Spain, with a nominal GDP of about $1.427 trillion and a population of 47 million, is a major industrialized democracy, so that this achievement is highly significant for what it tells us about the future.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Workers’ Party has been a booster of green energy. The Spanish right wing had actually put punitive taxes on people with solar panels at the behest of Big Carbon, but Sánchez’s government repealed them. Since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the consequent spike in fossil gas prices, Spaniards have been rushing to put solar panels on their roofs, now helped by EU subsidies and by a plummeting in the cost of the systems.

Spain now has one of Europe’s largest solar plants.

In 2022, the country put in 4.28 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, 2.64 gigs of distributed PV, and 1.38 gigs of wind power. That is nearly 7 gigawatts of new solar in one year, and the country is not slowing down.

Spain’s total power capacity is 118 gigawatts, with wind making up 29 gigawatts or 22% of the whole. Wind is the biggest installed source of electricity now in Spain. Solar only provides about 10% of electricity, but has enormous potential for growth.

In April, though, solar supplied 22% of Spain’s electricity, and solar and wind together made up 46 percent of electricity production. It has been especially hot and sunny in Spain this spring, which has created water shortages and problems for farmers. Hydroelectric generation is way down. But solar is doing great business.

Spain has lots more wind and solar in the pipeline. By 2026 the country expects to have 10-15 more gigawatts of solar, and 5 new gigawatts of wind capacity. Although the country is planning to phase out its nuclear plants, which currently supply over a fifth of its electricity, by 2030, Spanish scientists are confident that wind, solar, hydro and battery can take up that slack and more.

He was, however, also dogged by questions about Ukraine and Russia.

He replied, “There is no doubt that we condemn Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s rights with the invasion, but it is of no use to say who is right or wrong. The war must be stopped.”

Resumenlatinoamericano reports that he complained that the current international mechanisms for peacemaking are broken. He said, “We live in a world where the UN Security Council, the permanent members, all of them are the world’s biggest arms producers, they’re the world’s biggest arms sellers and they’re the world’s biggest war participants.”

He pointed to the invasion of Iraq by the US without a UN Security Council resolution as an example of lawlessness by members of the UNSC. MEMO quotes him as saying, “”When the United States invaded Iraq, there was no discussion in the Security Council. When France and England invaded Libya and when Russia invaded Ukraine, there was no discussion either.”

He added,

“Why aren’t Brazil, Spain, Japan, Germany, India, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa [permanent members]? Those who currently make decisions are the winners of the Second War, but the world has changed. We need to build a new international mechanism that does something different. I think it is time that we start to change things and it is time that we make a G20 of Peace, which should be the UN”.

Lula has spoken before about his notion of a G20 of Peace, countries with the weight in world affairs to mediate peace agreements but which had the respect of both sides in major conflicts. These would include Indonesia, India, China and some Latin American countries.

He complained that the UN is no longer intervening effectively to resolve longstanding disputes.

“The UN was so strong that, in 1948, it managed to create the State of Israel. In 2023, it fails to create a Palestinian state.”

Lula was presumably referring to the 1947 United Nations General Assembly resolution proposing a partition of British Mandate Palestinian into a Jewish and a Palestinian state. This resolution did not actually create Israel, though it gave the idea international legitimacy and supporters of Israel have often cited it for that legitimacy.

In fact, the UNGA is a deliberative body and had no authority to partition Palestine, which the 1939 British White Paper had promised to the Palestinians for a state of their own.

Pro-Israel propagandists often say that the Jewish community in Palestine accepted the UN partition plan whereas “the Arabs” did not.

This allegation assumes that it was virtuous to accord the UN General Assembly an authority it did not have. It is also incorrect, since the Jews in British Mandate Palestine fought hard in 1948 to subvert the borders proposed by the UNGA, much expanding the territory claimed for the new state of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, over half of whom were ethnically cleansed. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, noted in his diary in May 1948 when Israel came into existence that it had no fixed borders, just as the US had not. He clearly envisaged a big expansion. Ben Gurion later launched the 1956 war on Egypt in a bid to seize Egyptian lands for himself. So nothing in the historical record would make a dispassionate observer conclude that the Israelis accepted the UNGA partition plan, despite its vast generosity to them far beyond what their land ownership (6%) or population (1/3) would have warranted.

As for the Palestinians, they never got their state, in large part because Israel illegally seized Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 and have squelched Palestinian aspirations ever since, while sending in hundreds of thousands of Israeli squatters to steal Palestinian privately-held land and build Jewish-only housing on it.

Lula is correct, however, that the United Nations has not played the sort of role in midwifing a Palestinian state in 2023 that its founders would have wanted for it. That is because the United States systematically vetoes any UN Security Council resolution that would advance the cause of Palestinian statehood.

That obstreperousness was what Lula was complaining about. He was saying that the Security Council can’t make peace in the world because the five permanent members are themselves serial aggressors and they are not honest brokers in the major conflicts the world faces.

His point is a smart one, that the architecture of international peacemaking envisaged by the framers of the UN in San Francisco in 1945 has proven inadequate to the task or been subverted by the warmongering of the five permanent members. Whether his proposed fix has any life in it remains to be seen.

Granada, in southern Spain’s Andalusia region, was the final remnant of Islamic Iberia known as al-Andalus – a territory that once stretched across most of Spain and Portugal. In 1492, the city fell to the Catholic conquest.

In the aftermath, native Andalusians, who were Muslims, were permitted to continue practising their religion. But after a decade of increasingly hostile religious policing from the new Catholic regime, practising Islamic traditions and rituals was outlawed. Recent archaeological excavations in Granada, however, have uncovered evidence of Muslim food practices continuing in secret for decades after the conquest.

The term “Morisco”, which means “little moor”, was used to refer to native Muslims who were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1502, following an edict issued by the Crown of Castile. Similar decrees were issued in the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon in the following decades, which provoked armed uprisings.

As a result, between 1609 and 1614, the Moriscos were expelled from the various kingdoms of Spain. Muslims had already been expelled from Portugal by the end of the 15th century. So this brought to an end more than eight centuries of Islamic culture in Iberia.

For many, the conquest of Granada is symbolised by the Alhambra. This hilltop fortress, once the palatial residence of the Islamic Nasrid rulers, became a royal court under the new Catholic regime. Today it is the most visited historical monument in Spain and the best-preserved example of medieval Islamic architecture in the world. Now, archaeology provides us with new opportunities to glimpse the conquest’s impact on local Andalusi communities, far beyond the Alhambra’s walls.

Uncovering historical remains in Cartuja

Excavations ahead of development on the University of Granada’s campus in Cartuja, a hill on the outskirts of the modern city, uncovered traces of human activity dating back as far as the Neolithic period (3400-3000 BC).

Between the 13th to 15th centuries AD, the heyday of Islamic Granada, numerous cármenes (small houses with gardens and orchards) and almunias (small palaces belonging to the Nasrid elite) were built on this hill. Then, in the decades following the Catholic conquest, a Carthusian monastery was built here and the surroundings were completely transformed, with many earlier buildings demolished.

Archaeologists uncovered a well attached to a house and agricultural plot. The well was used as a rubbish dump for the disposal of unwanted construction materials. Other waste was also found, including a unique collection of animal bones dating to the second quarter of the 16th century.

Archaeological traces of culinary practices

Discarded waste from food preparation and consumption in archaeological deposits – mostly animal bone fragments as well as plant remains and ceramic tableware – provide an invaluable record of the culinary practices of past households. Animal bones, in particular, can sometimes be connected with specific diets adhered to by different religious communities.

The majority of bones in the well in Cartuja derived from sheep, with a small number from cattle. The older age of the animals, mostly castrated males, and the presence of meat-rich parts indicates they were cuts prepared by professional butchers and procured from a market, rather than reared locally by the household.

