|
|
|
A Vanished World
Written by Chris Lowney
336 pages
Published by Simon & Schuster
Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it
George Santayana
“[Suspects]...had no right to know the identities of
accusers, the accused were not represented by counsel: under certain
circumstances, torture could be used to extract confessions...”
Lowney, regarding the Spanish Inquisition,
A Vanished World
A Vanished World
is a book that demonstrates why the study of history is
so important and why we must take stock of its lessons.
A Vanished World
examines Medieval Spain during a time when Christians, Jews, and Muslims
coexisted. At times, this coexistence came so close to getting it right,
creating a time and place where society flowered to a golden era of true
enlightenment. Jews, Christians, and Muslims, all followers of one God,
learnt from one another and worked together, often in a true harmony.
This was a time when many in Medieval Spain dared question whether it
was possible to journey to God by many roads and acknowledged that faith
does not mean setting aside reason. It is no wonder a Muslim mystic
wrote:
My heart has
become capable of every form:
it is a pasture
for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for
idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
and
the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I
follow the religion of Love.
With the quest for knowledge and understanding providing the key, the
three faiths of this Medieval World interwove a society that still
shines a light for us in our darkening world rent by widening divisions.
Lowney's chapter on the Spanish Inquisition is especially pertinent to
what's happening in Australia, my own country, and I feel, necessary
reading and warning for anyone currently in politics. I can imagine the
Australian Prime Minister John Howard one day regretting, like Pope
Sixtus IV regarding the Spanish Inquisition, that he ever pushed for his
so called terror laws. For Pope Sixtus IV, the Spanish Inquisition
became a monster that “moved not by seal for the faith and salvation of
souls, but by lust for wealth...many true and faithful Christians...have
without legitimate proof been thrust into secular prisons, torture and
condemned...”
A Vanished World
reminds us that all the “Abrahamic faiths” honour the creed “love our
neighbours as ourselves” and to do any other than that is to go against
the teachings of the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran.
The world lives in a climate of fear, but history, as Lowney illustrates
in his book, has known many such moments, when other societies also
tottered on the brink of destruction. Such times left unhealed wounds
difficult to forget or forgive, yet history also shows, over and over,
our mutual capability of moving beyond such times to build bridges of
peace. For our present world, the past hints at a possible blue print to
span these bridges again.
Obviously passionate about this subject and a consummate writer and
storyteller, Lowney offers here a book of great insight and power.
A
Vanished World
shows that even if the Pandora's
box is open before us hope always remains.
Books |
