Historicalresearch and cultural tourism can (and should) go hand in hand. This is confirmed by Felipe Vidales, who holds a Ph.D. in History from the Complutense University, is an accredited official tour guide, and is the promoter of the Tulaytula cultural project, which focuses on promoting the history of Toledo. Convinced that scientific rigor need not be at odds with cultural outreach, this specialist in modern history debunks the myths and legends that distort our understanding of the ancient Visigothic capital—one of the key sites for understanding Spain.

He takes a critical look at the national myths upon which Spanish identity is based and champions the Al-Andalus past as an essential part of our history—a past that is often dismissed by traditionalist views as a parenthesis unrelated to the peninsula’s development.

QUESTION. Do you feel more like a historian or a tour guide?

ANSWER. It’s just that I’m a historian. And I don’t stop being that just because I do or don’t do something. Conducting guided tours is one of the financial and business aspects of the project, which also includes working with audiovisual companies and promoting documentaries. I’m still a teacher as well, now working on projects and at universities in the United States. Everything I do is as a historian, even though part of that history is conveyed through guided tours. Just because I have a tour guide license doesn’t mean I’m any less of a historian. I do exactly the same thing at every stage of my professional life: read and share what I learn.

Do we know our history?

We are familiar with it, even though we may find it difficult to reconcile certain aspects of it with the 20th century. The story is becoming more and more honest. It is true that it has served—and continues to serve—aspirations that are not purely scientific. And it’s true that we are gradually reviewing and revising the narrative to align it with more academic and honest methodologies and criteria. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, and we’re gradually weeding out interests unrelated to the discipline, even though there are stories that we find hard to reconcile with our collective imagination. It happens in every country. Not just Spain. There is a selective and monolithic identity that leads us to reject certain parts of our history and to accept myths and lies that are easier to accept than truths and rigorous analyses. I’m talking, for example, about Al-Andalus.

Which pieces do we find hardest to fit into our collective imagination?

Above all, the idea that there are good conquests and bad conquests. That there are Spaniards who are foreigners and Spaniards who are not. There are periods in our history that we must fit into what we call national history. And that, in the case of Al-Andalus, these were not Martians who arrived in spaceships from another planet, but rather the logical process of conversion of the native inhabitants of this land as they adapted to a different religious and cultural reality.

This is very difficult for us because Spain has built its identity since the 19th century in opposition to all things Islamic and Arab, treating the history of Al-Andalus as foreign while simultaneously occupying Morocco militarily and colonially. The equating of Islamic culture with Moroccan culture in that 19th-century nationalist fervor makes it difficult for us to reconcile the history of Al-Andalus, leading us to view it as foreign or to dismiss it as if it were a parenthesis in the natural evolution of Spain as a nation.

What is the message behind Tulaytula?

Making peace with our history. I’m from a city that cannot be understood without its Islamic heritage. I believe there are few cities like Toledo that have played such an important role in shaping Spanish identity, thanks to its Visigothic and medieval heritage and its role as the setting for various royal and courtly events; at the same time, however, it is a city with an undeniable Islamic legacy, from its place names to its architecture and other cultural expressions.

That’s hard to reconcile with the identity of a city that is, at times, a bit self-conscious about its own history. In *Tulaytula*, my primary goal is to shed light on that reality, provoking contradictions in those who read and listen to what I write and say—all based on my own, consistently academic research. The core mission of Tulaytula is to make academic knowledge and debates accessible—debates that acknowledge something that many tourism initiatives themselves often deny: that one cannot understand Toledo without its Islamic legacy, just as one cannot understand Spain without its Al-Andalus heritage.

We overvalue our Jewish heritage for public and private economic interests, but at the same time, this city has very little Andalusian heritage. No museums, no tourist attractions, and not a single feature that highlights the history of Toledo and Al-Andalus.

CanCan the Jewish past be isolated and removed from its Andalusian contexts?)

This has happened so often that Al-Andalus culture is frequently confused with Sephardic culture, and Sephardic culture is separated from Al-Andalus as if they were two distinct realities. We don’t know when Sefarad begins, but we do know when it ends. And it came to an abrupt end in 1492 with the conquest of Granada and the ban on Judaism. It is impossible to separate Sefarad from Al-Andalus. The Jewish legacy cannot be separated from the heritage of Al-Andalus. I don’t mean to say that there wasn’t a Jewish culture within the Christian kingdoms of Castile or León, but it was undeniably rooted in Al-Andalus.

