Summary of Maria Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Abd al-Rahman, a young man from the heart of the Islamic Empire, fled to the Maghrib, where he met with his Berber kinsmen. They had converted to Islam and were partially Arabized, and they had pushed across the Strait of Gibraltar to conquer Iberia.

#2 The local politics in al-Andalus were shaped by the often violent rivalries between the majority Berber rank and file and the Arab leadership. The emirs of these Andalusian frontier territories were fairly autonomous representatives of the rather distant central government.

#3 The history of al-Andalus, which is the history of Islam in Europe, is largely unknown and misunderstood. It was a period of time that was dark and barbaric in the conventional histories of the Arabic-speaking peoples, but it was a fascinating period of time that profoundly affected European history.

#4 The book follows the path of Abd al-Rahman, who escaped the destruction of his home to become the first of his line. It is about a foundational European cultural moment that qualifies as first-rate in the sense of E Scott Fitzgerald’s formula: the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time.

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