DAR AL HARB - SPAIN / AL-ANDALUS: RESURGENT ISLAM IN SPAIN 500 PLUS YEARS AFTER SHE FREE'D HERSELF FROM ISLAMIC TYRANNY

Spain's resurgent Muslims clamour for places to pray
By Victoria Burnett

For centuries the Iberian peninsula was studded with the minarets of mosques that served its Moorish rulers. When the call to prayer goes out nowadays, many of Spain's Muslims cram into scruffy shop-fronts, garages and warehouses.

Five hundred years after the Catholic kings ousted the Moors, Spain's resurgent Muslim population is clamouring for places to pray. A campaign for land on which to build new mosques has sparked debate about the rights of religious minorities and underlined the challenges of absorbing a growing immigrant population.

Spain has a dozen mosques to serve a Muslim population that has swollen to about 1m in the past few years as North African immigrants stream into the country. Immigrants generally get a laid-back reception in Spain, but Muslim leaders complain that they face political and bureaucratic hurdles as they try to buy land and get building permission.

"It's almost impossible for the Muslim community to try to build a place to pray without confronting strong public rejection," says Mohammed Chaib, a socialist member of the Catalan parliament. Catalonia - home to about 250,000 Muslims - has no purpose-built mosques. About 170 spaces have been converted into places of worship.

Plans for a mosque in the Catalan town of Badalona drew national attention after more than 20,000 local residents signed a petition of protest last month. Cowed by public pressure, the local government has dropped a plan to allocate public land for the mosque. Eduardo Tortajada, Badalona's deputy mayor, says the fast rise of the Muslim community has strained relations with other residents; the town's Muslim population has grown from a few hundred to about 10,000 in the past five years - about 5 per cent of the population.

Suspicion that some mosques are hubs for Islamic extremism adds to public distrust. Badalona police in January arresteda Moroccan, Abdullatif Nekkavi, for alleged ties to jihadi groups in Iraq.

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What the author of this article fails to mention is that Spain was first CONQUERED BY MOSLEMS, the Moors, and was OCCUPIED BY MOSLEMS/ISLAM SINCE THE 8TH CENTURY UNTIL THE RECONQUISTA...

Here are some excerpts from the Medieval Sourcebook that pertain to the initial conquest & occupation of Spain:

1) Ibn Abd-el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain

2) Al Maggari: Tarik's Address to His Soldiers, 711 CE, from The Breath of Perfumes

Tarik was the Muslim leader who lead the conquest of Spain.

3) Poetry of The Spanish Moors

4) Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain



Here are some links that pertain to the Reconquista (the Reconquest of Spain):

1) Excerpts from the Chronicles of the Cid

[From Chronicle of the Cid. ed. 5, Robert Southey, tr. ed. 5 (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1894.), bk 2.]

Probably the best-known figure of Medieval Spanish history and legend was the Cid (Lord), Rodrigo de Bivar. His exploits were recounted in an epic tradition which has come down to us in several recensions. These epics depict not only the struggle between Islam and Western Christendon in the Iberian Peninsula, but also the interaction of these two civilizations.

2) The Chronicle of the Cid (If I am not mistaken, this is the complete chronicle, brought to you by the Gutenberg Project...)


Pertinent Links:

1) Spain's resurgent Muslims clamour for places to pray