In Toledo, we have examples such as the Synagogue of El Tránsito, built 300 years after Toledo had already become part of Al-Andalus, and likely one of the finest examples of Al-Andalus art and Islamic heritage in terms of form, aesthetics, texts, and the languages used. We make a grave mistake if we equate culture with religion and “Arab” with “Muslim.” People need to understand that for centuries, Christians, Muslims, and Jews—who did not share the same religion but did share the same culture—were culturally Islamized. Even though we might cut ourselves some slack today when it comes to “the three cultures.” That is where, due to error and economic or identity-based interests, the Jewish element is separated from the Andalusian one, even though it is an intrinsic part of it.

The example of Córdoba is very valuable. Maimonides can only be understood within an Islamic context, but when he is detached from that context and integrated into Jewish nationalist and identity-based narratives, it seems as though he was part of a different world when he thought in Arabic and read Islamic texts on philosophy, medicine, and law. And besides, when he flees, he goes to the Islamic world: Morocco and Egypt.

Are all those identities still in conflict today?

Absolutely. Not just in Toledo. People root for certain parts of their history, as if it were a soccer game. Some people choose to side with the Romans, the Andalusians, or the Catholic Monarchs, and that’s where we’re fooling ourselves. We tend to forget that the formation of identity in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period was different. There wasn’t a single, monolithic, all-encompassing sentiment like there is now. We are the heirs to those identities characteristic of exclusionary nation-states, which almost prevent us from having different senses of belonging. And we bring those different identities—which were, at the same time, very closely related—into conflict with one another.

I return to the Synagogue of El Tránsito: a Christian king and a Jewish minister who dedicated a synagogue built in the Islamic style. That causes us conflict today, even though it wasn’t contradictory back then. I’m not so naive as to talk about idyllic or perfect relationships. They weren’t back then, just as they aren’t now. There are always tensions. But we imagine them to be far more conflict-ridden than they actually were, especially given the influence in recent decades of post-Orientalist theories such as Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” We use history to support current arguments.

I read the following headline in an article you wrote: “The Invisibility of Islam in the History of Toledo.” Can Toledo be understood without understanding Al-Andalus?

No. It’s impossible. And you can’t talk about Al-Andalus without talking about Toledo. If we compare the historical accounts, we will see that Al-Andalus began with the conquest of Toledo. Chapter 1 of Islam covers the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and includes Toledo. It is impossible to explain one without the other. Anyone entering Toledo will pass through gates of Arab origin, walk past churches that resemble minarets, cross squares with Arabic names, see mosques, and enter places where there are inscriptions in Arabic on the walls. A thousand years have passed since Toledo ceased to be part of Al-Andalus, but the legacy of Arab and Islamic culture lives on in the city’s street names and its oldest legends. Why aren’t the institutions more committed to the city’s Arab heritage?

Someone who passes through Bab Al Sajr, crosses Bab Al Mardum, and arrives at Suq al Nawa—and takes in all the Arab-Islamic heritage—will, if they enter a tourist office, find plenty of brochures about the Knights Templar, theme parks, Sephardic heritage, and concerts, but not a single tour dedicated to Andalusian heritage. Nothing.

Is there a desire to conceal the Al-Andalus past?

There has never been any genuine interest on the part of the institutions. We have a Sephardic museum that is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, but we do not have an Andalusian or Islamic museum. We have a week dedicated to Jewish and Sephardic culture, but there is nothing similar for Andalusian culture. There is a lack of interest—not only at the institutional level but also among the general public. It’s as if it were a coin with two sides: the pro-Jewish sentiment and the Islamophobia that have long been at play in the country. There is greater interest in Jewish history because Judaism is equated with modernity, success, and a self-made people, whereas Islam is associated with terrorism, poverty, and deindustrialization.

Since that is the current perception of Islam, it is projected onto a completely distorted past. There is a theme park in Toledo calledPuy du Fou that attracts thousands of people every month. The show tells the story of Spain, which is the union of a Catholic bishop and a Catholic king. From that moment on, bombs, explosions, and fire begin to appear. That’s Al-Andalus. And it is reflected as the plundering and utter devastation of a Spain that already existed. That narrative—that Spain was already a nation under the Visigoths and, because of the destruction wrought by Islam, must be reconquered once again—is the one that still persists in the collective imagination of many Spaniards. There has been a massive institutional failure, but also a failure on the part of the general public, because people mistakenly equate that distorted version of Islam with the history of Al-Andalus.

National Catholicism is still alive in Toledo.

I think it’s still alive throughout Spain. It’s a very convenient view of our history. A very traditional view. A perspective that forces people to take sides on certain aspects of history and fosters a view of “them” and “us” as distinct from one another. Who are we, the Spanish people? Well, we’re the exact opposite of what they are: the “Moors.” And that concept of “Moor” encompasses everything bad. Toledo is redefining its identity, and not just during the Franco era. Before that, too. Many of its traditions were invented in the early 20th century. Religious brotherhoods, fraternities, and processions that people think are thousands of years old are actually less than 100 years old. It happens in other parts of Spain, too.

