F. Roger Devlin - TOO - Moorish Spain: A Successful Multicultural Paradise? - "evidence he cites should be enough to prove to any unbiased observer that Moorish Spain, if no worse than other Muslim-controlled societies of its time, was also no better."

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise:Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spainby Dario Fernandez-Morera
Wilmington: ISI Books, 2016

Dario Fernandez-Morera, of Cuban extraction, is associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University. He has previously published American Academia and the Survival of Marxist Ideas (1996), as well as numerous papers on the literature of Spain’s Golden Age.

In this new book he tackles one of the anti-European left’s most cherished delusions, viz., that al-Andalus, or Moorish Spain (711–1492 AD), was a successful multicultural society in which Christians, Jews and Muslims flourished together beneath the tolerant eye of enlightened Islamic rulers. These supposed halcyon days of Moorish tolerance are contrasted favorably with both the Visigothic Kingdom that preceded them and the Spain of the inquisition that followed.

So popular has the romantic image of enlightened Muslim Spain become that it has been publicly endorsed by such distinguished historical scholars as Barack Obama and Tony Blair. Indeed, according to Prof. David Levering Lewis, Europeans missed a golden opportunity by not going down to defeat at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD. If only Charles Martel’s Franks had succumbed, he writes,

the post-Roman Occident would probably have been incorporated into a cosmopolitan Muslim regnum unobstructed by borders … one devoid of a priestly caste, animated by the dogma of equality of the faithful, and respectful of all religious faiths.

In two-hundred-forty pages of exposition backed up by ninety-six closely printed pages of notes, Fernandez-Morera methodically demolishes this optimistic multicultural object lesson by means of copious references to the primary documents: writings by Muslims, Christians and Jews who actually lived under Islamic rule in Spain. The cumulative effect of the evidence he cites should be enough to prove to any unbiased observer that Moorish Spain, if no worse than other Muslim-controlled societies of its time, was also no better. ...

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2016/03/moorish-spain-a-successful-multicultural-paradise/#more-34300