Spain Toleration Essay

Over 1,000 years ago, the country of what is now Spain was once home to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. They lived together in harmony- sharing culture, knowledge, and life. Tradition between the three religions became unified and withstood persecutions and exiles. It wasn’t until outside forces from Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa took a stand to separate these religions, desiring each a more “pure” monotheistic religion. Too soon, the toleration was lost forever and the peoples were forced against each other. Within a few centuries, this fragile unity came to an end in bloodshed. It is too complicated to say that Islamic Spain was either a society of persecution or a culture of toleration. Because of the intermixing of these three religions, persecution was inevitable in the rise for power, but the toleration of each religion was

In Rome, Pope Alexander II finds these religions working together as immoral, and seeks to purify Spain of all Muslims. During that time, Grenada sets a new law stating that Jews could not have any authority over Muslims. This movement allowed the killing of Jews in the streets. In Northern Spain, Christian armies began forming, marching against Muslim cities for their re-conquest of Spain. In 1085 A.D., the Christian King Alfonso XI, takes the center of Spain, the city of Toledo, a great Islamic cultural city. The Christian King keeps the extensive library of Muslim knowledge, with a desire of creating a mixed society. Muslim groups from North Africa flood Al-Andalus in an effort to destroy the “impure” religious unions between Islamic, Christian, and Jewish communities. Around 1145AD, the North African tribes who were more orthodox imposed their ideals within the Al-Andalusa societies. Under this strict new rule, Muslims and Jews felt weighed down and began to move northward, preferring Christian