Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree Part 1

Greg Stewart

    I found the first half of the novel to be extremely interesting.  The story was a bit tough to follow because of the similarity between the names as we discussed in class.  I really enjoyed the drama that goes down with Umar's family.  I found the scenes within the bathhouses very satisfying because they would discuss all of the problems going on.  It provided a fairly in depth history of the Islamic reactions to Christian threats.  I had trouble putting the book down because I am very excited to see what happens to Zudahl.  I am very eager to see how Al-Zindiq handles the young men and whether or not anyone will leave.
     I found the history of Islamic culture in Spain to one with many influences.  I had been aware of the presence of Islamic culture in Spain, but I did not have such a deep understanding of it until this class.  I was not aware of the fact that Spain was controlled by a Muslim kingdom for so long.  The novel does a great job of tying in historical figures into the story line.  The dichotomy between Ximenes de Cisneros and Talavera as two characters who represent different ideas on how they should go about removing everybody who is not Christian from Spain is brilliant; the two characters clearly showing the two extremes that the Christian Church believed would be most effective.  The more effective of the ideas is clearly Cisneros approach, but is clearly immoral.  While trying to persuade the non-Christians was not much more ethical than forcing them.