoba or even to al-Andalus, looked from the outside like a mutually tolerant society of "living together," a convivencia.
Was there convivencia in Córdoba? Yes, though it had its limits. Jews and Christians were not the equals of Muslims. And there were instances of oppression. But when such episodes occurred, they nearly always erupted when non-Muslims were deemed to be "violating" the terms of the dhimma covenant, and they never stemmed from irrational anti-Semitism. The irrational hatred of Jews we know today as anti-Semitism (as distinct from disdain for the nonconforming "other," characteristic of all three monotheistic faiths) did not then exist.
Can Córdoba serve as a symbol for tolerance and mutual understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims today? Yes. As long as it is not rejected for its failure to meet the standards of modern societies; as long as we accept the fact that for neither Muslims nor Christians nor Jews in Córdoba was tolerance -- as we know it today -- considered a virtue; as long as we remember the shared culture that created bonds among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
We live in a world in which societies strive to impose their way of life on others. Cordoba House (aka Park51) symbolizes the possibility of another approach, one which fosters mutual understanding and respect among peoples of different faiths who know little about each other and whose mutual ignorance breeds suspicion and fear. Cordoba House can be a place where Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of other faiths, and secular people, can gather for social and cultural activities and get to know one another, and this mutual understanding might just contribute to a tolerance that none of the three religions has had a very good record at fostering in the past.
David Bromwich: Cordoba House and Religious Freedom
Park51 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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(to use link remove the underscore from the word h_uffingtonpost)
Copy of Letter to Imam Abdul Rauf, Cordoba House Park 51 Islamic Center
part 1:
Imam Abdul Rauf;
Sir, I speak to you on this matter of utmost importance. Please allow me to be forthright.
If you and your wife are actually concerned about building a space DEDICATED TO PLURALISM and MULTI-FAITH and INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING and COOPERATION, then I beg you to take that idea up to the next level. Instead of merely pretty words, I ask you to actually build that precise thing in stone.
Create a space where there is a temple and a chapel and a mosque and a fourth prayer room that rotates each quarter to another religion not already represented.
~
Judging from your appearance on CNN you seek peace and moderation. And it appeared that you accept that the issue is religious radicalism. We surely agree that it does not matter the base faith, all religious extremism is unacceptable: J_ewish, Christian, M_uslim, Hindu and Sikh. Thus an interfaith center which focuses upon the need to defeat religious extremism within all faiths via promoting interfaith discourse and understanding, could become a prime focus of your project.
And by publicly articulating this vision, I am certain moderate Americans can be brought on board.
Is it because Jews conquered Canaan by force, and Arabs conquered Arabia by jihads? But Christians were prosecuted until Constantine converted by divine revelation, so why are Christians so intolerant, so violently opposed to all other religions?
Is this built into the religions of the Book?
1. The City was captured in 711 AD
2. The cathedral was converted into a mosque in 784 AD
One of the key events in Islamic history occurred between those two dates - the Abassid overthrow of the Caliphate, which occurred in 750, leaving modern Spain as the only area of the Islamic world still under Umayyad control. One interesting thing about the mosque is it is the only in the world to my knowledge that does not face toward Mecca, but instead faces south. This, many scholars believe, is due to the Umayyad Caliphs designing the mosque to reflect as if they were still in their old capital in Damascus, not in exile in Spain. In this sense, the Cordoba mosque is not symbolic of a victory mosque over Christianity, but instead mourns the status of the Islamic Caliphate.
We have most historical data that tells us this and that about all religious , governments, wars, conquests, achievments, etc. My sensibilities tell me that it's all moot, as truths change with evolving expansion of thought, i.e. new things learned through education of the mind, scientific edification, positive expansion of the health and wellbeing of societies (you get the picture). Most of our leading edge cultures have been at one time or another cruel and devolved to other cultures and people (Americans to the natives, catholics to disbelievers, muslims to infidels, ad nauseum).. How can any organization, religion, culture, etc. in this day and age marginalize and show bias and bigotry, and consequently subjugate women? How? And thus, how can I support their right to do so and be tolerated in this society...? Sorry, it's my breaking point with the whole thing. Cloak it in religion, or culture, or whatever, all you want. I don't buy any of it. I cannot tolerate nor ignore it. No matter what brand it sports.
They added Him into their religion to get more followers. Thats not tolerance, its a cynical and caculated attempt to use Him for their purposes
As for a "liberal" reading of the Koran, you must surely know the difference between Shi'te and Sunni interpretations. Just like Christian denominations, there are differing opinions on the proper understanding of the book.
As for what Islam did during the middle ages, compared to what Christianity did during a similar period, I'd say Islam was much more civilized. Christians as tolerant during the Inquisition? Pleauze!
I'm sorry about the people who are still taking offense at having anything Islamic in lower Manhattan. It's a bit hard to know how large a perimeter around Ground Zero would be acceptable to these people.
Trying to shoehorn in a concept that doesn't recognize the 21st Century's knowledge of past occurrences ... didn't pass the smell test then or now.
I am still curious as to the funding sources.
Did you even read the article? Re-read the second to last paragraph at least.
"...why would Islamists not use the closeness of this location to the destruction of the World Trade Center, in order to raise funds in the Middle East[?]"
Answer:
Because the imam of this mosque is a Sufi, diametrically opposed both theologically and philosophically to everything terrorist groups like al Qaeda stand for. That's why the US State Department has been sending Imam Rauf around the world for years to talk to other Muslims. Please educate yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html
Sufism is the moderate, mystical heart of Islam. The undeclared civil war in Pakistan pits extremists like the Taliban and al Qaeda, financed by the ultra-conservative Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, against the traditional Sufi moderates. Hundreds if not thousands of Sufis have been murdered, and their shrines bombed. This is exactly why we should support the "Ground Zero Mosque" -- the Sufis, including Imam Rauf, are on OUR side, which the terrorists know all too well. Too bad we don't. But then, most Americans don't know their own Senator's names, or the capital of Australia, either.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/25/mystical_power/
However, In both of the former religions there is a lot of overlapping with the fringes. Imam Rauf may be a Sufi, but is not the mosque for all Islamists, not just the mainstream? And in the future, who is to say the mosque could not be controlled by extremists? Although I am sure it is so, It is hard for Americans to understand that there are such distinct lines between moderate and conservative Islamists.
Marked as favorite - and archived.
While your at it, can you tell me if the things that you write have any real thought behind them or is it just natural for you to randomly make claims without any knowledge of facts?