Flourishing Moorish Iberia

As I've said before, I'm a fan of the Moorish period in the Iberian Peninsula (I perfer this terminology rather than Moorish Spain. Go figure!).

During that time, both a great deal of arts, culture and science were flourishing in the daily life of an enlightened civilization, such were the Moors in Al-Andalus.

Their legacy is still felt in all those fields and in the language that we speak today. Portuguese has lots of arab words like alfaiate, alambique, a��car, etc. We even have the expression Oxal�! ('hopefully') that comes from Insh'Allah (God will).

I wanted to know what do our arab/islamic friends think of the time, how it is studied at schools (I think it is, right?) and what do they think of the region nowadays (Regardless of the Reconquista. Or maybe not).

'As-salamu Alaikum'

Originally posted by Infidel I wanted to know what do our arab/islamic friends think of the time, how it is studied at schools (I think it is, right?) and what do they think of the region nowadays (Regardless of the Reconquista. Or maybe not). 'As-salamu Alaikum'

i think that it was great period of time for that land and for Arabs too, it is studied at school briefly not in details ( Because that was part of the Ummayah Caliphat and then an indepndant Emirate) also that period was just a part of the Islamic and Arabic land and they were similar so Al-Andalus was not very different from Damascus or Baghdad , the problem is almost everything Ummayad left in the middel east was Destroyed by the Abbasides so the remaining in Spain now are considered more remains of ummayad than the once in the middel east

what do i think of that area now?

i think that it is lettel sad that spanish and Portugese dont consider that period as part of there History

it would be better if there will be  Re-Reconquista

 

Do you think that if Iberia was ruled by Arabs, it would be in better hands?

Originally posted by Sabzevarian Oxal� would be used by any Portuguese speaker? Is there an equivalent in Spanish?

There is, the equivalent is "ojal�".

Probably, an earlier version of the word would be oxal�, but in spanish most of the words that used to be written with x long ago are now written with j. In fact the letter x is quite unusual in an average text or speech of modern Spanish.

Yet, dialects of spanish Do have more presence of the X, specially Galician (I hope there is no one from Galicia here otherwise he will complain about Galician being a languange and not a dialect).

Originally posted by Artaxiad Do you think that if Iberia was ruled by Arabs, it would be in better hands?

Certainly, nowadays it wouldn't!

But I believe in multicultural societies. There's a growing community of muslims in Portugal (mainly Lisbon), many from Morrocco (but some portuguese muslims as well), slavs (ukranians), africans (from the ex-colonies) and some jews.

Concerning the moors themselves, I have a great admiration for their legacy as I said before. I feel sorry that nowadays they are so far back in the road...

they werent Arabs people they were Berbers....Ber-freaking -bers!

and yes it was a fun time

Yes, they spoke Arabic and they were muslim. The Al-Andalus was part of the Arab Empire, if I'm not seriously mistaken.

How do you pronounce the j in ojala (guttural sound??). What is castellano?

Originally posted by Sabzevarian How do you pronounce the j in ojala (guttural sound??). What is castellano?

The j is pronounced like Ho! or the H in Omaha.

Castellano is, as Degregado said, what people use to call Spanish. It is/was the dominating language in Castille, and since when Spain was formed Castille was the dominating kingdom, Castilian become the official language (though Galician(Gallego), Basque(Vasco), Catalan(Catal�n)) are widely spoken in their regions.

Most of them could be taken for Castilian dialects (though they are quite different), but basque is a very rare language (and very interesting, you might like to look for more information).

Infidel, did you know that according to Livermore, Portugal could have become an islamic nation under the rule of a man named Mahmud? Apparently, around the 840's, this Mahmud character took advantage of an uprising to gain some power for himself. A place called Mafamedes near Porto is supposedly named after this character.