Muslim Women in Medieval Spain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Muslim Women in Medieval Spain - Essay Example tout ensemble foreign race professing a strongly hostile religion took over the country, a alone noncitizen language became the official tongue, a completely clean culture was imposed on the population. undefiled sections of the peasantry and the urban lite deserted their Catholic faith and embraced Islam. By the tenth century the territory called Al-Andalus was a country with a solid Muslim majority, and had become the single most powerful and civilized province in western Europe. The Moorish state was never so integrated or unified that it broken out the cultures that had preceded it (Collins 43). None the less, Islamic culture itself became so imbedded in the Hispanic mentality that it ceased to be alien and became an ineffaceable and authentic part of peninsular history. In Medieval Spain women obtained an important role and had more rights and freedoms in demarcation to Christian women and their position in society.In Medieval Spain, the subjected Christian population was usually treated with the check religious tolerance customary to Islam. Occasional persecution was matched by outbreaks of religious zeal on the part of the conquered. Those who held unwavering to their faith were called Mozarabs, Christian in belief but Arabized in culture and language. Their numbers, however, shrank, and their faith itself became diluted with novel beliefs and heresies. Many were extracted by the higher quality of Islamic culture. The principal episcopal see, Toledo, once the Visigothic capital, found itself insulate as the sees of the Christian north freed themselves from its jurisdiction. Despite these drawbacks, Mozarabism remained a vitally important phenomenon (Carr 64). It represented a overweight dialogue between Muslim and Christian civilization, and retained enough of an identity to prepare the way for an ultimate re, conversion of the lands which the Muslims had made their own. Dillard (1993) The settle ment charters, drawn up by king or count to attract settlers who would defend