Cordoba in The Muslim Era

For those interested this is my review of the “Cordoba in the Muslim Era” lecture with Dr. Farhat Hussein.

Overall it was very interesting except for two things that really bugged me:

First was that the speaker arrived half an hour late, his excuse being that, and I’m paraphrasing here, “It’s my experience in this region when you say 7 o’clock people usually arrive 7:30″… hmmm… did I ever mention how I am annoyingly-obsessively conscious of my time?

Second was a teeny tiny line in the welcoming speech. Something about “…soldiers of Islam against the infidels…”  Huh? Did they just offend the non-Muslims in the audience? I thought DICID stands for Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue? I’m confused.

Anyway, I will share with you some of my notes on this Spanish city:   

• Micro-history is the history of the people of a society and those absent from narratives (vs. macro-history which looks at the broader view and the narratives made by rulers of countries). Most historians take an isolationist approach towards history where they focus attention on the region itself and its history only from within, instead of looking at a place’s interactions and its links with the rest of the world.

• Cordoba in the Muslim era was transformed after the Visigothic era. It was the largest city in Western Europe, the richest and most advanced, with a population of one million compared to Paris’ 20,000 at the time.

• Many English and European terms are derived from the city, for example the word “cord” (means rope or thick thread) which came from the name ‘Cordoba’ therefore called ‘Cord’.

• The Cordoba Mosque, which took 100 years to complete, was the epicenter of the city and the ‘old’ center of Cordoba can still be found today characterized by intricate streets. Today Cordoba has 17 streets with Islamic names and is the only Western country in the world that has a street named “Islam” acknowledging its respect for its history and Islamic era.

• The Abulatia water wheel was used to generate hydro energy at the time.  And the hammams of the time were popular, using sophisticated ointments and soaps.

• Both girls and boys had access to education on a rich range of subjects in both public and private schools. This is as opposed to girls in the rest of Europe who were rarely educated, except for a minority.

• It was a knowledge economy as is attested by the scale of production of books, schools and academics, and consultants to businesses and institutions.  

• Khalifa al-Hakam II (961-976) built a very famous library, and fostered the production of a variety of types of paper on a vast scale (including water proof paper). His own collection of books were noted, their names had to be listed in 40 volumes! He also created a book shuttle service between the cities of Cordoba and Madinat aZahra.

• The system of finance was an Islamic one (‘cheque’ is another word derived from the Arabic word ‘sak’) and the ‘Waqf’ system was greatly adopted whereby institutes were able to sustain themselves, for example through farming and selling their own produce so that the profit is then used in the construction  or running of the institute (e.g. schools, universities, mosques and hammams).  The universities of Oxford and Cambridge then adopted this system.

• Ziryab “Blackbird” was an influential figure in bringing music, introducing luxurious fashion and dresses of the East as well as cosmetology.

• Cordoba was a multi-faith city reflecting the ethos of coexistence and mutual respect. It was also a multi-cultural city populated with Iberians, Berber, Arabs and Europeans.

In case you are interested there is a “forthcoming” book on ‘Cordoba in the Muslim Era’ by Dr. Farhat A. Hussein, not sure when though. but you can email him here to ask: farhatbooks@hotmail.co.uk