I was in Spain in April of 2011. The trip reminded me of all the history I had studied of transmission of knowledge from the East to the West from 10th to the 15th centuries.
This knol will intertwine my visit with my family to Spain, with the transmission of knowledge over the five centuries, the book by Samuel Parsons Scott titled, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe and related materials.
We flew into Madrid drove to Sevilla and stayed there and made day trips to Granada, Gibraltar, Cordoba, Pedrabad, Toledo and finally Madrid again before we flew back.
This knol is not about nostalgia or about Islam or Muslims alone, this is about humanity at large. Muslim Granada stood for almost two centuries after the fall of Toledo, against all odds, allowing a continued interaction between the Muslims and the Christians, over centuries, a necessity for transmission of knowledge and renaissance of Europe, which in its turns provided rich fruits for humanity.
What delayed the expulsion of Muslims from Europe for almost two centuries was the Black Death, which was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. This plague epidemic is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe’s population. Thought to have started in China, it travelled along the Silk Road and had reached the Crimea by 1346. From there, probably carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, it spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. The plague may have been a blessing in disguise that was a major catalyst in the renaissance of Europe. But, for this plague the myopic Christian armies of the time, guided by the Catholic Church, would have succeeded in pushing the Muslims into the Mediterranean, without learning what they needed to, two centuries too soon for their own good!