So recently one of my friends on
twitter sent me a link to a Reddit conversation in which some user called OmarAdelX
attacked a video I made for Real Crusades History. However, when I took a look
at the link, and the video that OmarAdelX was referencing, I found that OmarAdelX
was in fact taking issue with parts of the video where I was reading directly
from Joseph O’Callaghan, one of the foremost historians of medieval Spain. So
this OmarAdelX wasn’t attacking my ideas, he was attacking Joseph O’Callaghan’s.
This is what you call not doing your homework, folks.
The video that OmarAdelX claims
he’s going to debunk is “Visigothic Brilliance: Pre-Islamic Spain's Thriving
Intellectual Life”. This is a video in which I discuss the fact that Visigothic
Spain had a fairly impressive high culture:
OmarAdelX starts his post
discussing my video with the following:
“The first 6 minutes were kind of
ok , though he is using the what-the-media-is-hiding-from-you conspiracy tone.
the Visigoths did have a thriving culture and they contributed many things to
modern world like family law, property law and gothic manuscript and the famed
gothic art, some good poetry too, though not as bright in philosophy and
astronomy and natural sciences”
I wasn’t at all using a
“conspiratorial” tone in the video, I just pointed out that not a lot of people
are aware of the fact that the Visigoths had a high level of culture. Not
surprising that OmarAdelX is attacking something he perceives in my tone, not
anything that’s actually in the video.
But let’s continue, because here is
where it gets really good.
OmarAdelX continues with this:
“here where comes the real shit. In
6:30 he start to talk about how the later post Visigothic period was long and
bleak that interrupted the civilization, ugh well, surprise surprise, it
wasn't.”
Once again, OmarAdelX doesn’t
actually quote anything I say in the video, he just gives his impression. The
only words I actually use in my video that he references are “long” and
“bleak”. OmarAdelX takes issue with my use of these terms.
There’s just one problem. When I
used those terms, I was reading them: specifically, I was reading them from a
book written by one of the foremost scholars of medieval Spain, Joseph
O’Callaghan. The book is called A History of Medieval Spain, published by
Cornell University. Here is the exact passage I was reading in that video as
O’Callaghan wrote it:
"Within twenty years of
Julian's death the Muslim conquest destroyed the Visigothic kingdom and
interrupted the scholarly tradition to which St Isidore had given such impetus.
In the long, bleak centuries ahead, however, the Christian people still drew
inspiration from that group of scholars whose work had enlightened the Visigothic
age."
-Joseph F. O'Callaghan - A History
of Medieval Spain. Cornell University, 1975. p. 88.
I would like to point out that I stated
specifically in my video that I was about to read a passage from Joseph
O’Callaghan. OmarAdelX should have picked up on that, especially if he’s
claiming to debunk my video. Normally, one wants to pay attention to the actual
content of a video one is attempting to debunk.
At any rate, if OmarAdelX has a
problem with Joseph O’Callaghan’s use of the terms “long” and “bleak”, I’ll let
him take it up with O’Callaghan. Personally, I have a lot of respect for
O’Callaghan as a scholar, and I have no problem making use of his words when
I’m making a video.
Hopefully, though, I can help set OmarAdelX’s
mind at ease. O’Callaghan isn’t saying that the entire history of Islamic Spain
was some bleak, uncultured wasteland, he’s describing the feelings of
Christians living under Islamic rule in Spain. These were long, difficult
centuries of living under a foreign power, which had a bleak feeling to them if
you were a Christian drawing inspiration from the old days when Christians
ruled Spain. Similarly, once the Christians re-captured areas of Spain heavily
inhabited by Muslims, I’d imagine the centuries ahead might have seemed “long”
and “bleak” to those Muslims. O’Callaghan is talking about the feelings of a
conquered populace here, not the achievements of a conquering power.
O’Callaghan
describes many of the grand achievements of Islamic Spain in this same book
from which I read. And in this video that OmarAdelX is attacking, I point out
several times that Islamic Spain achieved a high level of culture and learning.
So OmarAdelX is attacking something he perceives in my video (and in
O’Callaghan’s writing) that isn’t there to begin with.
But OmarAdelX
isn’t done yet. His post continues:
“then he tries to mend it all with
yet more miserable attempt to paint the people of North Africa as barbarians,
forgetting the fact that this entire area was roman territory too, and had produced
similar amount of philosophers, theologians, historians whom contributed as
much as the Visigoths some of them were even Christians (though regarded as
heretics), ever heard of St. Augustine dude? He was North African, ever heard
of priscian? or Arius? He was North African too, Pope Gelasius? Donatus magnus?
so they weren't illiterate barbarians you punk”
Once again, OmarAdelX doesn’t
actually address anything specific I say in my video. Indeed, nowhere in my
video do I try to portray the “people of North Africa as barbarians”. But it
does seem to be the term “barbarian” that bothers OmarAdelX, and I do use that
term in this video. But once again, when I use that term, I’m reading from Joseph
O’Callaghan, and yes, O’Callaghan is talking about the Arabs and North African
Berbers who conquered Spain in the early 8th century. Here is the
quote from O’Callaghan’s book:
"The first Muslims to enter
Spain, however, were rude barbarians from the deserts of Arabia and the
mountains of Morocco whose contact with Greco-Roman civilization was still
minimal. During the first century and a half of their domination in al-Andalus,
civil wars and rebellions, the illiteracy of the masses, and the stringent
thought-control of the Malachite jurists did not provide a suitable environment
for the flowering of literature and learning."
-Joseph F. O'Callaghan, A History
of Medieval Spain. Cornell University, 1975. p. 158.
OmarAdelX seems to be confused
about the people who actually conquered Spain in the 8th century. It
wasn’t North African Romans. It wasn’t Saint Augustine. It was Berber tribesmen
and some of the earliest Muslim Arabs. As O’Callaghan points out, the first
Muslims to take control of Spain were not a highly literate people with a high
level of culture. They were rather rugged types – or, as O’Callaghan calls them
“rude barbarians”. Islamic Spain’s high culture developed later.
So OmarAdelX is just plain wrong if he
believes the first Muslims who took Spain were highly literate and cultured. They
weren’t. They weren’t Roman philosophers and theologians, as OmarAdelX appears
to believe, they were, as O’Callaghan puts it: “rude barbarians from the
deserts of Arabia and the mountains of Morocco whose contact with Greco-Roman
civilization was still minimal.”
OmarAdelX ends his little failed
attempt at a debunk with this:
“In the end of the Video he cited a
book and suggested the viewers to read in it, while in fact I doubt he even
read it.”
That book I recommend at the end of
my video is in fact Joseph O’Callaghan’s A History of Medieval Spain, which I
have in fact read, many times. But clearly, OmarAdelX hasn’t read it. I doubt OmarAdelX
even knows who Joseph O’Callaghan is.
Well done and well said.
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