Chapter 4
Ask Valencia what became of Murcia
And where is Xátiva, or where is Jaen?
Where is Córdoba, the seat of great learning,
And how many scholars of high repute remain there?
And where is Seville, the home of happy gatherings
On its great river, cooling and brimful with water? . . .
. . . Oh heedless one, this is Fate’s warning to you:
If you slumber, Fate always stays awake
—“Lament for the Fall of Seville,”
ABI SHARIF AL-RUNDI, 1267
IN 670, THE UMAYYAD CALIPHATE INVADED WHAT IS NOW Morocco, a land that was home to the Berber people but had been previously controlled by Carthage, then Rome, and then the Visigoths. They called the land al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah, the Western Kingdom, from which comes the word “Maghreb,” which still means “Arab” in North Africa. The caliphs from Baghdad had thus extended their rule—their language, their religion, their culture—from Central Asia to the Atlantic Ocean.
But they had an uneasy hold on the region. The Berbers were more difficult to subjugate than other cultures they had conquered. They accepted Islam and even learned Arabic, but they continued to speak their own language, kept their own culture—including remnants of their ancestral religion—periodically rebelled, established their own governments, and had their own armies.
Despite the fact that he is the author of one of the most pivotal events in European history—the conquering of Iberia by Muslims—there is not much known about the leader of the conquest, Tariq ibn Ziyad. Although he had an Arab name, Tariq was almost certainly a Berber, and according to many accounts, a freed slave of Mūsá bin Nușayr, an Arab general credited with the subjugation of the Berbers. Shunning the brutal policies of his predecessor, Mūsá had won over Berbers with persuasion and a willingness to tolerate their customs. Some Berbers even volunteered to fight for him. Once the Arabs controlled the Berber mainland as far as the Atlantic, Mūsá attempted to conquer what is now known as Cueta, then controlled by a man named Julian, who ruled on behalf of the Visigoths. Historians are uncertain whether Julian was himself a Visigoth or a Berber, but he clearly hated the Visigoths whom he served. According to some stories, this hatred arose from Julian’s daughter being raped by the king of the Visigoths, Roderic.
Julian played on Mūsá’s higher and lower instincts. He told the Arab general that the Visigoths had a new king, Roderic, who was cruel and much hated. And in fact, when Roderic had come to power in 710, a breakaway group had indeed attempted to overthrow him. Julian also said that the Visigoths had a beautiful land with incredible riches. Mūsá subsequently sent a raiding party across the straits of Gibraltar to Spain, a short journey, and landed in what is now Tarifa, where he encountered no resistance at all. Then, in 711, thinking the Visigoths might be more vulnerable than he had believed, he sent a 7,000-man Berber army commanded by Tariq to head farther inland. Tariq must have had a sense of the role he was playing in history, because on the way he stopped to name the mountain island they crossed Jebel Tariq, Rock of Tariq, now known as Gibraltar.
Tariq’s mission was to simply conduct raids and explore the area, but luck was with him and his army. When they landed, Roderic was in the north trying to put down a rebellion by the Basques. For three weeks, there was little sign of the Visigoth forces and the Berbers took town after town as Visigoth messengers scurried north to alert the king. Finally, the Berbers confronted the Visigoths, by then an ill-prepared, poorly armed, and worn-down army of 20,000 led by Roderic. Despite outnumbering the Berbers 3 to 1, the Visigoths were destroyed and most of their noblemen, including Roderic, were killed at the Battle of Guadalete.
Tariq then captured Toledo, the capital, and proceeded to take over the entire Visigoth Kingdom on Iberia. Mūsá then landed a second, 18,000-man army, composed of both Arabs and Berbers, and by the year 714, he had reached the Bay of Biscay and was in control of Iberia.
The Arabs ruled this enclave that they called al-Andalus for almost eight hundred years—the equivalent of the length of time from the Renaissance to today. Many Christians in the region converted to Islam, and the Jews, who had been mistreated under the Visigoths, welcomed the Muslims and prospered under them. Jews had been living in Iberia since Roman times, but when the Visigoths arrived, anti-Semitic laws were passed, barring Jews from marrying Christians, forbidding them to observe Jewish holidays, and, eventually, forcing them to convert, leave, or become enslaved.
