© Columbia University Press
Al-Andalus Rediscovered: Iberia’s New Muslims
September, 2012
Cloth, 208 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70274-4
$25.00
Iberia is a place of historic and symbolic significance to all three of the world’s major religions. Myths concerning Islam’s origins collide with the story of the Christian reconquista, the subsequent Spanish Inquisition, and the massive expulsion of Muslims and Jews some five hundred years ago. Yet Muslims have made a comeback in the region, which is becoming one of Europe’s fastest growing Muslim communities. This volume recounts the “retaking” of Al-Andalus by Iberia’s new Muslims, which include groups as diverse as students, boat workers, female professionals, and clerics, and their successful integration within a strongly Roman Catholic culture. Marvine Howe shares not only the experiences of Iberia’s Muslims but also the actions of Spanish and Portuguese officials, academics, NGOs, and ordinary citizens who have sought better ways to incorporate Muslims and other immigrants into Iberian society—despite domestic and European pressure to do otherwise. Howe revisits the events of March 11, 2004, when Muslim extremists launched a devastating attack on Madrid’s transportation system, and relates these events to Al-Qaeda’s stated intent to reclaim Al-Andalus for Islam. Howe pursues several basic threads, such as whether Iberia’s humane immigration policies can be exported to other European contexts and whether the Andalusian spirit of tolerance and diversity will prevail over a troubling economy and heightened radicalism—in both the Islamic World and the West.