A millennium after the Umayyad Caliphate, scholars continue to debate one of the central myths of Al Andalus: what is true about the paradigm of the coexistence of the three monotheistic religions? There is an incontrovertible reality: Jews and Christians lived protected by the status of the dimma. And what was dimma? A legal framework that guaranteed certain rights of those whom Islam recognized as ahl al kitab or people of the book. That is, the believers of the three Abrahamic confessions.

This legal status that protected the dimmíes, however, was not exclusive to Al Andalus. Jews and Christians already received this specific coverage in all the lands of Islam. However, did the minorities live on an equal footing with Muslims? Are we talking about living-together or coexistence? To begin with, Christians and Jews paid a special tax. All experts agree. It is, therefore, a complex status with lights and shadows that should be examined.

María Jesús Viguera, a long-time Arabist, has addressed the issue in numerous research articles. “The Islamic State allowed the natives to keep their faith if they belonged to one of the religions with a holy book, such as the Bible,” he wrote as early as 1998 about the situation of minorities in Al Andalus. Jews and Christians were able to keep their religion, as well as their internal juridical and administrative organization, although “subordinated” to the Muslim power.

Viguera recalls that Al Andalus experienced a process of growing Islamization and Arabization, which was sponsored by the Islamic power. The ethnic and religious differences of the population were gradually diluted until they were united in an “Andalusian entity”. In that research work, the Arabist gave reliability to Richard W. Bulliet‘s hypothesis, which established a 10% Muslim quota for the 8th century; 20% for the 9th century; 50% for the 10th century; 80% for the 11th century; and over 90% by the end of the 12th century.

In her opinion, the Al Andalus of the three religions really was during its first four centuries. Then, the Muslim community occupied a hegemonic position and the minorities were pushed into a corner. “In the 11th century, a close and positive coexistence can still be seen reflected in the legal rulings or fetuas,” assures Viguera.

The Arabist Serafín Fanjul, author of a controversial book on the role of the Andalusian period in the history of Spain, downgrades the value of the dimma as a legal clause. “It was a statute of relationship with minorities, but not of protection. Nor of persecution,” he says. And he cites two serious restrictions on the Christian community: they could neither rebuild churches nor ring bells, according to Fanjul.

The also member of the Royal Academy of History assures that the Andalusian society was “closing in on itself” as the Christians from the north increased their territorial pressure. The Mozarabs, in his opinion, were encountering more and more difficulties and were subjected to a “harsh” situation. “Many migrated north to escape cultural and economic pressure,” he adds.

Maribel Fierro, one of the greatest specialists of the Andalusian period, affirms that there is a “historical foundation” to prove the “coexistence” of the three religious communities in Al Andalus. The Arabist distinguishes this semantic concept from the more commonly used concept of “living together”. Because, in her opinion, living-together already “poses other problems”.

For Fierro, it is “indisputable” that in Al Andalus there was a legal framework that gave legal personality to minorities. She is referring to the dimma. This legal umbrella guaranteed minimum rights for Jews and Christians “but not in equality,” the researcher remarks. Coexistence allowed for “mutual fertilization between religions”, thanks also to the fact that they shared the same language.

The medievalist Alejandro García Sanjuán holds positions similar to those of Fierro. Religious minorities enjoyed legal coverage that allowed them to maintain their religious identity, preserve their beliefs, maintain their places of worship and receive protection from the state, but “not on equal rights”.

Christians and Jews, for example, could trade wine but not sell it to Muslims, García Sanjuán points out. They did not have a qranic obligation to participate in the jihad in defense of Islam, which was mandatory for Muslims, and they could not occupy a public space to pray. In some contexts, adds the professor from the University of Huelva, they faced obstacles to building new temples.

The differences between the communities also affected family law . A Muslim could marry a Christian but not the other way around. And a Jewish woman preferred to submit to a Muslim judge if she wanted to initiate divorce proceedings because it tended to have more legal advantages. The tax burden on Jews and Christians pushed them to convert or emigrate, especially to the Christian north.

In any case, Maribel Fierro points out, religious minorities were subjected to an “infinitely greater” risk of persecution in the Christian area than in Al Andalus. Islam offered institutionalized protection mechanisms that, while not establishing equal status, did guarantee them security and religious freedom. “Under Islam they had more protection,” she stresses.

Faced with the advance of the Christian kingdoms over Andalusian territory, Muslims and Jews were incorporated as minorities. Everything changed drastically after the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. The new regime set out to laminate religious plurality and expelled the Jews from the peninsula as a first measure. Shortly thereafter, it forced the conversion of the Muslims to Christianity, who adopted the denomination of Moriscos until their definitive deportation at the beginning of the 17th century.

Serafín Fanjul explains the forced exile of the Jews in the general context of Europe. “It was not Spain who first decided to expel them. It had already been done before in France, Germany and England.” The decision of the Catholic Monarchs, in his view, was aimed at the “establishment of absolutism and the homogenization of the country”. It also justifies the subsequent expulsion of the Moriscos for their “attitude of resistance” and turning a deaf ear to the “call for integration”.

More than half a century after the extinction of Al Andalus, the controversy over the framework of interreligious coexistence is still alive. True or not, the myth of the three cultures continues to offer a paradigm of universal dialogue in a world fraught with tensions. Barak Obama himself used it in a historic speech delivered at El Cario University shortly after sitting in the White House presidential chair. It was June 4, 2009 and the Middle East was barely emerging from one of its darkest and most violent episodes in recent decades.

Obama wanted to heal the lacerating wounds that pitted the West against the Arab world in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war. “Islam has a long tradition of tolerance,” he told an expectant audience. “We see it in the history of Al Andalus and Cordoba.” Whether true or debatable, the paradigm of coexistence offers a universal reference that reminds us that it is possible to live together.