Given this sense that Islam is becoming something foreign, it is convenient to embrace the idea of a national constitution that is Catholic and that emerged from the struggle against Islam. Fortunately, little by little, academic studies are refuting this notion and positing that the Andalusians were nothing more than Visigoths who had converted to Islam—just as the Castilians and Aragonese would later be Andalusians who had converted to Christianity.

The Spanish nation is being built in opposition to Islam.

For the most part, yes. The problem we face now is the emergence of this non-academic pseudo-history through publishing houses that are once again managing to generate interest in exclusionary and highly supremacist narratives, which seek to single out migrant communities and stir up fears that natives are being supplanted, the theory of replacement, and the Islamization of Europe. They exploit Al-Andalus for their own benefit and portray the history of Spain as a ceaseless struggle by the Spanish people against Islam, in which they succeeded in establishing their own state—a state that must now be defended once again against the Muslims.

I also read the following: “Ccelebrate Alfonso X without acknowledging Abdramán II”.

We have two kings who were born in Toledo: one who is celebrated and remembered to the hilt, Alfonso X, and another who doesn’t count. In Toledo, there is nothing to commemorate Abd al-Rahman II, the only emir of Al-Andalus to have been born here. Alfonso X is idolized for the whole concept of the School of Translators, but we tend to forget that the School of Translators is nothing more than the process of translating an entire Islamized culture from Arabic into Castilian and Latin. Alfonso X ultimately emerges as one of the most successful chapters in the history of Spanish science and scholarship, but this is incomprehensible unless we consider how it developed, took hold, and became deeply rooted in this region solely and exclusively because of the Al-Andalus era.

The only time that what we call Spain was part of international scientific debates was during the Al-Andalus period. The only time Toledo was at the forefront of global scientific development was in the 11th century, when it was governed and inhabited primarily by Muslims. Alfonso X conquered a territory that already had astronomical observatories, libraries, and botanical gardens, which then came under the control of the new Castilian rulers. That translation work is a success, but we often forget that it is little more than that: a translation effort, rather than scientific, cultural, linguistic, philosophical, and musical development, as had been achieved in the previous centuries of Al-Andalus.

Who wants to erase Al-Andalus from Spanish history?

It’s not that they want to delete it because there’s a deliberate motive. The most conservative historiographical views of our history describe Al-Andalus as a parenthesis. And that national sentiment originated with the Visigoths and was cut short across most of the peninsula with the advent of Al-Andalus, but survived in the north, embraced by a few brave souls who would go on to conquer territory. In academic circles, almost no one talks about an “Islamic invasion,” just as no one talks about a “Christian invasion” when referring to Hernán Cortés’s conquest of Mexico. And it was exactly the same. That said, the idealization of Al-Andalus is just as dangerous as its denial.

Toledo, the city of three cultures. Myth or reality?

Myth. Culture is one thing, and religion is another. It’s one thing to be Arab and another to be Muslim. We have coined this term, which works very well in the context of tourism, and since the 20th century, because of that monolithic identity, we have equated culture with religion. And we take it back in time. And we believe that each of the three religions had distinct cultures and lived in separate neighborhoods of Toledo, often at odds with one another. And it’s a fallacy with not a single document to back it up.

Al-Andalus is a vast melting pot of cultures. Toledo: A City of Three Religions? Yes. Without a doubt. Are the “Three Cultures” a naive and simplistic concept that refers to a period of total and absolute understanding? No, of course not. Never in history. Not now, either. In Al-Andalus, a period of coexistence emerged thanks to laws that, for the first time, not only served to curb the anti-Jewish attacks that had been taking place under the Visigoths but also promoted a society with a relative legal balance among religions. And they allowed many Christians to continue living in al-Andalus and enabled Jewish communities to thrive, progress, and grow thanks to the protection they were given.

So which Spain was founded in 1492?

That idealized view that Spain was founded in 1492 is highly relative. What does emerge, then—and this is something all the kingdoms will share equally—is a politically homogeneous territory based on the Catholic faith, in which there is no room for diversity. Incidents of violence against Jewish minorities occurred throughout Europe, but no other country went so far as to ban the Jewish and Muslim presence in Spain.

And why, 500 years later, have the Sephardim been recognized but not the Moriscos?

First of all, because many of them preserved their traditions even as they became part of other territories. Since they are a minority here as well as in Bulgaria, Morocco, and Turkey, they have maintained a stronger sense of identity than the Morisco communities, which, being Muslim, have tended to assimilate, particularly in Morocco and Algeria.

There may be a cultural aspect to it that I understand, but fundamentally, what has been done with this law recognizing Sephardic Jews is a political strategy devised by an openly Zionist figure, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón. Why isn’t this done with the Moriscos? There is a significant element of institutional racism aimed at denying citizenship to the Moroccan and Algerian populations.

Which is more false: the “black legend” or the “pink legend”?

They are the two legs of the same beast. The “black legend” is a narrative that has been carefully cultivated over centuries and still persists today, while the “pink legend” is of much more recent origin, yet it is just as unfounded as the “black legend” was in the 17th century. Today, we have reliable sources and serious studies that help us understand that the Spanish Empire is like any other empire and any other colonial enterprise: something that systematically thrives on violence and fights to conquer territories in order to monopolize resources. There is no empire that seeks anything different.

How much of Toledo’s fake history needs to be swept away?

I think it’s the city with the most legends, along with Seville. And that’s significant. We call made-up stories “legends.” When there are parts of history we don’t like, legends often emerge. A city with many legends is a city with many unresolved episodes in its history. “The Oldest of All” takes us to the Casa de las Cadenas and the arrival of Islam in Toledo. Or “Jornada del Foso,” which gave rise to the expression ” pasar una noche toledana.”

Are Sephardic Jewsis still still the keys to their homes?

That is a carefully crafted fabrication that, curiously enough, most Sephardic Jews are not even aware of. It is an invention that originated in Spain so that many Spaniards in the 20th century—and now in the 21st—can come to terms with their own past and with the idea of expulsion. It creates a sentimental narrative through documentaries, songs, or tourism projects, but it is completely false. There’s nothing. This is yet another of the many instances in which Jewish memory has appropriated Muslim memory, because the accounts that do exist—tales of expelled Nasrids or Moriscos who settled in Morocco and claim to possess the key to their home—are found among the Morisco communities of the 19th century and the Spanish Protectorate. That’s right. But it’s simple: if someone were to bring the key at some point, material analyses could be conducted.

Art Uudéjar is the victory of the vanquished?

Mudejar art is the victory of the victors. In the 19th century, many of our historians used history to foster a sense of national identity. They invented it by claiming that it was the only art form unique to the Spanish, as opposed to other medieval art forms. When Amador de los Ríos raised the issue, many of his contemporaries told him they didn’t believe him. From that point on, the idea began to take shape that any aesthetic expression with an Arab appearance from the 12th to the 15th centuries should be called “Mudejar” in order to distinguish it from other European artistic movements.

It was especially during the Franco regime that the idea of “our own art” was most heavily exploited. Amador de los Ríos discusses the subjugated Mudejars who created art for wealthy Christians. But he neither explains nor defines it. And that idea is completely false. Today, we know from an academic standpoint that there weren’t nearly enough Mudejar artisans, master builders, and construction workers to build everything attributed to them. The idea has a very dangerous racial or ethnic component.

The Mosque of Córdoba is the only monument where official tour guides who are not accredited by the Cathedral Chapter are barred from entering.

It seems like a mistake to me, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the speech; rather, it has to do with the tourism industry. But this isn’t something that only the Córdoba City Council does. In the Archdiocese of Toledo, those of us who want to give tours of its monuments—myself included—have had to pay a fee of a little over 200 euros to receive specific training on what we are and aren’t allowed to say about the monument. It’s true that there was no exam in Toledo. This form of control over discourse is linked to an institution that believes academic history no longer serves to foster a sense of belonging. At times, this legacy has been interpreted within the framework of extremely dangerous and false hegemonic narratives. The more open-minded they are and the more guides they allow to join, the better. Interestingly, to work as a tour guide—whether discussing history or art—no region requires you to be a historian. I wouldn’t mind if the law required that anyone tasked with explaining Spain’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage have, at the very least, a background in history and art.

Will mass tourism kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?

He’s already doing it. And countries like ours don’t realize how easy it is to lose the reputation they’ve worked so hard to build over the years. And it’s being lost because there’s already too much uncontrolled tourism, and that leads to resistance. We began talking about sustainable, eco-friendly, or slow tourism. If this topic is being discussed, it is because—without actually naming it—people are pointing out that there is a form of tourism that is unsustainable, mass-scale, consumerist, and destructive.

There is a form of tourism that creates precarious jobs, destroys traditional crafts, and replaces them with souvenirs and fast food. It generates endless amounts of waste and drives residents out of historic districts. Tourism has ended up swallowing up culture. And it’s destroying cities that are waiting too long to set limits. City councils and institutions need to accept that not everything goes.

Aristoteles Moreno