The proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that "Cordoba House" is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex. [...I]n fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.
-- Newt Gingrich
A lot of history books don’t mention it, but from 711 to the mid-1100s the Arabs ruled most of what is now Spain and Portugal, and there was an Arabic presence in the peninsula until 1492. The country was called Al-Andulus by the Arabs, and Cordoba was the capital until 1031. That time is still, by many Arabs, thought of as the Golden Age of Spain, and even the Spanish call it the convivencia, "living together."
It was a time of tolerance, of Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in harmony. Muslims called Jews and Christians "People of the Book" (ahl al-kitab) because according to Muhammad they had received earlier (though incomplete) revelations from God. Muslims respected both religions, and followed the advice of Muhammad in the Koran: "Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in the most kindly manner -- unless it be such of them as are set on evil doing -- and say: ‘We believe in that which has been bestowed upon us, as well as that which has been bestowed upon you: for our God and your God is one and the same, and it is unto him that we surrender ourselves.’" [29:46]
During this time the arts and sciences flourished. The streets in Al-Andulus were well-lit, and, unlike in all the other cities in Europe, there were no open sewers. There were universities, hospitals, baths, public fountains. Cordoba had a library of, by some estimates, 100,000 books -- an amazing number considering that this was before the invention of printing.
Arabic scientists, in Persia and Baghdad as well as Al-Andulus, studied optics, physics, geometry, astronomy, medicine. They used numbers from India (what we call Arabic numbers) while the rest of Europe was still trying to multiply and divide with Roman numerals. An Arabic mathematician, Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, invented algebra; the word "algorithm" comes from his name.
They used mathematics to design their mosques and castles, giving them harmonious proportions. They wrote love poetry, or poetry to God (some said it was the same thing), and introduced love poetry to the rest of Europe as it was coming out of the Middle Ages. They brought new foods to Europe, rice, saffron, oranges, lemons, apricots, and many more.
Unlike in the rest of Europe, Jews in Al-Andulus could rise to positions of influence. A Jew, Samuel ibn Nagrila, became the grand vizier to the king of Granada, the head of its army, and a renowned poet. Maimonides, born in Cordoba, became a physician and philosopher. Moses of Leon began the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.
So pretty much every word in the quote from Newt Gingrich at the top is a distortion. The name "Cordoba House" is not an insult, a sign of contempt, but clearly a reference to a time that emphasized tolerance, inclusion, love of science, of the arts, of learning.
It is true that the mosque of Cordoba was built over the site of a cathedral. And Newt would insist that I add another fact of life for Jews and Christians living in Al-Andulus -- that they were what were called dhimmi, meaning that they, unlike the Muslims, had to pay taxes.
And all that is true. It was the Middle Ages, and of course people didn’t have modern ideas about equality. (Though the taxes were at the discretion of the ruler, and some, though not all, were very mild.) What Newt doesn’t say, though, is that when the city of Cordoba was conquered by the Spanish, they turned the mosque right back into a church. Bizarrely, a Catholic nave was plopped down in the middle of it, creating an odd-looking hybrid. Was this the Christians "insulting" and "showing contempt"?
Another thing Newt doesn’t mention is what the Christians did when they re-conquered Spain -- for example that in 1478 Ferdinand and Isabella (yes, that Ferdinand and Isabella) established the Inquisition. Jews who were thought to have converted falsely to Christianity were rounded up and tortured to confess, and those who relapsed were burnt at the stake.
In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella overran Granada, the final stronghold of Al-Andulus. Immediately afterward they offered the Jews three choices: conversion to Christianity, forced exile, or being burnt at the stake. And when the Jews left, they could take no money with them, just what belongings they could carry. I don’t know, but this seems a hell of a lot worse than paying a few taxes.
Newt, says his Wikipedia page, has a doctorate in Modern European History. So I’d say he does know some history, and I’m certain he knows how to do research. He can’t plead ignorance here -- he out and out lied, smearing a group of people who have already been demonized in the past few years, just to pander to a few crazies on the right. He might ask John McCain how that worked out for him.