Student Name
Prof. Wadas
History 030
11/2/09
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and
Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval
Spain
The Ornament of the World focuses on tolerance in Medieval
Spain within the Muslim and Christian kingdoms through political
examples as well as cultural examples. It tells the story of how
these events affected the course of European history and
civilization. The Ornament of the World explores the point of the
history of Arabic-speaking people where the story divulges taken
by the Abbasids. It is a story about how one young man by the
name of Abd al-Rahman abandoned his home in Damascus in search of
refuge. Damascus had become an unsafe territory to live in for
his family, the Umayyads. The Umayyads were killed off by
Abbasids who took control of the Islam Empire. The massacre of
the Umayyads occurred in 750 BCE and al-Rahman reemerged five
years later in 755. When he reappeared, he realized that kinsmen
from his mother's tribe had also emigrated from there and had
mostly been converted to Islam. Abd reemerged in a province that
