The past sometimes provides examples of glory and success that serve as models. Other times, as the philosopher George Santayana said, it warns of impending calamity for those who do not learn from it. For the past several years, I’ve been immersed in a history that does both. I’ve witnessed, as a documentary producer, the rise and fall of Islamic Spain, I’ve witnessed its amazing ascent and tragic fall countless times in the editing room. Islamic Spain lasted longer than the Roman Empire. It marked a period and a place where for hundreds of years a relative religious tolerance prevailed in medieval Europe. At its peak, it lit the Dark Ages with science and philosophy, poetry, art, and architecture.

Not until the Renaissance was so much culture produced in the West. And not until relatively recent times has there been the level of pluralism and religious tolerance that existed in Islamic Spain at its peak. When the first Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar into Spain, the large Jewish population there was enduring a period of oppression by the Roman Catholic Visigoths. The Jewish minorities rallied to aid the Arab Muslims as liberators, and the divided Visigoths fell.

The conquering Arab Muslims remained a minority for many years, but they were able to govern their Catholic and Jewish citizens by a policy of inclusiveness. Pluralistic though it was, Islamic Spain was no democracy. And yet though people competed and fought, the spirit of pluralism continued. Indeed, it thrived as rival kings sought the best minds in the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish worlds for their courts. This was just as true in the Christian petty kingdoms, as the Muslim ones. Christian and Muslim armies even fought alongside each other against mutual rivals of both faiths.

It is at this point that the darker parallels to our time begin. Into the competition for land, resources, and power, some leaders on both sides began to appeal to religion to rally support for their cause. Wars became increasingly religious in nature which deepened Spain’s religious divide. Ultimately, Christian kingdoms gained the upper hand as the Muslim kingdoms of Islamic Spain fell. This led to the rise of the Inquisition, whose purpose was to verify the loyalty of suspect converts. The expulsions and inquisitions racked Spain economically, culturally, and morally. The fall of pluralism in Spain was the fall of Spain itself.

This fall directly links to events today and raises many of the same stakes. Though few Americans note it, one of Osama bin Laden’s justifications for the 9/11 attacks was to avenge the “tragedy” of Islamic Spain. So far, the post-9/11 world and the policies it has spawned seem to be heading in the same dangerous direction. The religious intolerance that

engulfed medieval Spain threatens the increasingly beleaguered pluralism of our own time. It’s a warning of what can occur when political and religious leaders divide the world. It reminds us what really happens when civilisations clash. — The Christian Science Monitor