The ceramics found alongside the bones reflected Andalusi dining practices, which involved a group of people sharing food from large bowls called ataifores. The presence of these bowls rapidly decreased in Granada in the early 16th century. Smaller vessels, reflecting the more individualistic approach to dining preferred by Catholic households, replaced the ataifores. So the combination of large bowls, sheep bones paired and the absence of pig (pork would have been avoided by Muslims) points to a Morisco household.

Politicising and policing dining

The Catholic regime disapproved of these communal dining practices, which were associated with Andalusi Muslim identity, and eventually banned them. The consumption of pork became the most famous expression of policing dining habits by the Holy Office, more popularly known as the Inquisition. Echoes of this dining revolution can be seen today in the role of pork in Spanish cuisine, including in globally exported cured meats such as chorizo and jamón.

Previously focusing on those suspected of clinging to Jewish practices (forbidden in 1492), in the second half of the 16th century, the Inquisition increasingly turned its attention to Moriscos suspected of practising Islam in secret, which included avoiding pork. In the eyes of the law, these Muslims were officially Catholic so were seen as heretics if they continued to adhere to their earlier faith. Moreover, since religious and political allegiance became equated, they were also regarded as enemies of the state.

The discarded waste from Cartuja, the first such archaeological example from a Morisco household, demonstrates how some Andalusi families clung to their traditional dining culture as their world was transformed, at least for a few decades.

Aleks Pluskowski, Associate Professor in Medieval Archaeology, University of Reading; Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz, Profesor de Arqueología Medieval y Posmedieval, Universidad de Granada, and Marcos García García, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( Tomdispatch.com) – When Jennifer López shouted out that last line of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish during Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony, like so many Spanish-speaking Latinos in the United States I felt a sense of pride, a sense of arrival. It was a joy to hear my native language given a prominent place at a moment when the need to pursue the promise of “liberty and justice for all” couldn’t be more pressing.

A sense of arrival, I say, and yet Spanish arrived on these shores more than a century before English. In that language, the first Europeans explorers described what they called “el Nuevo Mundo,” the New World — new for them, even if not for the indigenous peoples who had inhabited those lands for millennia, only to be despoiled by the invaders from abroad. The conquistadors lost no time in claiming their territories as possessions of the Spanish crown and, simultaneously, began naming them.

Much as we may now deplore those colonial depredations, we still regularly use the words they left behind without considering their origins. Florida, which derives from flor, flower in Spanish, because Ponce de León first alighted in Tampa Bay on an Easter Sunday (Pascua Florida) in 1513. And then there is Santa Fe (Holy Faith) and Los Angeles (the Angels), founded in 1610 and 1782 respectively, and so many other names that we now take for granted: Montana (from montañas), Nevada (from nieve, or snow), Agua Dulce, El Paso, and Colorado, to name just a few. And my favorite place name of all, California, which comes from a legendary island featured in one of the books of chivalry that drove Don Quixote, the character created by Miguel de Cervantes, mad and set him on the road to seek justice for all.

It was not justice, not justicia para todos, however, that the millions who kept Spanish alive over the centuries were to encounter in the United States. On the contrary, what started here as an imperial language ended up vilified and marginalized as vast swaths of the lands inhabited by Spanish speakers came under the sway of Washington. As Greg Grandin has documented in his seminal book, The End of a Myth, the expansion of the United States, mainly into a West and a Southwest once governed by Mexico, led to unremitting discrimination and atrocities.

It was in Spanish that the victims experienced those crimes: the girls and women who were raped, the men who were lynched by vigilantes, the families that were separated, the workers who were deported, the children who were forbidden to speak their native tongue, the millions discriminated against, mocked, and despised, all suffering such abuses in Spanish, while holding onto the language tenaciously, and passing it on to new generations, constantly renewed by migrants from Latin America.

Through it all, the language evolved with the people who used it to love and remember, fight and dream. In the process, they created a rich literature and a vibrant tradition of perseverance and struggle. As a result, from that suppressed dimension of American history and resistance, Spanish is today able to offer up words that can help us survive this time of pandemic.

That’s what I’ve discovered as I navigated the many pestilences ravaging our lives in the last year: the Spanish I’ve carried with me since my birth has lessons of hope and inspiration, even for my fellow citizens who are not among the 53 million who speak it.

Words of Aliento for Our Current Struggle

Aliento tops the list of Spanish words that have recently mattered most to me. It means breath, but also encouragement. Alentar is to give someone the chance to breathe, to hearten them. (Think, in English, of the word encourage, which comes from the same root as corazón, heart, in Spanish.)

It’s worth remembering this connection today, when so many are dying because they lack breath and not even a ventilator can save them. Because they don’t have aliento, their heart stops. Perhaps they can’t breathe because others didn’t have the courage, el coraje, to help them survive, didn’t rage against the conditions that allowed them to die unnecessarily. Recall as well that so many of us in this country felt suffocated in another sense, breathless with the fear that we wouldn’t survive as a republic, not as a democracy, however imperfect it might have been.

Maybe that’s why, last year, so many Americans felt represented by the next to last words of George Floyd, repeated more than 20 times before he died: “I can’t breathe.” If he had cried out those words in Spanish, he would not have gasped, “No tengo aliento,” though that would have been true. He would undoubtedly have said: “No puedo respirar.”

Respirar. English speakers use the verb “to breathe,” but can certainly appreciate the various echoes respirar has in English, since it’s derived from the same word in Latin, “spirare,” that has bequeathed us spirit, inspire, and aspire. When we inhale and exhale in Spanish, I like to think that we’re simultaneously in communion with the sort of spirit that keeps us alive when the going is rough.

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In normal times, the sharing of air is a reminder that we’re all brothers and sisters, part of the same humanity, invariably inhaling and exhaling one another, letting so many others into our lungs and vice versa. But these times are far from normal and the air sent our way by strangers or even loved ones can be toxic, can lead to us expiring. So rather than respirar together in 2021, we need to inspirar each other, to aspirar together for something better. We need to band together in aconspiracy of hope so that every one of us on the planet will be granted the right to breathe, so that good things can transpire.

As so many of the initial measures of the Biden-Harris presidency suggest, to begin to undo the venomous divisiveness of the Trump era, we all need to tomar aliento or breathe in new ways to survive. We need to have more vida juntos or life with one another in order to go beyond the masked solitude of this moment, este momento de soledad.

Here Comes the Sun, But Let It Be for All

As soledad originates from that same word, solitude, it undoubtedly will sound familiar to English speakers. But the Spanish syllables of soledad radiate with the word sol, the sun, that antidote to loneliness and separation, which rises for all or will rise for none, which warms us all or fries us all or heals us all. And soledad also contains the suffix dad (from the verb dar, to give), telling us again that the way out of isolation is to be as generous as sunlight to one another, especially to those who have more edad; who, that is, are older and therefore at greater risk. To be that generoso is not easy. It may take a lot of work to care for those in need when one is also facing grief and hardship oneself — a labor that is frequently difficult and painful, as the Spanish word for work, trabajo, reminds us.

Trabajo is not just physical labor or exertion. It brings to mind something more distressing. The last novel that Cervantes wrote after finishing Don Quixote was called Los Trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda and there trabajos refers to the torments and trials that two lovers go through before they can be unidos, united.

Think of trabajos as akin to travails in English and, indeed, many who toil among us right now during this pandemic are going through special travails and trouble to keep us fed and sheltered and safe. Called “essential workers,” trabajadores esenciales, many of them have journeyed here from foreign lands after terrible travails and travels of their own (two words that derive from the same tortuous linguistic roots). As in the era of Cervantes, so in our perilous times, to leave home, to wander in search of a secure haven in a merciless world is an ordeal beyond words in any language.

