The Islamic Conquest of Spain

    The theme for this weeks reading is the Muslims advancing more into the European area, with their conquest of Spain taking over the lands and creating their own civilization.

      Some Sources that I have found on my own was that the Muslim general Tariq Ziyad was the one who was able to carry out the Spanish coast in 710. I also found out the the Islamic of Spain had three great monotheistic religions: Muslims, Christianity and Jews. The Muslims central rule or the heartland that was being conquered was Southern Spain or is known as Andulusia.

      Ideas that stood out to me was when Ilyan had sent his one of his daughters to Roderic, and he ended up getting her pregnant and this showed how women were treated. Some of the women were abused and taken advantage of fairly often back then. Women were becoming slaves or hostages to these men and there was no trust any more between men or woman it had become chaos. The chaos of trust over things such as land had turned out to be war along with other terrible things that were beginning to occur. It did not really surprise me about women being treated unequally towards men, because women did not have any rights what so ever over any thing, and it seemed they were just to be taken advantage to be slaves or hostages nothing really special. They have been controlled by men constantly it became something that they could never escape from. Another part of this reading that stood out for was when it mentioned that Muslims were cannibals when they were only to get attention of Tarik and his army it became a counteract. This just showed me how they were go so far to get the attention from them. It also showed me how they were sort of being judge in some kind of way when they pulled that counteract, they just assumed that the Muslims were cannibals instead of just starting to get to know them better as people or as a culture. Another Idea came to mind that Tarik was able to give the treasury and hand it to Musa, and this showed that he was loyal. I was thinking that in this time frame that people were not really easy to trust because of so much land and treasure that was being taken over. 

      Some ideas that I generated was the exchanging of women and how they were actually being treated between the men. They did not have any rights for themselves and they were constantly being controlled by their fathers, husbands or even their slave owners. It also mentioned the Muslims counteracting about cannibalism I thought it was weird and awkward, it just seemed to me that there are some religions who do awkward things to people who are unfamiliar with their religion or how they treat people within their own religion. Another idea that I generated was that majority of this conquering was over land, how much was being taken over and who was owning the most land it seemed like to me. The land was an issue it was becoming something that everyone wanted to have.

    Parallels that I was able to see was able to see was that women were being controlled in this period and that it still carries on today by arrange marriages in some countries such as India. I believe it is something that has always been around and it is something that has never changed. The second thing was again the cannibalism and that it shows how some cultures tend to awkward disturbing things to people whether it is in their culture or not. Today what I have learned is that there are cultures who torture women if they disobey some how towards their men or their laws that they have to follow. Even with men they are torture if they disobeyed the laws that were given to them. After learning this both men and women get treated unequally if they tortured in some horrible drastic way, some of this takes place in the country such as Iraq. I believe this kind of torture and controlling has been carried on for the longest time in history and it is still carried on today.I believe that it is some what worst today then when it was back in that time period of the Islamic.

      One thing that is related to the text book is that Spain was one of the greatest civilizations that was created by the Muslims, and it was carried on into the tenth century by Umayyad Caliphate.

   

The Early History of Hellenes

The theme that I believed of this would be the Hellenes were really trying to live their own lives. They never stayed in one place they were always moving trying to find a descent place to actually live. While they were trying to live peacefully they actually ended up in the middle of a war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. The Athenians came to build an army and starting to control, so in a way the Hellenes were in war between them. They seemed to be one of the civilizations to actual struggle through their life. Something that I have researched while reading this is that Thucydides was an Athenian who was a Greek Historian, he was known as the father of "Scientific History". Because he had strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis with the terms of cause and effect without having the references of mentioning Gods, unlike how Homer believed the references of Gods. While reading this I have realized that there was more conflict and war between the different civilizations. When the Hellenes the Hellenes were having trouble to just survive they were in a place where they were between war, and they seemed to be able not to escape what so ever from the war,and it seemed that there were armies taking over them. They seemed lost and became controlled in a lot of ways by the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. I was thinking a lot about the Hellenes about what they went through just to live their own lives and you start to really think about all of the other civilizations that were forming and their own struggles. You never realize how far they have come to survive from war and other conflicts involved back in Greece rather it is good or bad. At the end of reading this it made think about all of civilizations in the world, and this what came to mind for me. What were some other civilizations struggles? what conflicts did they go through? I had a lot questions about this, but after reading about the Hellenes it was sort of an eye opener for me in many ways. History has a lot to offer to us, but I believe it is up to us to understand it and just learn about the past. With the Hellenes going through their struggles with their life, it made me think about out our own struggles today in life. We have war going on today in Iraq, we had terrorism occur, and other conflicts in life. Think about it we live in a world of conflicts, so we could actually be a civilization trying to live a peaceful life just like how the Hellenes were in Greece. Knowing this we do have conflicts, but there are times we could escape them and there are others we can not. The Hellenes for that matter could not escape, so they were being controlled in a lot of ways. For us today we do have freedom, government, and we have more power then the Hellenes ever did for there own lives. Civilizations went through war to have peace, just like America has to do today in Iraq. The ideas relate to the Hellenes with their conflicts that they had went through to live as a civilization, they were between a war and being controlled. They could not escape from the conflicts, so they had to just go with whatever that was coming at them. This became harder for them to just live a life to survive through, and when the war was going on with them in the middle it became harder for them to be free.

Reading One

The Theme of reading " The Babylonian Epic of Creation" is considered to be the creation of the Earth. It went through a process of creating life on Earth, and the different understandings of creating Earth and life existing before today ever existed. It was something that took a long time to understand of what Earth was going to be like. what I have researched about this creation is that the Enum Elish was officially recited every April on the fourth day of the Babylonian New year festival and it went on for eleven days. When I was reading through this the one thing that sort of stood out to me was that Aspu wanted to kill his own children. That was something that surprised me, and it was a thought to me that, why would any body want to kill their own children? I thought about that when I have finished and it was something that became shocking to me. Ideas that came to mind to me was knowing that when this creation was taking place never did I think that killing or any kind of violence would be taking place. When reading that Aspu wanted to kill his own children you actually think about that God loved his children, and you would think that parents cherished their own children until you start to read about what Aspu wanted. Parallels that I could take from this to our own worlds would be the child abuse that is occurring today and from " The Babylonian epic Creation". It seemed that both of them were similar in some ways, and today you see or hear of how children are being treated by parents. You see this on the news so many times and knowing that this child abuse occurred in the Creation. This was something so surprising to me that this abuse could have lasted since the beginning to now. This relates to text by when Aspu wanting to kill his own children for punishment in some way. He wanted them to have discipline and the only way that he thought could be possible was to kill them. It seemed that he did not really cherish his own children such as his wife did, but again he thought to kill them was the only way possible.