Darío Fernández-Morera

“The oft-repeated assertion that Islam “preserved” classical knowledge and then graciously passed it on to Europe is baseless. Ancient Greek texts and Greek culture were never “lost” to be somehow “recovered” and “transmitted” by Islamic scholars, as so many academic historians and journalists continue to write: these texts were always there, preserved and studied by the monks and lay scholars of the Greek Roman Empire and passed on to Europe and to the Islamic empire at various times.”
― Darío Fernández-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain

“It is significant that Muslim leaders punished their own if they suspected a lack of Islamic zeal. Muslim warriors could be punished with death for apostasy, which contributed to the fervor of the invaders. According to al-Qutiyya, when Musa Ibn Nusayr’s son was named governor, he married the wife of King Rodrigo and began adopting Christian ways—and military leaders cut his head off in the mihrab of a mosque and sent his head to the caliph.”
― Darío Fernández-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain