A review of the concluding pages

The author concludes the book with two beautiful chapters. In the 'Alhambra' chapter, we are told of the fall of the last Muslim bastion in the Iberian peninsula. The event was tragic and theatrical at the same time. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, dressed in Muslim garbs, climbed the stairs of the Alhambra in Granada and claimed the place to be their new 'casa real', their new Royal residence. Earlier, they had agreed to the Agreements of Capitulation by Muhammad XI (Boabdil). One can read in these agreements that they will allow the Muslims to practice their faith, not destroy their mosques and their minarets and not interfere with their customs and rites. Boabdil would leave the city sighing in regret ('the Moor's last sigh'), it is recounted, chastised by his mother "who observes tartly that he should not cry like a woman for a place he would not defend like a man". That day was January 2 1492, the same year Spain would sail to the New World.

The Christian Monarchs quickly abrogated the agreements they signed with Boabdil and started persecuting the Muslims and the Jews and forced them to convert. Reading Arabic books were prohibited and the books burned. The Edict of Expulsion for the Jews were signed in March 31, 1492. Those who wanted to stay back had to convert to Christianity (Jews becoming Conversos and Muslims Morriscos). Among those who decided to leave was a Jew, Luis de Torres. He decided to embark on the ships of Columbus who would hire him to speak Arabic to the Indians once they would reach India. After all, Arabic was the language of the civilized world and Columbus thought that the Indians, would most naturally, talk Arabic.

In the 'La Mancha' chapter, the author paints a dreary picture of Morriscos leaving in a city where they are being persecuted. They live outwardly as Christians while hanging inwardly to their Islamic religion and culture. The model city of tolerance and civilization finally succumbed, after 700 years, to a more radical, narrow-minded nation. In this city, Cervantes could have probably found the works written by the Arab historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli, which he republished as "Don Quixote de La Mancha". The book itself and more importantly the genre would heavily influence the development of literature in the Spanish New World.

The book ends recounting some remnants of the great Al-Andalusian culture of tolerance that once was. As Harold Bloom mentioned so accurately in the foreword, the book, recounting the rise and fall of the Muslim civilization in Europe, leaves one with a sense of loss but also with a mixed sense of sadness and hope.