1. During the seven hundred years that the Moors ‘ruled’ the Iberian peninsula, y’te (white) slavery became widespread in Spain, Africa and the Mediterranean. Many European women were taken as concubines or household help. A famous Sultan, Mulai Ismail of Meknes, had as many as 25,000 European slaves who participated in building his colossal stables. Sudanese were also taken into slavery but before the fifteenth century not as many as the y’tes. Abd-al Rahman lll of the Umayyad dynasty, had a large standing army of Slavs, many of whom were sold as children and educated as Muslims. Eventually, “slav” and “slave” became interchangeable terms. Even in 1721, King George l spoke of “the great number of his subjects” that had been “delivered” into slavery in North Africa.
2. The Moors introduced rice, sugar cane, dates, ginger, cotton, lemons, strawberries, cereals, beans and peas of various types, olives, almonds and vines to Spain. Other crops introduced by the Moors included a variety of herbs, the orange (which was first grown in Valencia, hence the term Valencia orange), pomegranates, bananas, coconuts, maize and rice. The Moors introduced water wheels, which were invaluable sources of energy for irrigation, the grinding of grains, etc. They developed an advanced system of irrigation which the Spaniards, both before and since have never equalled. They also constructed large underground storage for grains.
3. In the 10th Century, Cordoba was very much like a modern city. The streets were well paved and there were raised sidewalks (pavements) for pedestrians. At night, one could walk for 10 miles by the light of lamps. This was 100 years before there was a paved street in Paris or a street lamp in London. The population of the city was reputed to be 1,000,000 and there were 200,000 homes, 800 public schools, and many colleges and universities. There were seven hundred mosques. There were 900 public baths, besides a large of number of privates ones, at a time when the rest of Europe considered bathing as extremely wicked , and to be avoided as much as possible.
4. While European rulers dwelt in wooden hovels and trod upon dirty straw, the Sultans of Spain lived a life of luxury and refinement. Historians wrote about the marvellous beauty of the Sultan’s palaces surrounded by beautiful gardens with their splendid gates.
5. In 784, Abd al-Rahman spent 80,000 pieces of gold to build the Great Mosque of Cordoba which his son, Hisham, completed in 793. The Mosque had nineteen arcades from east to west, and thirty one from north to south; twenty one doors encrusted with shining brass; 1293 columns support the roof; the sanctuary was paved with silver and inlaid with rich mosaics; and its clustered columns were carved and inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli. There were four fountains for washing before prayers, supplied with water from the mountains, which ran night and day. There were houses built to the west side of the mosque where poor travellers and homeless people were hospitably entertained.
6. The Moors had a deep respect for Nature. While Christian Europe viewed forests as being dark and menacing, the home of wild beasts and evil spirits, in Moorish cosmology, the forest was a place of light and enchantment. It was the Moorish belief that the forests were the “lungs” of the earth.”
7. Moorish rulers were often philosophers, mathematician and poets. Moorish Spain had more than seventy libraries in different provinces, while public libraries in Europe were non-existent. Education was universal in Moorish Spain, available to all, while in Christian Europe ninety-nine percent of the population were illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. The Moors also had seventeen great universities. Scientific progress in Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geography and Philosophy flourished in Moorish Spain. The popularity of Moorish scholarship was such that for centuries Arabic was commonly accepted as the language of scholars from Europe, Asia and Africa. Moorish scholarship would have a profound influence on Europe and laid the foundation of the Renaissance that brought Europe out of its dark ages.
8. Hakam ll of the Umayyad Dynasty was a scholar-king who directed his energy at building up in Cordoba one of the greatest libraries of the Muslim world. Hakam ll only ruled about fourteen years but gathered together no fewer than 400,000 books, and this at a time when printing was unknown and every copy had to be painfully transcribed in the fine clear hand of the professional copyist. These copyists included a woman, a poetess named Lubna.
9. Moorish geographers knew that the world was round. Al-Idrisi, “the Strabo of the Arabic people,” was a famed geographer and cartographer of the 12th century, who wrote a book on geography. In 1154, he constructed a celestial globe and a circular world map of pure silver for King Roger II of Sicily. He meticulously recorded the seven continents with trade routes, lakes and rivers, major cities, plains and mountains, and even roads. He included such information as distance, length and height as appropriate.
10. Moorish physicians had to undergo extensive training and abide to a strict code of conduct that prescribed stateliness, kindness, unselfishness, understanding and discretion. Each physician had to pass a licensing exam before beginning his practices, while at the same time western Europeans healing practices largely relied upon charms and amulets. The most common form of therapy among the medieval European was that of covering the sick with blood-sucking leeches in order to draw out illness. Europeans offered no competition with Moorish advances in pathology, aetiology (study of diseases), therapeutics, surgery and pharmacology. Texts written by Moorish physicians were used as the standard text in many European universities including Oxford university.
