Lyrics:

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Muslim Spain. In 711 a small army of
North African Berbers invaded Spain and established an Iberian Islamic
culture that would last for over 700 years. Despite periods of infighting
and persecution, Muslim Spain was a land where Muslims, Jews and
Christians co-existed in relative peace and harmony. Its capital, Cordoba,
although not unique amongst Spanish cities, became the centre and
focus for generations of revered and respected philosophers, physicians
and scholars. By the 10th century Cordoba was one of the largest cities in
the world. But what some historians refer to as Cordobas Golden Age
came to an end in the 11th century, when the society was destabilised by
new threats from Africa to the South and Christendom to the North.
However, it was not until 1492, when Granada fell to the Catholic
monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, that Islamic Spain was well and truly
over.In that same year the Jews were expelled from its shores and
Christopher Columbus set sail to lead Spanish Christian expansionism
into the new world. But how did Muslims, Jews and Christians interact in
practice? Was this period of apparent tolerance underpinned by a respect
for each others sacred texts? What led to the eventual collapse of
Cordoba and Islamic Spain? And are we guilty of over-romanticising this
so-called golden age of co-existence? With Tim Winter, a convert to Islam
and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge
University; Martin Palmer, Anglican lay preacher and theologian and
author of The Sacred History of Britain, Mehri Niknam, Executive Director
of the Maimonides Foundation, a joint Jewish-Muslim Interfaith
Foundation in London.