PBS PROGRAM

I'm assuming that all PBS stations will be carrying this program at 9 tonight. We keep hearing about how Muslims are all fanatics, fundamentalists and generally bad news. And many of them are. Want to know how we ended up with the fundamentalist survivors? Watch the PBS special on the Moorish kingdoms in Spain. Many of these kingdoms were reletively enlightened and fairly tolerant. Especially compared to their Christian counterparts further north. Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in "relative" harmony. At least they were allowed to live together.

The last independent Moorish kingdom was Grenada, and it fell in 1492. The year Columbus sailed for the so called New World Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the last 200,000 Jews from Spain. Many killed by the ships captains who charged rip gut fees for passage, sold into slavery, shipwrecked, or never even got the chance to book passage. They were killed on the way to the ports for the treasure they supposedly were carrying.

Something tells me we've inherited some seriously bad karma. The Moorish citizens of Spain were at least allowed to remain in Spain but were subject to perscution. Moorish converts to Christianity were in constant danger of being denounced to the Inquisition for practicing their old faith. The persecution finally led to a revolt in 1568 during the reign of Phillip II. The last survivors were expelled in the early 1600's. Funny how fanatics breed fanatics like flies hatching out of spoiled fruit.