A departure and a return: In the legend of Moorish Spain, Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, is said to have paused on a ridge for a final glimpse of the realm he had just surrendered to the Castilians. Henceforth, the occasion, and the place, would be known as El عltimo Suspiro del Moro, The Moor’s Last Sigh. The date was Jan. 2, 1492.
More than five centuries later, on March 11, 2004, there would be a “Moorish” return. In the morning rush hour, 10 bombs tore through four commuter trains in Madrid, killing more than 200 people and wounding some 1,500. It was the deadliest terror attack in Europe since World War II. This was not quite a Muslim reconquista (recapturing) of the Iberian peninsula, but a circle was closed, and Islam was, once again, a matter of Western Europe. *HERE* <http://1426.blogspot.com/2009/08/strangers-in-land.html>
