Today, the legacy of Al Andalus is highly contested. While Osama bin Laden and other radicals have called repeatedly for the return of Al Andalus to Muslim hands — that is, for the Islamic reconquest of Spain and implicitly Europe — others look to Al Andalus as an almost utopian era of peaceful coexistence among Christians, Muslims and Jews.

There’s something really profound here and it goes deep into the psychology of Islamism. While well meaning westerners (of which I certainly was one of when I started to become politically conscious) look at Israel and Palestine and often see neo-colonialism, Islamists see Jerusalem and see the Al-Aqsa Mosque under Jewish control. Islamism is a very conservative movement and conservatism, in its truest form, seeks to restore or preserve an old order.