[MUSIC] There was consequential Islamic state inside of media wide beera, was out of the Umayyads. And their stories are a bit complicated, because it begins all the way back in Damascus, Syria. In 661 Mu'aui'ya at the Umayya clan, which were originally from Mecca, established this first caliphate. A religious and political entity to cover all the Islamic lands. It was under the aegis of the Umayyads that Spain would come into the orbit of Islamic civilization. As we remember, Spain was conquered by the Muslims in 711 CE. And roughly within ten years most of the peninsula was dominated by their political leadership. However, in 750, momentous events transformed the Islamic world when the Abbasids violently overthrew the Umayyad caliphate with a massacre of the elite ruling family. The consequence of this affair was the creation of a new Umayya dynasty, but this time in Spain and in the city of Cordoba. One surviving Umayya prince, Abd al-Rahman I, would take the title of emir or commander of the faithful and establish a new emirate in Spain. And from this emirate, slowly would evolve the most consequential of the Spanish-Islamic kingdoms. It would become known as the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, which would rule from 929 To 1061 CE. This is what we all refer to as the Golden Age of Islamic Spain and in many respects it was a Golden Age for the Jewish community of Spain. In 929 Abd al-Rahman III declared al-Andalus to be its own politically and religiously autonomous entity. The positive forces of a coexistence or Coviviencia, in Islamic Al-Andalus is first observed in the tenth century under his rule. Abd al-Rahman III, like his father before him, pursued an ethnically and religiously inclusive policy, dedicated to the pacification and unification of Andaluz. He showered support on the arts and sciences and sparked a general cultural efluorscense. In addition, he encouraged minorities to pursue their own intellectual interests, providing them with a model of how to proceed. The German nun, Roswitha, who visited the city of Cordoba at the second half of the 10th century, would call the city the ornament of the world because of its incredible arts, sciences, architecture, and mixtures of people. And for the Jewish community, Cordoba and the Caliphate was a particularly welcoming and vital place to be during the middle ages. Specifically Professor Jane Gerber, the author of The Jews of Spain, describes it in this way. The Muslim province of reached the zenith of its power in the 10th century, under the able and usually long and stable of Abd al-Rahman III. [MUSIC] As an imperial city, Cordoba reached zenith in power and affluence in the mid 10th century. And talents from all over the Muslim world streamed into the new capital. The newcomers included Jewish poets and scholars from North Africa, Italy, and the far east. One of those persons who was invited to the court was the physician Hasdai ibn Shaprut, he lived from roughly 915 to 970. He patronized the Jewish literati, and followed the time-honored pattern of patronage of culture customarily exercised by Muslim courtiers. Hasdai also set up a school of Talmudic learning in Cordova, enterprising Jewish parents would bring their talented sons to Cordoba to take advantage of the new opportunities to obtain a quote, unquote, modern education in the capital, also hoping that their sons might succeed in finding employment at the Muslim Imperial Court. Jewish facility in Arabic, also made them to gain access to a vast world of thought embodying the ancient classics, which had recently been translated into Arabic. Direct exposure to Arab learning and science and philosophy provided a powerful impetus to the expansion of Jewish knowledge. And before long, the Jews of Spain excelled and surpassed other important Jewish centers. Professor Gerber concludes with this observation, perhaps the best way to appreciate the stimulation that Jews experience from their cultural surroundings, in Al-Andalus, is to glance at the surviving curriculum of a Jewish academy of learning in 12th century Toledo, that was based upon the Medieval Arab model. The Jewish school offered the standard fare Judaica, Hebrew language, Torah, and Talmud, a graded course of study in philosophical observations on religion, logic, mathematics, optics, astronomy, astrology, music, mechanics, metaphysics, Greek, and Arabic, as well as medicine. Special was placed on fine calligraphy, the model for the educated Jewish male was also the Muslim adib, a man of humanistic culture. This was Islamic Spain at its best. A place where many communities could co-habit together and work together. The splendor of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba was not to survive, and by 1031 it had reached its end. What came next was the success at the Spanish Christian Reconquista, internal political fragmentation within the Islamic community, and North African intervention by the. [MUSIC]