The Christians knew nothing about the new invaders. Many thought the Muslims were a dissident sect of Christianity, as the Visigoths were. But Islam at the time was less than a century old. Islam, which recognizes Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, taught that Jews and Christians should be respected as ahl al-kitah—“people of the book.” The Muslims’ attitude toward Christians was that they were just misguided. The Muslims therefore did not force Jewish or Christian conversion, although being a Muslim meant paying less in taxes and having access to good government jobs. It took about 250 years, until the mid-tenth century, for Muslims to become the majority of the al-Andalus population.
By the ninth century, the Muslims of Iberia had a prosperous economy, though this was true of the Mediterranean world in general, and they had built a civilization and culture far beyond anything that could be found in the rest of Europe—and even, in some regards, beyond any to be found in other parts of the Arab Empire. Christendom was so focused on driving the Muslims out that it was very slow to absorb Arab learning. Yet when they eventually did, Arab culture spurred great advances in Europe.
To the Andalusians, as the people of al-Andalus were called, the Christians of the north were barbarians. While the people of al-Andalus bathed regularly in hot water and regularly washed their clothes, the Christians to the north, they said, bathed only a few times a year in cold water and never washed their clothes.
The Muslims brought with them Arab learning in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, engineering, agriculture, and literature. By the tenth century, the library in Córdoba contained 400,000 books; it took the Vatican, intent on creating the leading library of Christendom, until the year 1455 to collect just 5,000 books.
The Muslims also introduced cotton, spinach, watermelon, figs, and advanced irrigation techniques to the Iberian Peninsula, and al-Andalus was far more advanced in agriculture than was the rest of Europe. The Andalusians took the Roman system of irrigation, practiced in Syria and other Arab lands, and improved on it. They pioneered systems of waterwheels, sluices, and canals. Buckets were attached to wheels, and the wheels, turned either by the force of water or with animal power, lifted water from rivers, wells, and cisterns into irrigation canals. Their most famous and extensive irrigation project turned the marshland along the coast outside Valencia, La Huerta, into a highly productive agricultural zone administered by a “water court.” The area is now celebrated as the birthplace of paella, which originally had no seafood in it—only wildlife, such as rabbits, along with rice and vegetables of La Huerta.
Philosophy and theology attained new heights in al-Andalus. Moses Maimonides challenged and examined the Jewish religion as never before by twelfth-century. At the same time, a Muslim thinker, Averroes, scrutinized Islam. In the thirteenth century, a new branch of Jewish thought was explored by the great Kabbalist Moses de León, while Islam expanded with the teachings of Ibn Arabi in a movement called Sufism.
Al-Andalus also became celebrated for its poetry and music, and its Arab and Jewish ballads are still played today. The Andalusians attempted to write down music and could indicate if a note was higher or lower than the next, but had no way of indicating the exact pitch of notes. In that respect they were no more advanced than the European monks marking Gregorian plainchants. But in al-Andalus music was written on paper.
In 912, Abd al-Rahman III became the ruler of Córdoba and during his celebrated fifty-year reign, he initiated the practice of not only commissioning poetry but commissioning an official history of his reign. Official history became an al-Andalus tradition, and it left behind a treasure trove for historians, although most of the histories are about military exploits. In the eleventh century, Samuel ibn Nagrella, a Jew who successfully led the military forces of Granada, had poetry written to record his victories; in it, he was compared to King David. He also wrote important studies of the Bible and the Talmud.
Commercial transactions and banking were carefully recorded on paper with Hindu/Arabic numerals. Bills and receipts were widespread. Mathematics was studied and written about. Mapmaking, which the Arabs had learned from the Greeks, Persians, and Indians, was an important activity always conducted on paper, though the maps themselves were not intended for the general public and were often difficult to read. Geography was of special importance in Andalusian society, because all Muslims must pray in the direction of Mecca, and all Jews toward Jerusalem. Astronomy, including the mapping of the heavens, was another important pursuit.
Architecture also reached new heights of elegance and complexity, as can still be seen in such buildings as the Great Mosque in Córdoba. Because the Andalusians had paper for sketching, new and elaborate design ideas could be planned. And because of the interdiction of figurative images, astoundingly complex geometric patterns were developed and carefully laid out. Carpet designs throughout the Arab world were sketched on paper in the same way.