It gives me solace, though, that when so many of those migrants crossed the border into the United States where I now live, they brought their Spanish with them, their throats and lives full of aliento, inspiración, trabajo, sol, and solidaridad. Now may be the time to record them — or rather recordarlos — in the deepest meaning of that word, which is to restore them to our hearts, to open those hearts to them at a moment when we are all subject to such travails and plagues.

In concrete policy terms, this would mean creating a true path to citizenship, ciudadanía, for so many millions lacking documentos. It would mean reuniting (re-unir) the families that Donald Trump and his crew separated at our southern border and finding the missing children, los niños desaparecidos. It would mean building less disruptive walls and more roads, caminos, that connect us all.

There Is No Unidad Without Struggle

Not all words in Spanish, of course, need to be translated for us to understand them. Pandemia, corrupción, crueldad, violencia, discriminación, muerte are sadly recognizable, wretchedly similar in languages across the globe as are the more hopeful, justicia, paz, rebelión, compasión. The same is true of President Biden’s favorite word of the moment, unidad, to which we should add a verb whose indispensability he and the Democratic Party should never forget, at least if there is to be real progress: luchar or to struggle.

Equally indispensable is a more primeval word that we can all immediately identify and make ours: mamá. Who has not called out to his or her mother in an hour of need, as George Floyd did at the very end of his existence? But the Spanish version of that word contains, I believe, a special resonance, related as it is to mamar — to suckle, to drink milk from the maternal breast as all mammals do — and so to that first act of human beings after we take that initial breath and cry.

For those of us who are grown up, an additional kind of sustenance is required to face an ominous future: “esperanza,” or hope, a word that fittingly stems from the same origin as respirar.

Many decades ago, Spanish welcomed me into the world and I am grateful that it continues to give me aliento in a land I’ve now made my own. It reminds me and my fellow citizens, my fellow humans, that to breathe and help others draw breath is the foundation of esperanza. The native language that I first heard from my mamá — even though she is long dead — still whispers the certainty that there is no other way for the spirit to prevail in these times of rage and solidarity and struggle, full of light and luz and lucha, so we may indeed someday fulfill the promise of “libertad y justicia para todos,” of liberty and justice for all.

Copyright 2021 Ariel Dorfman

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“For example, we’re going to invest a great deal of that money into infrastructure. And into green infrastructure. We’re going to put 500,000 charging stations on new highways we’re building, and old highways we’re building. We’re going to own the electric market.

You know as well as I do, from your days — you know, in the old days, where the president has — spends about $600 billion a year on government contracts, everything from making sure they have aircraft carriers to automobile fleets for the — in the United States.

If you make — make — and we can — and it’s not in violation of any international trade agreement, made in America. If you actually insist that, whatever that product is, made in America, including the material that goes into the product, we — it’s estimated we’re going to create somewhere between another 4 million and 6 million jobs just by doing that.”

Over-all, Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine reports that Moody’s Analytics estimated that Biden’s over-all plans for short term stimulus and large scale infrastructure investments will create 18.6 million new jobs during his first term and would put nearly $5,000 after-tax in the pockets of the average American. Trump’s Scrooge plans would yield virtually no extra income for most people, and would only create 11 million jobs.

Biden is skeptical of a quick achievement of net carbon zero by 2030, but sometimes these issues are best looked at on a comparative basis. In the US, green energy is now only 20% or so of electricity generation. But the US is frankly backward in this regard.

Let’s take Spain, which has made enormous strides on renewables just in the past three years.

Spain has been hard-hit by the coronavirus and suffered through one of the worst lockdowns in the industrialized world. Still, in August its energy use was 98% of normal, and its renewable energy sector has surged ahead.

Spain has installed 2 new gigawatts of wind and solar energy in the first nine months of 2020.

Solar PV alone doubled in the past year.

Some 51% of Spain’s energy generation is now from wind and solar, and overall 61% is from sources that do not emit the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide (with hydro topping it up). The rapid growth of this sector has largely been because of market forces and the European Union carbon tax, but it is also true that the current Socialist government, which came to power in 2018, has viewed the development favorably and encouraged it, unlike the conservatives that preceded them.

Another 20% of electricity generation in Spain is from nuclear energy, which is relatively low-carbon but poses other pollution dangers. Spain plans to phase out nuclear plants by 2035 in favor of wind and solar.

In addition, Spain’s coal use has plummeted from 15% of its electricity consumption in 2018 to 1.5% this summer. Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels and produces the most carbon dioxide when burned. It is estimated that no coal plants at all will be operating in Spain within five years. The closing of so many coal plants is not because of Madrid government policy but is driven by market considerations and the European Union carbon dioxide emission tax. Spain stopped mining coal in 2017, again because of EU policy.

Despite this year’s economic turn-down, Spain’s factories producing wind turbines for both the domestic market and for export abroad have been humming. The turbine manufacturers had extensive experience in dealing with pandemics from their Chinese and Italian operations, says Wind Power Monthly: “SGRE, for instance, confirms 2,000 post-summer-holiday Covid tests across its 5,000 strong workforce, of which 1% tested positive.”

AP reports that Spain will spend its $162 billion EU stimulus aid to create 800,000 jobs over the next three years. This would be like nearly 6 million US jobs, given the population difference between the two countries.

AP writes, “The plan focuses primarily on getting Spain to transition to green energy and a digital economy, which will take up about 70% of the financing.”

France and Germany have similar plans.

The plan, AP said, “is built on 10 main planks. They include strengthening the public health service, improving public infrastructure, transitioning to green energy and enhancing energy efficiency, developing professional training schemes and accelerating the digital modernization of Spanish industry.” It will focus on environmentally friendly growth and job-creation, and aims to kick-start the economy into 7% growth next year after this year’s contraction.

Spain’s experience suggests that Joe Biden’s plans to use green energy to create jobs and help get the US back out of its pandemic doldrums should he take office in January are likely to succeed. Moreover, I think Mr. Biden is going to be shocked at how quickly the country will move to renewables once the US government stops subsidizing Big Carbon, as he has promised to do.

——

Bonus Video:

Solar in Spain: “Spanish Government Energy & GHG Targets for 2030”

People with different orientations are responding to this announcement differently. Some are reacting against modern Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s 1935 decision to convert the facility to a museum. Many from this same group of people seem to be concerned about the honor and respect for Sultan Mehmet II, the Conqueror, who took Constantinople in 1453, who is reported to have been praised in the hadith that predicted the liberation of Constantinople. Another group appears to be motivated by Turkey’s glorious past and for them the Sultan had made significant contribution to build Turkey’s global image and any action that undermines Sultan Mehmet’s legacy would harm this image. Meanwhile the Turkish apex court has come forward with a judgement that the 1935 decision to change the status from a place of worship to a museum as illegal and therefore returning the facility to worshipers would be the only right action to take.

Our question here, however, is whether the Sultan made a mistake by converting the functioning church to a mosque and whether we must – the later generations – approve all actions of our heroes irrespective of their validity and consequences. In my humble opinion, it was a mistake on the part of the Sultan to convert the venue to a mosque. In this context, one must keep in mind that committing mistakes is human and our father Prophet Adam (on whom be peace) committed a mistake in the beginning of human history. In the current milieu, one should remember an event during the liberation of Makkah under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Following the liberation ‘Abbas, the prophet’s uncle, demanded the key of the Ka‘ba from the clan Bani ‘Abd ad-Dar who were not yet Muslim. The Prophet granted the request. Immediately the Prophet received the verse “Allah commands you to deliver trusts to those worthy of them; and when you judge between people, judge with justice. Excellent is the admonition Allah gives you. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Seeing (4: 58).” The Prophet understood the implication and instantaneously returned the key back to ‘Uthman ibn Abi Talha and his cousin Shaybah ibn ‘Uthman, the two representative figures of Bani ‘Abd ad-Dar. The rationale behind this act seems to have been that the clan was traditionally maintaining the trust of the people with the key and had been providing the necessary services to pilgrims, and therefore there was no need to deprive them of the charge. The Prophet received guidance from the Creator because he was in direct touch with Him, but for followers the mechanism is, as has been suggested in the Qur’an, is to counsel one another (103: 3). Therefore, the followers of the Qur’an must analyze ideas and events to counsel and correct one another’s mistake even though centuries might have passed.

