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Entry: Hitchens' Haj Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_haj#7057 Post contents: "Moorish spain was an aberration, a filthy colony colonized by the swill from the south." The North was pretty filthy too at the time; 8th century Germany was filthier (literally) than Moorish Spain, and Charlemagne was still trying to bring the hordes of German pagans to heel. The swift German reversion to Paganism from 1933-1945 indicates the Christianisation of Germany was a half-baked job. But Charlemagne was on good terms, from a safe distance, with the Caliph of Baghdad, who sent him an elephant as a gift between heads of state. Some wag said it would be analogous to the President of the United States sending a Cadillac to the tribal overlord of some benighted African land of grass huts and illiterates. Of course Charlemagne and Charles Martel saved Western civilisation. Good. But it's always a mistake to underestimate the enemy or the enemy's virtues, and to say the Moorish invaders from the South were more "filthy" than the Northern Europeans is just, well, the opposite of what was true at the time. Sent at: 2008 07 06