In Cordoba by Alamgir Hashmi

Cordoban,

step into a new pair of shoes.

There, your footprints in the azure

stretching over Andalusia!

Go softly through its lanes.

The city melts in the mouth

like candy floss.

What remains is relict.

The Guadalquiver divides here less

from the force of water - the riparian

rites of the Berbers not forgotten -

than the leathersmell flowing

from one end to the beginning;

man-smell, skin-smell,

the smell of conquest and vanquishing;

the almond blossoms on trees nodding

to the south wind.

History abuts here again

to its own explanations;

the Alcazar's Roman bridge,

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the river meandering across

the fields of cotton, corn and barley

to the Atlantic Ocean;

new electrical fittings, of course,

and chapters of endless olives.

Outside the lichened Arabic walls

Averros waits,

while the city's angels take new language courses

and operate the official grapevine.

But you haven't walked out of it yet -

a white handkerchief across the city's face.

Near La Masqita

and let heaven's music fill in for light -

turn the shadows in the nave

back to the rows, people.

So you will not avert

the breezes from the Yemen

or your silent prayer

through this watchful arch of time

(to a God who will bless

without design, not convert).

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Alamgir Hashmi also known as Aurangzeb Alamgir Hashmi (born
November 15, 1951), is an English poet of Pakistani origin. Considered avant-garde, his
early and later works were published to considerable critical acclaim and popularity. He
was a practicing transnational humanist and educator in North American, European and
Asian universities. He argued for a "comparative" aesthetic to foster humane cultural
norms. He showed and advocated new paths of reading the classical and modern texts
and emphasized the sublime nature, position and pleasures of language arts to be
shared, rejecting their reduction to social or professional utilities. He produced many
books of seminal literary and critical importance as well as series of lectures and essays
(such as "Modern Letters") in the general press.

Ibn Rushd : Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Rushd; (1126 –1198),
often Latinized asAverroes was an Andalusian philosopher and thinker who wrote
about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics,
Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics. His philosophical works include
numerous commentaries on Aristotle, for which he was known in the West as The
Commentator. He also served as a judge and a court physician for the Almohad
caliphate.

He was born in Córdoba in 1126 to a family of prominent judges—his grandfather was

the celebrated chief judge of the city. In 1169 he was introduced to the caliph Abu Yaqub
Yusuf, who was impressed with his knowledge, became his patron and commissioned
many of Averroes' commentaries. Averroes later served multiple terms as a judge
in Seville and Córdoba. In 1182, he was appointed as court physician and the chief
judge of Córdoba. After Abu Yusuf's death in 1184, he remained in royal favor until he
fell into disgrace in 1195. He was targeted on various charges—likely for political
reasons—and was exiled to nearby Lucena. He returned to royal favor shortly before his
death on December 11, 1198.

Averroes was a strong proponent of Aristotelianism; he attempted to restore what he

considered the original teachings of Aristotle and opposed the Neoplatonisttendencies
of earlier Muslim thinkers, such as Al-Farabiand Avicenna. He also defended the pursuit
of philosophy against criticism by Ashari theologians such as Al-Ghazali. Averroes
argued that philosophy was permissible in Islam and even compulsory among certain
elites. He also argued scriptural text should be interpreted allegorically if it appeared to
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contradict conclusions reached by reason and philosophy. His legacy in the Islamic
world was modest for geographical and intellectual reasons.

In the West, Averroes was known for his extensive commentaries on Aristotle, many of
which were translated into Latin and Hebrew. The translations of his work reawakened
Western European interest in Aristotle and Greek thinkers, an area of study that had
been widely abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. His thoughts generated
controversies in Latin Christendom and triggered a philosophical movement
called Averroism based on his writings. His unity of the intellect thesis, proposing that all
humans share the same intellect, became one of the most well-known and controversial
Averroist doctrines in the West. His works were condemned by the Catholic Church in
1270 and 1277. Although weakened by the condemnations and sustained critique
by Thomas Aquinas, Latin Averroism continued to attract followers up to the sixteenth
century.