One should also look at the prophetic teachings about treatment of non-Muslims. The Prophet in his covenant with the Christians of Najran pledged: “I commit myself to support them, to place their persons under my protection, as well as their churches, chapels, oratories, the monasteries of their monks, the residences of their anchorites, wherever they are found, … Nor is it permitted to destroy any part of their churches, to take parts of their buildings to construct mosques or the homes of Muslims.” He extended similar covenant to other Christian communities living in other areas of Arabia. Following the prophetic tradition the second caliph ‘Umar (may God be pleased with him) extended similar pledge to non-Muslim communities in Jerusalem when it came under Muslim rule.

Ideally, Sultan Mehmet II should have extended similar treaty to the Orthodox Church when he liberated Constantinople in 1453, but circumstances at the time were different. Indeed the Sultan seems to have taken the action in accordance to demands of his time. Muslim places of worship at the time were being confiscated and converted to churches and other miscellaneous treatments in the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, one should note that at this time there was no Muslim places of worship in Istanbul. The Fatih Sultan Mehmed Mosque which is located about four kilometer away from Hagia Sophia, came about decade and a half later, the Suleymaniye mosque, which is over three kilometer away, came more than a century later. The Sultan Ahmet Mosque next door to Hagia Sophia was founded in 1617, more than century and a half later. Therefore, there was a genuine need for Muslim place of worship in the city. However, circumstances have changed in the 21^st century, no mosque is being converted to church in Spain these days, and the need for prayer space for Muslims in Istanbul does not apply any more. In fact, churches in many western countries have now opened their doors to Muslims for worship. Therefore, it is only proper for the Turkish government to reconsider the whole situation in the light of changed circumstances.

Questions are being raised about the legal implications of wars of conquest – what happens when wars end – how should victorious parties treat defeated parties? What happens to properties of the subjugated? Should one treat places of worship differently from other properties? Some apologetics have come forward with a document suggesting that the Sultan purchased the property where Hagia Sophia is located from priests who were responsible for it. Argument has also been put forward that the venue was vandalized by Catholics in one of the Crusades and was not being used for religious purposes when the Sultan liberated the city, and therefore the Sultan was absolutely justified to restore the facility to a place of worship. However, in our view, Hagia Sophia should not be compared with any normal place of worship. In fact, the abode is reported to have been a place of worship for centuries before the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had built what he called Hagia Sophia or the House of Divine Wisdom. One should ignore occasional lawlessness in such places. Could we not maintain the same status for which it was built? If the Prophet of God could afford to trust a non-Muslim clan to administer the key to the Ka’ba, who are we to deny key to the house of Divine Wisdom to its original holder? However, handing over Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church could happen only in an ideal world and we hardly live in an ideal realm.

In a world mired by the clash of civilizations thesis, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) seems to be a good platform to initiate any such discussion. In order to reduce world tension the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero called for an alliance of civilizations at the United Nations General Assembly in 2004 and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came forward to co-sponsor it. Although the institution began its journey for conflict resolution in 2005 with the blessings of the UN Secretary General with a lot of enthusiasm, with the passage of time it seems to have lost excitement. In an atmosphere of nation-state sovereignty, it is always difficult for international organizations such as UNAOC to make an impact in international politics. This is particularly true for nations such as Spain and Turkey, which do not have veto power in the United Nation Security Council. Yet for Spain and Turkey to come forward in order to address a crisis created in the name of clash of civilizations. Keeping in view Spain’s past record, it was a great gesture on the part of the Spanish government to come forward not only with the proposal of an alliance of civilizations, Spain also withdrew its troops from Iraq at a time when many Muslims had become victim of the so-called War on Terror. Perhaps that is why Turkey came forward to co-sponsor the Spanish proposal. However, circumstances have changed over the past decade or so. Mr. Zapatero is no more in power and Spain does not seem to be following the alliance of civilizations agenda actively any more.

If the Turkish people were to be convinced in returning Hagia Sophia to Christians, they would like to see the return of mosques that were converted to churches and other facilities in the 14^th and 15^th centuries in Spain back to Muslim hands. In other words, both Spain and the Catholic Church will have to revise their history and correct their mistakes. Pope Francis has expressed his “pain” and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has expressed that he has been “saddened and shaken” at Turkey’s decision on Hagia Sophia but, in our opinion, both must do more to earn respect and trust of Muslims. The UNESCO too must do more to help Muslims regain their civilizational heritage in Spain. As for the government in Turkey, it too does not seem to enjoy the same higher moral ground that it had enjoyed in 2005 to impress the Spanish government. Mr. Erdogan’s AK Party has slowly centralized power through a new presidential system. In addition, the cordial relationship Turkey had developed with neighboring countries, particularly with Greece and Armenia during first decade in power, does not seem to be continuing any more. These are not good signs for gaining trust either nationally or internationally.

In our view, Hagia Sophia issue has the potential to not only revive the moribund institution and rekindle its mission and vision; it has the potential to generate trust among all world civilizations. It is always difficult to relate ideals with realities. The Hagia Sophia issue principally demands spiritual consideration. Both political and religious leaders should put their hands on their heart and think what Mawlana Rumi would have done in this situation. My faith tells me that not only Rumi, Sultan Mehmed II too would now have been pleased if a decision on the matter were made based on Divine Wisdom.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

CBC News: “Turkey’s Hagia Sophia turned back into a mosque, causing a divide”

Legend of the Arabian Astrologer.

IN OLD times, many hundred years ago, there was a Moorish king named Aben Habuz, who reigned over the kingdom of Granada. He was a retired conqueror, that is to say, one who having in his more youthful days led a life of constant foray and depredation, now that he was grown feeble and superannuated, “languished for repose,” and desired nothing more than to live at peace with all the world, to husband his laurels, and to enjoy in quiet the possessions he had wrested from his neighbors.

It so happened, however, that this most reasonable and pacific old monarch had young rivals to deal with; princes full of his early passion for fame and fighting, and who were disposed to call him to account for the scores he had run up with their fathers. Certain distant districts of his own territories, also, which during the days of his vigor he had treated with a high hand, were prone, now that he languished for repose, to rise in rebellion and threaten to invest him in his capital. Thus he had foes on every side; and as Granada is surrounded by wild and craggy mountains, which hide the approach of an enemy, the unfortunate Aben Habuz was kept in a constant state of vigilance and alarm, not knowing in what quarter hostilities might break out.

It was in vain that he built watchtowers on the mountains, and stationed guards at every pass with orders to make fires by night and smoke by day, on the approach of an enemy. His alert foes, baffling every precaution, would break out of some unthought-of defile, ravage his lands beneath his very nose, and then make off with prisoners and booty to the mountains. Was ever peaceable and retired conqueror in a more uncomfortable predicament?

While Aben Habuz was harassed by these perplexities and molestations, an ancient Arabian physician arrived at his court. His gray beard descended to his girdle, and he had every mark of extreme age, yet he had travelled almost the whole way from Egypt on foot, with no other aid than a staff, marked with hieroglyphics. His fame had preceded him. His name was Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub, he was said to have lived ever since the days of Mahomet, and to be son of Abu Ayub, the last of the companions of the Prophet. He had, when a child, followed the conquering army of Amru into Egypt, where he had remained many years studying the dark sciences, and particularly magic, among the Egyptian priests.

