the one thing i want to say as i finish my eggs and leading into the next period is this - karma's a bitch, isn't it?
this is also where the islamic mythology stops being silly and starts interfering with real history, which is partly what it's engineered to do. the almoravids would actually agree with me, in suggesting that islamic spain wasn't that different than the rest of europe, in a lot of ways. but, when you approach the situation with this near-myth of islamic tolerance, these punitive taxes don't come off as retribution but as aggression. it's only in recognizing the nature of the caste system (with it's punitive taxes) put in place by the muslims that the punitive taxes enacted by the christians in response, once they took over, can be seen as retribution; if you weren't presented with it that way, you might almost even see it as a reason to take the side of the almoravids, who were there to liberate the muslims from these barbarians and their vicious taxes.
cheek-turning aside, he gets the point across that there was still substantive resistance to islamic rule in the 11th century, even if he skips the opportunity to point out that the heavy taxes were a little bit of their own medicine.
the reconquista gets a lot of shit from the contemporary fake-left, and it's partly in not understanding the context, due to having the issue framed in a biased manner. oppressive taxation is one thing, but i can tell you that i wouldn't have any problem standing in solidarity with anybody fighting against these almoravids - for as long as it took to drive them back into the sea.