By the mid-eighth century, the “vital spark” had spread to engulf the entire northwest of the peninsula; over the following centuries, various kingdoms, whose core identity revolved around Christian defiance to Islam — later manifested as the Reconquista — had evolved from this mustard seed. “Covadonga became the symbol of Christian resistance to Islam and a source of inspiration to those who, in words attributed to Pelayo, would achieve the salus Spanie, the salvation of Spain.”
After centuries of brutal warfare, by 1492, the last Muslim-held territory in Spain, Granada, was liberated. And it all came to pass thanks to Pelayo’s Asturian mustard seed, planted nearly eight hundred years earlier at the battle of Covadonga.
Despite this encounter’s importance for Spain — it was regularly celebrated, including in 1918 (at the height of the Spanish Flu) with Spanish monarchs in attendance — it remains virtually unknown in the West, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and Islamic “golden age” myths.
Raymond Ibrahim