This isn’t just about Andalusia. From roughly the sixth to the the thirteenth centuries, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when Christianity and Christendom entered its dark ages, Islamic civilization took up the mantle of classical learning, art, philosophy, etc. It was more advanced technologically, mathematically, artistically and philosophically. During certain caliphates, philosophy was considered so important a pastime that rulers had court philosophers in attendance, while many philosophical schools, such as the Mutazalites, and individual philosophers such as Alfarabi, Averroes and Avicenna promoted a happy marriage between philosophy and theology and insisted on grounding Islam in rationality. They were also far more tolerant than Christian civilization at that time of other religions, and for instance, permitted Jews like the philosopher Maimonides to flourish amongst them. (On this issue of philosophy, Peter Adamson’s Philosophy in the Islamic World, available as a book or part of his larger podcast on philosophy, is a good authority to check out. Of course, at this point, the roles have flipped completely, and it is the West and Christianity that are far more tolerant, advanced and progressive. Leftist ideologues refuse to acknowledge that. But I’m not going to let that fact get in the way of my own acknowledgement that things were very different in the past.