Three things I have learned so far reading Richard Fletcher's Moorish Spain:
1. The "Arab" conquest of Spain was mostly accomplished by Berbers.
2. Transportation in the ancient world between Morocco and Southern Spain was easier than within Spain, thus facilitating the conquest.
3. There was a significant population of Jews in Spain in the eighth century who were badly treated by the Visigothic regime that had succeeded the Roman Empire and who most likely welcomed the comparatively more tolerant Muslims.
I write to inform you about a new essay contest launched by the American Islamic Congress on civil rights in the Middle East. Anyone under the age of 26 can enter, and finalists can win up to $2,000 in cash prizes.
The "Dream Deferred Essay Contest" (see http://www.hamsaweb.org )challenges young Americans and young Middle Easterners to express constructive ideas for individual rights in the world's least-free region.
Judges for the essay contest include Gloria Steinem (founder of Ms. Magazine), the Cato Institute's Tom Palmer, Azar Nafisi (author of Reading Lolita in Tehran), as well as noted Middle Eastern bloggers Ammar Abdulhamid of Syria and Mahmoud Al-Yousif from Bahrain.
We are hoping to awaken young people to the reform efforts of indigenous Middle Eastern progressives and to engage them in this discussion. Several hundred Americans have already submitted essays, but we would like to reach out to students on campus so you can enter before our deadline, on March 31st, 2006.
We encourage you to submit an essay and, if possible, write about the contest in your blog so that as many people can know about this opportunity as possible.
Please feel free contact me at roheet@aicongress.org with any questions or concerns, and thank you in advance.
--Roheet Shah
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Program Officer Intern
HAMSA: Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance
http://www.hamsaweb.org
(a project of the American Islamic Congress)
Tarek ibn ziad �tait � moiti� arabe � moiti� b�rb�re. Quant aux juifs, l'islam a tjr �t� tol�rant � leur �gard. L'intol�rance vient de homme non pas de ces convictions.