This article on the ambiguities of Muslm Spain, its famed pluralism & toleration, is interesting in the light of my previous post titled Dar-al-Europa. The author of the Tech Central Station article arguing for a coming “melange civilization” focused on early Ottoman Turkey, a culture that has not been idealized and scrutinized to the same dgree-which I think is a clue as to the present status of Al-Andalus as a Muslim pluralist exemplar. I have stated that I believe many Muslim cultures have a pluralistic & tolerant moment, only to give way to a more assertive Islamic polity, but I am beginning to wonder, do we live in the liberal moment, before the emergence of a more conventional human ordering of things?
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