For the youth of today,
when you talk about Spain, what easily comes to their mind are the legendary
football clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona. Two major football clubs that
provide entertaining football on weekly basis to their fans.
However, the story of
Spain goes beyond football. It is the story of a civilization whose impact
continues to be relevant today. By God’s
providence, I enrolled for a study in one of the leading tertiary institutions
in Spain, the IE Business School back in 2014. For the next 18 months, I came
to understand the people, culture and educational system of this former empire,
called Al-Andalus.
It was a multi-campus
programme between Madrid, Jeddah, Boston and Berkeley. Of course, the primary
aim of visiting these cities was to receive lectures, but at the back of my
mind was to explore the historical edifices that still attract attention and
provide interesting lessons in history.
On arrival in Madrid,
the university surprised us with a number of historical visits within the city.
The biggest surprise from the perspective of the coordinators was an official tour
of the Santiagou Bernebeu the stadium of Real Madrid.
While we appreciate the
effort of the school administrators, my mind was elsewhere. Having read about
the contribution of Andalusia in the development of science, education, arts,
literature, and how this former empire contributed in shaping the technological
advancement of the Western World, my heart was thinking about one city, Cordoba
or Kurduba as it is known in the Muslim World.
But before sharing the
story of Cordoba, let us go back to Madrid. Madrid is currently the capital of
Spain and the city has undergone several transformations. Although one of the
leading cities in the Europe, historical sources have documented the origin of
the name of the city, part of which was from the Arabic term, Almajrit.
The Arabs gave it this name due to the proximity of the city to a river.
It is also on record
that the city has produced famous scientists whose contribution remain relevant
to date. One of such scientists was Abul Qasim, Masalama, Al-Qurtubi Al-Majriti.
Almajriti was an astronomer, chemist, economist and Islamic scholar.
According to the
Islamic encyclopedia: “Al-Majriti’s work in
Chemistry had indeed produced some momentous contributions. He is greatly
credited for his notable chemical treatise, Rutbat al-Hakim, which, amongst other things,
described formulae and procedures for the purification of precious metals.
It
is in this work that Maslama attempted to prove the principle of mass
conservation, credited eight centuries later to Lavoisier. Exact details of
such attempts are not available at the present time, yet inferences from his
experiment on Mercury prove that he was alert to the almost non-existent change
in the weight of the mass after the reaction.”
In fact,
his classical book, Kitab Ghayat Al-Hakim (the goal of the wise) has
been made available by University of Pennsylvania’s online library through the
Hathi Trust for those who might be interested.
Therefore,
as we prepare on the morning of the visit to Santiago Bernebeu in the autumn of
2014, I knew that I was working through history. That the story of Madrid and
Spain outweighs the popularity and athletes of Cristiano Ronaldo, and more
skillful intellectuals have been produced, whose contribution by far eclipsed
the dribbles of Lionel Messi. Of course nothing would be taken away from both
Ronaldo and Messi, but certainly there were heroes from various ethnicities,
nationalities and faiths that made the story of Spain possible.
As we
disembarked from the bus that brought us to Santiago Bernebeu, about 40 of us
from different nationalities, Nigerians. Egyptians, Saudis, Americans, Indians,
Pakistanis, Senegalese, Gambians and many more. Almost everyone got himself busy
taking pictures of this huge stadium that keeps many people awake in different
parts of the world.
It was
early in the morning, and we went round every nook and cranny of the stadium.
From the football pitch, to the dressing rooms of the players. We saw the
preparation area of players, from Ronaldo, Benzema, Rodriquez to Pepe, Bale
etc. A replica of La Decema, the
10th Champions League trophy was also on display. In fact it was the
centre of attraction.
Next
after the visit to the Real Madrid Stadium, was a visit to Sobrino de Botin,
believed to be the oldest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness
World Book of Record.
To be
continued…
28.11.1437
31.08.2016
10:12 pm
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