Heritage and Myths: The «Kingdoms of Faith» of Medieval Spain Through the Prism of Contemporary Debates on Interreligious Dialogue

Book review: Catlos B.А. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Muslim Spain. – Moscow: Medina ID, 2024. – 608 p.

The Muslim period in the history of Spain is mostly associated with Moorish art and the brutal but just Reconquista that culminated with the fall of Muslim Granada. However, the book «Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Muslim Spain» by B. Catlos tells a very different story of the Muslim Spain known as al-Andalus. The author intends to offer a new vision of the Arab-Berber conquest of Spain with readers who might not be closely familiar with this period, focusing on the sociocultural interaction of the religious communities that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula at the time. The work combines well-known and little-known historical facts into a single narrative line that encapsulates nine centuries of Iberian history, from the Muslim conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in 711 to the expulsion of the Moriscos (Muslims converted to Catholicism) from Spain in 1614. This is a review of a book that reconsiders common myths about the Arab-Muslim state of al-Andalus, Reconquista and the phenomenon of convivencia.

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