It was, moreover, said that he had found out the secret of prolonging life, by means of which he had arrived to the great age of upwards of two centuries, though, as he did not discover the secret until well stricken in years, he could only perpetuate his gray hairs and wrinkles.

This wonderful old man was honorably entertained by the king, who, like most superannuated monarchs, began to take physicians into great favor. He would have assigned him an apartment in his palace, but the astrologer preferred a cave in the side of the hill which rises above the city of Granada, being the same on which the Alhambra has since been built. He caused the cave to be enlarged so as to form a spacious and lofty hall, with a circular hole at the top, through which, as through a well, he could see the heavens and behold the stars even at mid-day. The walls of this hall were covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics, with cabalistic symbols, and with the figures of the stars in their signs. This hall he furnished with many implements, fabricated under his directions by cunning artificers of Granada, but the occult properties of which were known only to himself.

In a little while the sage Ibrahim became the bosom counsellor of the king, who applied to him for advice in every emergency. Aben Habuz was once inveighing against the injustice of his neighbors, and bewailing the restless vigilance he had to observe to guard himself against their invasions; when he had finished, the astrologer remained silent for a moment, and then replied, “Know, O King, that when I was in Egypt I beheld a great marvel devised by a pagan priestess of old. On a mountain, above the city of Borsa, and overlooking the great valley of the Nile, was a figure of a ram, and above it a figure of a cock, both of molten brass, and turning upon a pivot. Whenever the country was threatened with invasion, the ram would turn in the direction of the enemy, and the cock would crow; upon this the inhabitants of the city knew of the danger, and of the quarter from which it was approaching, and could take timely means to guard against it.”

“God is great!” exclaimed the pacific Aben Habuz, “what a treasure would be such a ram to keep an eye upon these mountains around me; and then such a cock, to crow in time of danger! Allah Akbar! how securely I might sleep in my palace with such sentinels on the top!”

The astrologer waited until the ecstasies of the king had subsided, and then proceeded:

“After the victorious Amru (may he rest in peace!) had finished his conquest of Egypt, I remained among the priests of the land, studying the rites and ceremonies of their idolatrous faith, and seeking to make myself master of the hidden knowledge for which they are renowned. I was one day seated on the banks of the Nile, conversing with an ancient priest, when he pointed to the mighty pyramids which rose like mountains out of the neighboring desert. ‘All that we can teach thee,’ said he, ‘is nothing to the knowledge locked up in those mighty piles. In the centre of the central pyramid is a sepulchral chamber, in which is inclosed the mummy of the high-priest, who aided in rearing that stupendous pile; and with him is buried a wondrous book of knowledge containing all the secrets of magic and art. This book was given to Adam after his fall, and was handed down from generation to generation to King Solomon the wise, and by its aid he built the temple of Jerusalem. How it came into the possession of the builder of the pyramids, is known to him alone who knows all things.’

“When I heard these words of the Egyptian priest, my heart burned to get possession of that book. I could command the services of many of the soldiers of our conquering army, and of a number of the native Egyptians: with these I set to work, and pierced the solid mass of the pyramid, until, after great toil, I came upon one of its interior and hidden passages. Following this up, and threading a fearful labyrinth, I penetrated into the very heart of the pyramid, even to the sepulchral chamber, where the mummy of the high-priest had lain for ages. I broke through the outer cases of the mummy, unfolded its many wrappers and bandages, and at length found the precious volume on its bosom. I seized it with a trembling hand, and groped my way out of the pyramid, leaving the mummy in its dark and silent sepulchre, there to await the final day of resurrection and judgment.”

“Son of Abu Ayub,” exclaimed Aben Habuz, “thou hast been a great traveller, and seen marvellous things; but of what avail to me is the secret of the pyramid, and the volume of knowledge of the wise Solomon?”

“This it is, O king! By the study of that book I am instructed in all magic arts, and can command the assistance of genii to accomplish my plans. The mystery of the Talisman of Borsa is therefore familiar to me, and such a talisman can I make; nay, one of greater virtues.”

“O wise son of Abu Ayub,” cried Aben Habuz, “better were such a talisman, than all the watchtowers on the hills, and sentinels upon the borders. Give me a safeguard, and the riches of my treasury are at thy command.”

The astrologer immediately set to work to gratify the wishes of the monarch. He caused a great tower to be erected upon the top of the royal palace, which stood on the brow of the hill of the Albaycin. The tower was built of stones brought from Egypt, and taken, it is said, from one of the pyramids. In the upper part of the tower was a circular hall, with windows looking towards every point of the compass, and before each window was a table, on which was arranged, as on a chess-board, a mimic army of horse and foot, with the effigy of the potentate that ruled in that direction, all carved of wood. To each of these tables there was a small lance, no bigger than a bodkin, on which were engraved certain Chaldaic characters. This hall was kept constantly closed, by a gate of brass, with a great lock of steel, the key of which was in possession of the king.

On the top of the tower was a bronze figure of a Moorish horseman, fixed on a pivot, with a shield on one arm, and his lance elevated perpendicularly. The face of this horseman was towards the city, as if keeping guard over it; but if any foe were at hand, the figure would turn in that direction, and would level the lance as if for action.

When this talisman was finished, Aben Habuz was all impatient to try its virtues; and longed as ardently for an invasion as he had ever sighed after repose. His desire was soon gratified. Tidings were brought, early one morning, by the sentinel appointed to watch the tower, that the face of the bronze horseman was turned towards the mountains of Elvira, and that his lance pointed directly against the Pass of Lope.

“Let the drums and trumpets sound to arms, and all Granada be put on the alert,” said Aben Habuz.

“O king,” said the astrologer, “Let not your city be disquieted, nor your warriors called to arms; we need no aid of force to deliver you from your enemies. Dismiss your attendants, and let us proceed alone to the secret hall of the tower.”

The ancient Aben Habuz mounted the staircase of the tower, leaning on the arm of the still more ancient Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub. They unlocked the brazen door and entered. The window that looked towards the Pass of Lope was open. “In this direction,” said the astrologer, “lies the danger; approach, O king, and behold the mystery of the table.”

King Aben Habuz approached the seeming chess-board, on which were arranged the small wooden effigies, when, to his surprise, he perceived that they were all in motion. The horses pranced and curveted, the warriors brandished their weapons, and there was a faint sound of drums and trumpets, and the clang of arms, and neighing of steeds; but all no louder, nor more distinct, than the hum of the bee, or the summer-fly, in the drowsy ear of him who lies at noontide in the shade.

“Behold, O king,” said the astrologer, “a proof that thy enemies are even now in the field. They must be advancing through yonder mountains, by the Pass of Lope. Would you produce a panic and confusion amongst them, and cause them to retreat without loss of life, strike these effigies with the but-end of this magic lance; would you cause bloody feud and carnage, strike with the point.”

A livid streak passed across the countenance of Aben Habuz; he seized the lance with trembling eagerness; his gray beard wagged with exultation as he tottered toward the table: “Son of Abu Ayub,” exclaimed he, in chuckling tone, “I think we will have a little blood!”

So saying, he thrust the magic lance into some of the pigmy effigies, and belabored others with the but-end, upon which the former fell as dead upon the board, and the rest turning upon each other began, pell-mell, a chance-medley fight.

It was with difficulty the astrologer could stay the hand of the most pacific of monarchs, and prevent him from absolutely exterminating his foes; at length he prevailed upon him to leave the tower, and to send out scouts to the mountains by the Pass of Lope.

