The Muslim Struggle for Civil Rights in Spain: Promoting Democracy through Migrant Engagement, 1985-2010

摘要

Spain's relationship with Islam is hardly a novel field of study. Academic analyses of the impact of Arabs and Berbers on peninsular society and culture upon landing at Gibraltar in 711 CE stretch back to the early nineteenth century. Much debate centres on whether al-Andalus had lasting significance in the development of Spain or was a mere parenthesis. Guia's book builds on those studies which argue that the Muslim presence in Spain until the expulsion of the moriscos in 1609-1614 shaped modern and contemporary attitudes (Americo Castro in the mid-twentieth century; Susan Martin-Marquez's Disorientations and Daniela Flesler's The Return of the Moor more recently) by detailing the impact of Spain's present Muslim population on society. Her publication will be of particular interest to scholars of immigration in Spain for its acknowledgement of the nation's new ethnic minorities as willing agents of change rather than the passive objects to which they have often been reduced in what remains a nascent field. Yet-and perhaps precisely because she endeavours to balance her contribution to these two areas-one finds Guia's focus occasionally drifts from what her title implies and from what of value her book holds.