The Ornament of the World (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: María Rosa Menocal
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: History
- Time of Work: 750-1492
- Setting: Primarily the Spanish peninsula but also France, Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East
- Principal Characters: Abd al-Rahman, Alfonso VI, Alfonso X the Learned, Averroës, Halevi Judah, Moses Maimonides, Muhammad the Prophet, Peter the Venerable, Petrus Alfonsi, Samuel the Nagid
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: Africa or Africans, Politics, France or French people, Europe or Europeans, Islam, Religion, Jews or Jewish life, Christianity, Muslims, Italy or Italians, Renaissance, Judaism, Middle Ages, Jews and Gentiles, Middle East, Spain or Spanish people, Toleration
- Locales: Africa, France, Spain, Italy, Middle East
In the mid-eighth century, the ruling family of Islam, the Umayyads, were slaughtered in their court city of Damascus by the rival clan of the Abbasids, who then moved the “House of Islam” to the east and settled in Baghdad. The only surviving member of the House of Umayyads was a young prince in his late teens or early twenties, Abd al-Rahman, who set off across the North African desert in search of a new home at the farthest reaches of the Muslim empire. His mother was a Berber and so the young man had kin among the tribesmen of what is now Morocco. The Berbers led by Syrian Arabs...
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