TOLEDO, Spain — The cities of Toledo, Ohio, and Toledo, Spain, are 5,000 miles and a continent apart. One is in northwest Ohio and the other is in the middle of Spain. But the cities have something special in common.
They have been sister cities since 1931, the oldest sister city relationship in the world. The cultural links between the two cities, however, go back to 1835. The Blade, our newspaper, takes its name from the world-famous blades made in Toledo, Spain.
In 1971 our sister city named a street after Toledo, Ohio, and we reciprocated by creating a green space, Toledo Spain Plaza, at the corner of Monroe and Collingwood streets. In the same year, our city gifted a Toledo-manufactured Jeep to the police department of Toledo, Spain.
A few months ago, while on a visit to Spain, I visited Toledo.
First, how does one pronounce Toledo? In Ohio, we pronounce it as it is written. However in Spain they pronounce it To-Laydo, which is derived from the Arabic Talitala.
Toledo, Spain, is an ancient city dating back to the Roman era and is mentioned by the Roman historian Livy. It was built on a low hilly terrain that is surrounded on three sides by the Tagus River. That is why the city was built on such a defensible terrain.
Until the arrival of the Muslim Moors, Toledo had successively been ruled by the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Christians. It was here during the Christian rule — between 400 and 702 CE — that the Council of Toledo met to decide on matters of discipline, uniformity of liturgy, laws against Jews, and their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. As such those councils exerted an important influence on the development of ecclesiastical law.
The Moors ruled the city from 711 to 1085 CE. Toledo was the first major city to fall to Christian armies in what the historians call Reconquista or re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The city, however, reached its zenith during the Moor rule. Here for 374 years a unique culture emerged where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived and coexisted peacefully, and together they fueled unprecedented advances in the arts, literature, philosophy, architecture, and various sciences. Hence it was called the “City of Three Cultures.” While at the time Paris and London were rather backwater cities, Toledo boasted elevated pedestrian footpaths, enchanting gardens, and 14 miles of city streets that were lit at night with perfumed oil. After the conquest of Toledo by the Christian King Alfonso VI, Toledo remained a tolerant city for a few more centuries.
It all changed in 1492 with the fall of Granada, the last bastion of Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, to Christian forces. After that Toledo ceased to be a tolerant city. Although Jews and Muslims had been persecuted elsewhere on the peninsula, the defeat of the Moors led to a large-scale expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Toledo and other cities. They were given a choice of either converting to Catholicism or leaving. Those who converted but continued to practice their faith in secret were burned at the stake. Synagogues and mosques were turned either into churches or museums.
One such synagogue is the Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca. A marvel of Moorish architecture, it was originally called Ibn Shushan Synagogue and Congregational Synagogue of Toledo. It is the oldest synagogue in Europe and at the time it was considered second only to Jerusalem in religious importance to the Jews. It is now owned and operated as a museum by the Catholic Church. The synagogue was constructed in Moorish style by Muslim artisans and was embellished with Islamic motifs.
Ejaz Rahim, a celebrated Pakistani poet, in his poem Let the Andalusian Rivers Speak, talks about the unique multicultural society that existed in Toledo and across southern Spain under the Moors. It says in part:
Yet how can one forget
The aroma left behind
By threesome roses grown
In the garden of Spain
Together they defined
A new spirit, another age
Giving shape
To an Andulusian legacy
Of universality
And tolerance
Today, Toledo’s skyline is dominated by two impressive buildings. On the highest point is Alcazar (Arabic Al-Qasar or the palace) that dates back to the Roman times. It has served as a palace, fort, and during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) a place of refuge and resistance against the forces of nationalist Francisco Franco.
The other landmark is the cathedral that was built in the post-Moor era over the demolished Grand Mosque. It took 267 years to complete, and it is one of the greatest Gothic structures in all of Europe. It towers over the city and can be seen from almost any direction.
Holy Toledo!
In 1561 King Filipe II moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid, 45 miles south. The nobility followed the imperial court and left their possessions to the Roman Catholic Church. Even though Toledo lost population, it still had a disproportionately large number of churches, 49 in all, and an equally large number of priests and monks in the city. Because of this the people started calling it Holy Toledo.
Our own town in northwest Ohio is also called holy Toledo but for a different reason. In the 1920s when gangsters would be run out of Chicago, they would, on sighting a safe Toledo, would call out Holy Toledo. Whatever the origin, the phrase has become a popular one.
One of the notable residents of Toledo, Spain, was the famous artist El Greco. Born in Greece, he learned the craft of painting in Rome and eventually settled in Toledo. He produced a large body of religious art for the churches and monasteries of Toledo and after the passage of 500 years his work still dazzles. His most famous and monumental work is a mural painted on the wall of the Church of Saint Tome in Toledo titled The Burial of Count de Orgaz.
Another famous El Greco painting, The Agony in the Garden, is in the Toledo Museum of Art. That painting, as well as the sister city connection, brought the world-famous exhibition of El Greco paintings to the Toledo Museum of Art in 1982. Another artistic connection between the two cities is a beautiful relief of Toledo, Ohio, and Toledo, Spain, displayed in the lobby of Real Seafood Restaurant in International Park in the city.
While worlds apart, Toledo, Ohio, and Toledo, Spain, are closer than many other sister cities in the world. While walking through the hilly city and its narrow alleys one can see the present seamlessly mesh with the past and can hear the echoes of a drama that has been unfolding here for more than 2,000 years.
S. Amjad Hussain is an emeritus professor of surgery and humanities at the University of Toledo. His column appears every other Wednesday in The Blade. Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net.
First Published May 27, 2019, 12:14 p.m.