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THOUGH THE ANDALUSIANS clearly made extensive use of paper, the same could not be said of the North Africans, who did not embrace paper as quickly as other parts of the Arab Empire. Theirs was a sheepherding society accustomed to using and making parchment. However, by the eleventh century, Fez, in Morocco, had become an important paper producer.
Here is a story that suggests how commonplace paper eventually became in North Africa: A mosque in Fez was adorned with elaborate carvings. But since it is against Islamic law to show representations of animals or people, the locals feared that when the ruler, Abd al-Mu’min, a strict Muslim fundamentalist, announced that he would be paying them a visit, he would destroy them. So they covered the walls with paper and then plastered them over. The mosque then temporarily appeared to have smooth bare walls.
By the twelfth century, according to one account, there were 472 paper mills in Fez. This may be an exaggeration, but it is known that around this time Fez was producing a great deal of paper and shipping it to the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
The first mention of paper being made in al-Andalus was in 1056, in the town of Xátiva, or Shatibar in Arabic, though paper may have been made in the area earlier. Xátiva was an ideal location for a paper mill. An old Roman town, it was built on a hill beside the fast-moving Albaida River. The city was surrounded by fields of flax and had been famous during its Roman days, when it was known as Saebtis, for the quality of its linen.
By some accounts, but not all, the papermakers in Xátiva were Jews. This would not have been unusual, because throughout the Arab world, paper was being made by both Jews and Muslims. There are Jewish writings on the art of papermaking that date back as early as the eighth century. By the twelfth century, the paper from Xátiva, called shabti, was regarded as one of the best papers in the Arab world. Western-made paper had never before been admired. Paper from the old Eastern centers such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo was still considered the best. But the new Andalusian paper was thought to possibly be an improvement. In 1154 the geographer al-Idrisi wrote, “Xátiva is a pleasant town with palaces and fortifications proverbial for their beauty. Such fine paper was not made elsewhere in the civilized world and was exported to the East and the West.”
A mill is a mill and, as would be discovered in the rest of Europe, most any kind of mill will do for making paper. When waterpower is harnessed by a wheel to turn a grinding stone, a mill can be used to grind many things, including paper pulp. The Andalusians converted into paper mills Roman-built mills that had once been used to grind olives to olive oil. These mills were equipped with giant stones that did the grinding, and it was these stones that made Andalusian paper smoother and better than the Arab paper of the East, where mills used smaller stones. Another important improvement were the metal wire molds used; they produced higher quality paper than did the split bamboo molds of Asia or the split reed molds of the Arab world.
Rushing water is all that is needed to turn a grinding stone, but the best-quality paper requires something more—good water. The water must be clear, lacking in silt, and unpolluted. Otherwise, specks will show up in the paper. In addition, water with a high iron content produces paper with a reddish or brownish cast. To produce very white paper, the presence of calcium or magnesium carbonate in the water helps, and sometimes the Andalusians would add lime, which is calcium, to the pulp. In Spain under the Arabs and the Christians, it was said that a river where trout lived had good water for papermaking.
A curious characteristic of the al-Andalus paper made between 1166 and 1360 is that when it is held up to the light, a zigzag line or sometimes a series of x’s or random lines coming to points, can be seen. The reason for this is not known. The lines could have been intended as an aid in folding or as an imitation of the markings sometimes left on parchment through curing and stretching. They might also have been a forerunner of the watermark, which later papermakers used to identify their work.
Colored paper, which was popular in Persia and in parts of North Africa, was also common in al-Andalus, especially Granada, which was known for its reds, purples, and pinks. A 1418 letter by Muhammad VIII found in a Catalan archive is on blood-red paper made from linen and hemp.
Only very slowly did the European Christians grow interested in the paper of al-Andalus. They tended to see it as something that Jews and Muslims produced and used. Around 1140, a monk from Cluny, Peter the Venerable, visited Benedictine monasteries in Spain, and upon his return wrote a manuscript on parchment entitled A Tract Against Jews. He had visited the important Christian sites, including Toledo, the seat of the cathedral for the kingdom of Castile. Known for its fine paper manufacturing, Toledo was a famously Jewish city. The Jewish quarter was the largest quarter in the city; Jews were at the center of intellectual life and, it seemed to Peter, they were everywhere. He wrote with disdain, “In heaven God reads the book of Talmud. But what kind of book? We normally read on sheepskins or goat or calf, and bark of reeds extracted from the marshes of orient (papyrus). But this is done with bits of old clothes or vilest things.” Still others referred to paper as “rag parchment” and sneered at “rag scrapings.”
Gradually, however, the Europeans did grow interested in paper. In time, this would have led to competition for the Andalusian papermakers, but al-Andalus did not last long enough for that. Europe was simply a good market for them. Sicily and then Italy were their first steady customers. Andalusian paper was shipped to Messina, Catania, and Syracuse, and to Genoa, Naples, and Venice. Then the Muslims expanded their sales to Bordeaux, and next, England. Soon they were also selling to the Balearic Islands, today part of Spain, and to Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles in southern France. By the fifteenth century, Egyptian and Syrian paper, which had always been expensive, were nearly priced out of the market. Andalusian paper was sold even in Egypt.
The Arabs of the Middle East were also selling to Europe, and the North Africans were selling to West Africa and the Sudan. But while the trade with Europe resulted in the establishment of European paper mills, no paper was made in black Africa until colonial times. In black Africa, paper remained an expensive imported luxury item. Neither their government administrations nor their religions, usually the two strongest motivators for the use of paper, acquired a strong need for it. Even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Africans were still not making their own paper; the small amounts of it carried by North African and Andalusian traders across the Sahara was adequate for the market.
AS IN A Greek tragedy, the flaw that undid al-Andalus was infighting—between Arabs and Berbers, between one caliphate and another, between Sunnis and Shi’as. While the Arabs and Jews of al-Andalus were living affluent, culturally rich lives, the political powers holding their society together were slowly fracturing, even as their enemies, the Christians, were growing ever more united.
While al-Andalus’s trade, economy, and culture were prospering, al-Andalus was slowly disappearing. By the mid-eleventh century, infighting had splintered the enclave into more than two dozen small states, and the Christians saw their opportunity. They began chipping away at Arab lands and in 1085 took Toledo. For a time, this looked like the beginning of the end. But then the Almoravid dynasty in North Africa reinvaded the peninsula and reasserted control. They were overthrown by a more fanatical North African dynasty, the Almohad, which imposed harsh religious law, causing some Jews to flee North Africa to Córdoba and others to flee al-Andalus for Egypt. But finally in the thirteenth century, the Muslim centers of Valencia, Seville, and even the great city of Córdoba fell to the Christians one by one. “If you slumber, Fate always stays awake,” the poet Abi Sharif al-Rundi warned.
Some Christians, such as Isabella of Castile, “La Catolica,” the future queen of Spain, were religious fanatics, but many Christian leaders, like the Berbers before them, simply saw places they liked and decided to take them. In 1240, Jaime I, King of Aragon, wrote upon viewing Xátiva that he had “beheld the most beautiful area of irrigated farmland that we had ever seen anywhere. . . . Our hearts filled with pleasure and satisfaction at the sight; and it seemed to us that we should come to Xátiva with our army . . . in order to take the castle for Christendom.” By the fifteenth century, only a small enclave of Muslims and Jews was left, and finally in 1492, starved by a blockade, the last Muslim city, Granada, surrendered. Jews and Muslims were forcibly expelled, and al-Andalus, once the greatest center of Western civilization, was gone, almost as if it had only been a dream.
Muslims had lived in Spain for eight hundred years. By contrast, Europeans have only been living in North America for five hundred years. Yet only foggy traces of the once-great al-Andalus civilization remain in Europe today. Among them are remnants of the great architecture—mosques and synagogues—now used as churches. The expelled Jews kept their Spanish dialect written in the Hebrew alphabet, the Ladino language, and they kept the keys to their homes, passing them from one generation to another; the tragedy of the 1492 expulsion is one of the calamities that Jews remember on their darkest day, a summer holiday of mourning and fasting called Tisha B’Av. The four-string oud, a musical instrument central to the Sephardic aires of the Jews and the Andalus-Arab songs of the Muslims, became the five-string lute of Europe, important in medieval and Renaissance music. (In modern Morocco, the French have gotten the Arabs to call the oud an “Arab lute”—a masterpiece act of cultural imperialism.) The Spanish language and most European languages have Arab traces, especially in the adaption of the Arab prefix “al,” and Spanish includes some Arab phonemes, such as the guttural jota.
The Andalusians also left the Europeans another great gift: paper.