They returned with the intelligence, that a Christian army had advanced through the heart of the Sierra, almost within sight of Granada, where a dissension had broken out among them; they had turned their weapons against each other, and after much slaughter had retreated over the border.

Aben Habuz was transported with joy on thus proving the efficacy of the talisman. “At length,” said he, “I shall lead a life of tranquillity, and have all my enemies in my power. O wise son of Abu Ayub, what can I bestow on thee in reward for such a blessing?”

“The wants of an old man and a philosopher, O king, are few and simple; grant me but the means of fitting up my cave as a suitable hermitage, and I am content.”

“How noble is the moderation of the truly wise!” exclaimed Aben Habuz, secretly pleased at the cheapness of the recompense. He summoned his treasurer, and bade him dispense whatever sums might be required by Ibrahim to complete and furnish his hermitage.

The astrologer now gave orders to have various chambers hewn out of the solid rock, so as to form ranges of apartments connected with his astrological hall; these he caused to be furnished with luxurious ottomans and divans, and the walls to be hung with the richest silks of Damascus. “I am an old man,” said he, “and can no longer rest my bones on stone couches, and these damp walls require covering.”

He had baths too constructed, and provided with all kinds of perfumes and aromatic oils: “For a bath,” said he, “is necessary to counteract the rigidity of age, and to restore freshness and suppleness to the frame withered by study.”

He caused the apartments to be hung with innumerable silver and crystal lamps, which he filled with a fragrant oil, prepared according to a receipt discovered by him in the tombs of Egypt. This oil was perpetual in its nature, and diffused a soft radiance like the tempered light of day. “The light of the sun,” said he, “is too garish and violent for the eyes of an old man, and the light of the lamp is more congenial to the studies of a philosopher.”

The treasurer of King Aben Habuz groaned at the sums daily demanded to fit up this hermitage, and he carried his complaints to the king. The royal word, however, had been given; Aben Habuz shrugged his shoulders: “We must have patience,” said he, “this old man has taken his idea of a philosophic retreat from the interior of the pyramids, and of the vast ruins of Egypt; but all things have an end, and so will the furnishing of his cavern.”

The king was in the right; the hermitage was at length complete, and formed a sumptuous subterranean palace. The astrologer expressed himself perfectly content, and, shutting himself up, remained for three whole days buried in study. At the end of that time he appeared again before the treasurer. “One thing more is necessary,” said he, “one trifling solace for the intervals of mental labor.”

“O wise Ibrahim, I am bound to furnish every thing necessary for thy solitude; what more dost thou require?”

“I would fain have a few dancing women.”

“Dancing women!” echoed the treasurer, with surprise.

“Dancing women,” replied the sage, gravely; “and let them be young and fair to look upon; for the sight of youth and beauty is refreshing. A few will suffice, for I am a philosopher of simple habits and easily satisfied.”

While the philosophic Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub passed his time thus sagely in his hermitage, the pacific Aben Habuz carried on furious campaigns in effigy in his tower. It was a glorious thing for an old man, like himself, of quiet habits, to have war made easy, and to be enabled to amuse himself in his chamber by brushing away whole armies like so many swarms of flies.

For a time he rioted in the indulgence of his humors, and even taunted and insulted his neighbors, to induce them to make incursions; but by degrees they grew wary from repeated disasters, until no one ventured to invade his territories. For many months the bronze horseman remained on the peace establishment with his lance elevated in the air, and the worthy old monarch began to repine at the want of his accustomed sport, and to grow peevish at his monotonous tranquillity.

At length, one day, the talismanic horseman veered suddenly round, and lowering his lance, made a dead point towards the mountains of Guadix. Aben Habuz hastened to his tower, but the magic table in that direction remained quiet; not a single warrior was in motion. Perplexed at the circumstance, he sent forth a troop of horse to scour the mountains and reconnoitre. They returned after three days’ absence.

“We have searched every mountain pass,” said they, “but not a helm nor spear was stirring. All that we have found in the course of our foray, was a Christian damsel of surpassing beauty, sleeping at noontide beside a fountain, whom we have brought away captive.”

“A damsel of surpassing beauty!” exclaimed Aben Habuz, his eyes gleaming with animation; “let her be conducted into my presence.”

The beautiful damsel was accordingly conducted into his presence. She was arrayed with all the luxury of ornament that had prevailed among the Gothic Spaniards at the time of the Arabian conquest. Pearls of dazzling whiteness were entwined with her raven tresses; and jewels sparkled on her forehead, rivalling the lustre of her eyes. Around her neck was a golden chain, to which was suspended a silver lyre, which hung by her side.

The flashes of her dark refulgent eye were like sparks of fire on the withered, yet combustible, heart of Aben Habuz; the swimming voluptuousness of her gait made his senses reel. “Fairest of women,” cried he, with rapture, “who and what art thou?”

“The daughter of one of the Gothic princes, who but lately ruled over this land. The armies of my father have been destroyed, as if by magic, among these mountains; he has been driven into exile, and his daughter is a captive.”

“Beware, O king!” whispered Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub, “this may be one of these northern sorceresses of whom we have heard, who assume the most seductive forms to beguile the unwary. Methinks I read witchcraft in her eye, and sorcery in every movement. Doubtless this is the enemy pointed out by the talisman.”

“Son of Abu Ayub,” replied the king, “thou art a wise man, I grant, a conjuror for aught I know; but thou art little versed in the ways of woman. In that knowledge will I yield to no man; no, not to the wise Solomon himself, notwithstanding the number of his wives and concubines. As to this damsel, I see no harm in her; she is fair to look upon, and finds favor in my eyes.”

“Hearken, O king!” replied the astrologer. “I have given thee many victories by means of my talisman, but have never shared any of the spoil. Give me then this stray captive, to solace me in my solitude with her silver lyre. If she be indeed a sorceress, I have counter spells that set her charms at defiance.”

“What! more women!” cried Aben Habuz. “Hast thou not already dancing women enough to solace thee?”

“Dancing women have I, it is true, but no singing women. I would fain have a little minstrelsy to refresh my mind when weary with the toils of study.”

“A truce with thy hermit cravings,” said the king, impatiently. “This damsel have I marked for my own. I see much comfort in her; even such comfort as David, the father of Solomon the wise, found in the society of Abishag the Shunammite.”

Further solicitations and remonstrances of the astrologer only provoked a more peremptory reply from the monarch, and they parted in high displeasure. The sage shut himself up in his hermitage to brood over his disappointment; ere he departed, however, he gave the king one more warning to beware of his dangerous captive. But where is the old man in love that will listen to council? Aben Habuz resigned himself to the full sway of his passion. His only study was how to render himself amiable in the eyes of the Gothic beauty. He had not youth to recommend him, it is true, but then he had riches; and when a lover is old, he is generally generous. The Zacatin of Granada was ransacked for the most precious merchandise of the East; silks, jewels, precious gems, exquisite perfumes, all that Asia and Africa yielded of rich and rare, were lavished upon the princess. All kinds of spectacles and festivities were devised for her entertainment; minstrelsy, dancing, tournaments, bull-fights. Granada for a time was a scene of perpetual pageant.

The Gothic princess regarded all this splendor with the air of one accustomed to magnificence. She received every thing as a homage due to her rank, or rather to her beauty; for beauty is more lofty in its exactions even than rank. Nay, she seemed to take a secret pleasure in exciting the monarch to expenses that made his treasury shrink; and then treating his extravagant generosity as a mere matter of course. With all his assiduity and munificence, also, the venerable lover could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her heart. She never frowned on him, it is true, but then she never smiled. Whenever he began to plead his passion, she struck her silver lyre. There was a mystic charm in the sound. In an instant the monarch began to nod; a drowsiness stole over him, and he gradually sank into a sleep, from which he awoke wonderfully refreshed, but perfectly cooled for the time of his passion. This was very baffling to his suit; but then these slumbers were accompanied by agreeable dreams, which completely inthralled the senses of the drowsy lover, so he continued to dream on, while all Granada scoffed at his infatuation, and groaned at the treasures lavished for a song.

