纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 062希伯来星盘（6）（在线收听）

"Well, as I see it, the essence of multi-culturalism is the preservation of the distinctive identity of the different religious and ethnic communities in a society. And for much of the period of Islamic rule, the policy of the rulers was to accept that diversity, even if it regarded Christians and Jews as adherents of inferior faiths. The Christian rulers when they took over did much the same, because they had no other option really, and at the same time of course, there was really no intermarriage. Intermarriage was forbidden between these communities So it is a limited multi-culturalism. And that doesn't of course prevent a great deal of mutual interaction, particularly at the cultural level. So the result is a civilisation which was vibrant and creative and original, because of this contact between the three races."

This mutual interaction had, a couple of centuries earlier, put medieval Spain at the forefront of the expansion of knowledge in Europe. Not only was there growing scientific knowledge around astronomical instruments like our astrolabe, but it was also in Spain that the works of the ancient Greek philosophers - above all Aristotle - were translated into Latin and entered the intellectual bloodstream of modern Europe. And this pioneering work depended on the constant interchange between Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars.