Andalusia? Another Look at History

Interesting piece here by Nirmal Dass, Ph.D.  Since it is somewhat different from the 'received wisdom' of typical historians, you can judge for yourselves whether it is accurate.

There is a part which fits neatly into the 'conventional' history, however.

We know little about “Islamic Spain.” The Arabic documents are late (written 400 to 700 years after the so-called “Islamic invasion” in 711 A.D.). They are also unreliable because Islamic history is not concerned with facts, but with the imagined triumphs of the faith.

Then, there are the Visigoths, who ruled Spain and parts of North Africa in the early eighth century. They were mostly Arian Christians, that is, heretics who rejected the Trinity and believed Jesus to be a special kind of human being, but not the Son of God. Much of Iberian history at this time is the ongoing struggle between Trinitarian (Catholic) and anti-Trinitarian Christianities, with the Byzantines (the Eastern Roman Empire) playing the dominant role....

The Arians' heresy fits hand-in-glove into Mohammedan theology.  In fact, the non-Trinitarian "Allah" is the theological principle underlying all of Shari'a, as Belloc noted.

Moving forward....

...Things changed around 850 A.D., when anti-Trinitarian sects throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Spain started to coalesce into a coherent, codified faith system, promoted by the Abbasid ruler, Al-Mamun, who wanted an anti-Byzantine Empire.

(This explains the rapid expansion of Islam throughout North Africa and the Middle East — precisely in those areas where anti-Trinitarian Christianity was dominant. Instead of a “conquest,” there was willing allegiance to an anti-Byzantine “empire.” This also explains why there is no evidence of an “Islamic conquest” in the Middle East and North Africa).

Thus, Islam entered this particular history around 850 A.D.; and from its inception, it was an ideology of dominance, in that it had a two-fold goal — to destroy Byzantium (the West) and convert the Trinitarians (Christians) by force...

By the way, Islam also slaughtered a lot of Jews in Spain, as Maimonides observed.

Eventually, the Roman Catholic non-heretics resumed control of Spain.