At length a danger burst on the head of Aben Habuz, against which his talisman yielded him no warning. An insurrection broke out in his very capital: his palace was surrounded by an armed rabble, who menaced his life and the life of his Christian paramour. A spark of his ancient warlike spirit was awakened in the breast of the monarch. At the head of a handful of his guards he sallied forth, put the rebels to flight, and crushed the insurrection in the bud.

When quiet was again restored, he sought the astrologer, who still remained shut up in his hermitage, chewing the bitter cud of resentment.

Aben Habuz approached him with a conciliatory tone. “O wise son of Abu Ayub,” said he, “well didst thou predict dangers to me from this captive beauty: tell me then, thou who art so quick at foreseeing peril, what I should do to avert it.”

“Put from thee the infidel damsel who is the cause.”

“Sooner would I part with my kingdom,” cried Aben Habuz.

“Thou art in danger of losing both,” replied the astrologer.

“Be not harsh and angry, O most profound of philosophers; consider the double distress of a monarch and a lover, and devise some means of protecting me from the evils by which I am menaced. I care not for grandeur, I care not for power, I languish only for repose; would that I had some quiet retreat where I might take refuge from the world, and all its cares, and pomps, and troubles, and devote the remainder of my days to tranquillity and love.”

The astrologer regarded him for a moment, from under his bushy eyebrows.

“And what wouldst thou give, if I could provide thee such a retreat?”

“Thou shouldst name thy own reward, and whatever it might be, if within the scope of my power, as my soul liveth, it should be thine.”

“Thou hast heard, O king, of the garden of Irem, one of the prodigies of Arabia the happy.”

“I have heard of that garden; it is recorded in the Koran, even in the chapter entitled ‘The Dawn of Day.’ I have, moreover, heard marvellous things related of it by pilgrims who had been to Mecca; but I considered them wild fables, such as travellers are wont to tell who have visited remote countries.”

“Discredit not, O king, the tales of travellers,” rejoined the astrologer, gravely, “for they contain precious rarities of knowledge brought from the ends of the earth. As to the palace and garden of Irem, what is generally told of them is true; I have seen them with mine own eyes. listen to my adventure; for it has a bearing upon the object of your request.

“In my younger days, when a mere Arab of the desert, I tended my father’s camels. In traversing the desert of Aden, one of them strayed from the rest, and was lost. I searched after it for several days, but in vain, until, wearied and faint, I laid myself down at noontide, and slept under a palm-tree by the side of a scanty well. When I awoke, I found myself at the gate of a city. I entered, and beheld noble streets, and squares, and market-places; but all were silent and without an inhabitant. I wandered on until I came to a sumptuous palace with a garden adorned with fountains and fishponds, and groves and flowers, and orchards laden with delicious fruit; but still no one was to be seen. Upon which, appalled at this loneliness, I hastened to depart; and, after issuing forth at the gate of the city, I turned to look upon the place, but it was no longer to be seen; nothing but the silent desert extended before my eyes.

“In the neighborhood I met with an aged dervise, learned in the traditions and secrets of the land, and related to him what had befallen me. ‘This,’ said he, ‘is the far-famed garden of Irem, one of the wonders of the desert. It only appears at times to some wanderer like thyself, gladdening him with the sight of towers and palaces and garden walls overhung with richly-laden fruit-trees, and then vanishes, leaving nothing but a lonely desert. And this is the story of it. In old times, when this country was inhabited by the Addites, King Sheddad, the son of Ad, the great grandson of Noah, founded here a splendid city. When it was finished, and he saw its grandeur, his heart was puffed up with pride and arrogance, and he determined to build a royal palace, with gardens which should rival all related in the Koran of the celestial paradise. But the curse of heaven fell upon him for his presumption. He and his subjects were swept from the earth, and his splendid city, and palace, and gardens, were laid under a perpetual spell, which hides them from human sight, excepting that they are seen at intervals, by way of keeping his sin in perpetual remembrance.’

“This story, O king, and the wonders I had seen, ever dwelt in my mind; and in after years, when I had been in Egypt, and was possessed of the book of knowledge of Solomon the wise, I determined to return and revisit the garden of Irem. I did so, and found it revealed to my instructed sight. I took possession of the palace of Sheddad, and passed several days in his mock paradise. The genii who watch over the place, were obedient to my magic power, and revealed to me the spells by which the whole garden had been, as it were, conjured into existence, and by which it was rendered invisible. Such a palace and garden, O king, can I make for thee, even here, on the mountain above thy city. Do I not know all the secret spells? and am I not in possession of the book of knowledge of Solomon the wise?”

“O wise son of Abu Ayub!” exclaimed Aben Habuz, trembling with eagerness, “thou art a traveller indeed, and hast seen and learned marvellous things! Contrive me such a paradise, and ask any reward, even to the half of my kingdom.”

“Alas!” replied the other, “thou knowest I am an old man, and a philosopher, and easily satisfied; all the reward I ask is the first beast of burden, with its load, which shall enter the magic portal of the palace.”

The monarch gladly agreed to so moderate a stipulation, and the astrologer began his work. On the summit of the hill, immediately above his subterranean hermitage, he caused a great gateway or barbican to be erected, opening through the centre of a strong tower.

There was an outer vestibule or porch, with a lofty arch, and within it a portal secured by massive gates. On the key-stone of the portal the astrologer, with his own hand, wrought the figure of a huge key; and on the key-stone of the outer arch of the vestibule, which was loftier than that of the portal, he carved a gigantic hand. These were potent talismans, over which he repeated many sentences in an unknown tongue.

When this gateway was finished he shut himself up for two days in his astrological hall, engaged in secret incantations; on the third he ascended the hill, and passed the whole day on its summit. At a late hour of the night he came down, and presented himself before Aben Habuz.

“At length, O king,” said he, “my labor is accomplished. On the summit of the hill stands one of the most delectable palaces that ever the head of man devised, or the heart of man desired. It contains sumptuous halls and galleries, delicious gardens, cool fountains, and fragrant baths; in a word, the whole mountain is converted into a paradise. Like the garden of Irem, it is protected by a mighty charm, which hides it from the view and search of mortals, excepting such as possess the secret of its talismans.”

“Enough!” cried Aben Habuz, joyfully, “to-morrow morning with the first light we will ascend and take possession.”

The happy monarch slept but little that night. Scarcely had the rays of the sun begun to play about the snowy summit of the Sierra Nevada, when he mounted his steed, and, accompanied only by a few chosen attendants, ascended a steep and narrow road leading up the hill. Beside him, on a white palfrey, rode the Gothic princess, her whole dress sparkling with jewels, while round her neck was suspended her silver lyre. The astrologer walked on the other side of the king, assisting his steps with his hieroglyphic staff, for he never mounted steed of any kind.

Aben Habuz looked to see the towers of the palace brightening above him, and the imbowered terraces of its gardens stretching along the heights; but as yet nothing of the kind was to be descried. “That is the mystery and safeguard of the place,” said the astrologer, “nothing can be discerned until you have passed the spell-bound gateway, and been put in possession of the place.”

As they approached the gateway, the astrologer paused, and pointed out to the king the mystic hand and key carved upon the portal of the arch. “These,” said he, “are the talismans which guard the entrance to this paradise. Until yonder hand shall reach down and seize that key, neither mortal power nor magic artifice can prevail against the lord of this mountain.”

While Aben Habuz was gazing, with open mouth and silent wonder, at these mystic talismans, the palfrey of the princess proceeded, and bore her in at the portal, to the very centre of the barbican.

“Behold,” cried the astrologer, “my promised reward; the first animal with its burden which should enter the magic gateway.”

Aben Habuz smiled at what he considered a pleasantry of the ancient man; but when he found him to be in earnest, his gray beard trembled with indignation.

“Son of Abu Ayub,” said he, sternly, “what equivocation is this? Thou knowest the meaning of my promise: the first beast of burden, with its load, that should enter this portal. Take the strongest mule in my stables, load it with the most precious things of my treasury, and it is thine; but dare not raise thy thoughts to her who is the delight of my heart.”

“What need I of wealth,” cried the astrologer, scornfully; “have I not the book of knowledge of Solomon the wise, and through it the command of the secret treasures of the earth? The princess is mine by right; thy royal word is pledged: I claim her as my own.”

The princess looked down haughtily from her palfrey, and a light smile of scorn curled her rosy lip at this dispute between two gray-beards, for the possession of youth and beauty. The wrath of the monarch got the better of his discretion. “Base son of the desert,” cried he, “thou may’st be master of many arts, but know me for thy master, and presume not to juggle with thy king.”

“My master! my king!” echoed the astrologer. “The monarch of a molehill to claim sway over him who possesses the talismans of Solomon! Farewell, Aben Habuz; reign over thy petty kingdom, and revel in thy paradise of fools; for me, I will laugh at thee in my philosophic retirement.”

So saying he seized the bridle of the palfrey, smote the earth with his staff, and sank with the Gothic princess through the centre of the barbican. The earth closed over them, and no trace remained of the opening by which they had descended.

Aben Habuz was struck dumb for a time with astonishment. Recovering himself, he ordered a thousand workmen to dig, with pickaxe and spade, into the ground where the astrologer had disappeared. They digged and digged, but in vain; the flinty bosom of the hill resisted their implements; or if they did penetrate a little way, the earth filled in again as fast as they threw it out. Aben Habuz sought the mouth of the cavern at the foot of the hill, leading to the subterranean palace of the astrologer; but it was nowhere to be found. Where once had been an entrance, was now a solid surface of primeval rock. With the disappearance of Ibrahim Ebn Abu Ayub ceased the benefit of his talismans. The bronze horseman remained fixed, with his face turned toward the hill, and his spear pointed to the spot where the astrologer had descended, as if there still lurked the deadliest foe of Aben Habuz.

From time to time the sound of music, and the tones of a female voice, could be faintly heard from the bosom of the hill; and a peasant one day brought word to the king, that in the preceding night he had found a fissure in the rock, by which he had crept in, until he looked down into a subterranean hall, in which sat the astrologer, on a magnificent divan, slumbering and nodding to the silver lyre of the princess, which seemed to hold a magic sway over his senses.

Aben Habuz sought the fissure in the rock, but it was again closed. He renewed the attempt to unearth his rival, but all in vain. The spell of the hand and key was too potent to be counteracted by human power. As to the summit of the mountain, the site of the promised palace and garden, it remained a naked waste; either the boasted elysium was hidden from sight by enchantment, or was a mere fable of the astrologer. The world charitably supposed the latter, and some used to call the place “The King’s Folly,” while others named it “The Fool’s Paradise.”

To add to the chagrin of Aben Habuz, the neighbors whom he had defied and taunted, and cut up at his leisure while master of the talismanic horseman, finding him no longer protected by magic spell, made inroads into his territories from all sides, and the remainder of the life of the most pacific of monarchs was a tissue of turmoils.

At length Aben Habuz died, and was buried. Ages have since rolled away. The Alhambra has been built on the eventful mountain, and in some measure realizes the fabled delights of the garden of Irem. The spell-bound gateway still exists entire, protected no doubt by the mystic hand and key, and now forms the Gate of Justice, the grand entrance to the fortress. Under that gateway, it is said, the old astrologer remains in his subterranean hall, nodding on his divan, lulled by the silver lyre of the princess.

The old invalid sentinels who mount guard at the gate hear the strains occasionally in the summer nights; and, yielding to their soporific power, doze quietly at their posts. Nay, so drowsy an influence pervades the place, that even those who watch by day may generally be seen nodding on the stone benches of the barbican, or sleeping under the neighboring trees, so that in fact it is the drowsiest military post in all Christendom. All this, say the ancient legends, will endure from age to age. The princess will remain captive to the astrologer; and the astrologer, bound up in magic slumber by the princess, until the last day, unless the mystic hand shall grasp the fated key, and dispel the whole charm of this enchanted mountain.

Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez and his cabinet have approved a draft proposal to get t 74% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030, a little over a decade from now, and the government is hoping for 120 gigawatts of green energy by then. It is also hoping that 22% of its vehicles will be electric by then. Madrid is hoping to go down to carbon emissions levels not seen since the 1970s.

Sanchez proposes spending $53 billion on the plans, which will save nearly $80 billion in the cost of importing petroleum and other hydrocarbons.

Spain intends to more than double wind energy from 23k megawatts to 50k MW, and to grow solar PV by a factor of 7. Spain hopes to be using virtually no coal by 2030. The intent is to increase storage capacity by 6 gigawatts, as well, by that year.

Spain is only one of 5 of the 28 members of the European Union who are aiming for 100% electricity generation from renewables by 2050.

These plans are those of a fragile Socialist government and progress could be slowed if the Right gets back in, via snap elections in April. Still, the Socialists are projected to be the biggest party in parliament and may not be reduced to complete irrelevance even if a rightwing coalition can get a majority.

Since many government bids are already being let, and since the price of solar panels and wind turbines is dropping rapidly, the momentum may be difficult to slow. On top of that, Spain has obligations of reducing carbon emissions owing to being in the European Union.

Further, the province of Catalonia and especially the city of Barcelona, are putting in green energy, regardless of what the central government does.

In 2018, sun-powered electricity in Spain nearly doubled, because of a drop in the price of solar panels. That is, the goals discussed above may be far too conservative, and progress toward 100% green energy will likely come faster than the Spanish government now envisages, driven as much by consumers’ desire to save money and improved efficiency and lower prices, i.e. by market mechanisms, even if the government becomes less ambitious.

Meanwhile, the Belearic Islands and 26 other European Union islands are planning to be net carbon zero by 2050, and to begin closing coal fired elecricity plants. After 2035, new car sales must be of electric vehicles. Tourism destinations such as Ibiza will benefit from having green energy, not only in reducing damaging air pollution, but also because holiday makers are starting to shop for green destinations.

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Bonus video:

Sener Group: “Gemasolar, concentrated solar power plant (Spain)”

Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, spoke at a conference of EU leaders in Austria, saying that the Spanish government will promote an EU move to recognize Palestine.

Borrell said that “if the EU is not able to reach a unanimous decision, then each to their own.”

He added that if the move fails, the Spanish government will consider a Spain-only recognition, noting that “the last option of individual recognition of Palestine is on the table.”

Borrell confirmed that he will initiate an “intensive” consultation process to set a timetable for achieving a common position on the given subject, as EU policy is unclear concerning unilateral recognition.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) said that there are 139 countries that have recognized Palestine.

In January, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the EU to recognize Palestine as an independent state within the 1967 borders, following the United States Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and subsequently moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Additionally, in 2017, the Spanish government requested that Israel denounce the recognition of Catalonia as an independent state, however, Israel declined to support either side, calling it an “internal European conflict.”

Featured Photo: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de España, in Palacio de Santa Cruz in Madrid. By Luis García (Zaqarbal), This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Via Maan News Agency