Islam and the West: The Moriscos; A Cultural and Social History

Hawwa, 2021

Through an assessment of the data recorded in two books of habices (Span., libros de habices – inventories of goods from Islamic pious endowments) dated 1527 and 1530, this study examines the situation of Morisco women in the Alpujarra, a rural area of Granada, just three decades after the forced conversion of the Muslim population to Christianity. Various aspects of the economic and social position of these women are explored, paying particular attention to their participation in the legal framework related to property ownership and the transfer of their possessions in the form of bequests. Although the study focuses primarily on the Morisco period, its most immediate precedent, Islamic and Mudéjar Granada, is not forgotten.

2012

n the “Captive’s tale” in Don Quijote, Dorotea asks about the Moorish looking companion of the Christian captive “esta senora, ?es cristiana o mora? Porque el traje y el silencio nos hace pensar que es lo que no querriamos que fuese.” Israel Burshatin noted that Dorotea’s curiosity seeks not to confirm the idealized peculiarities of Moorish dress, but is a part of a larger interpretive process. This is the initial step in what Burshatin has described as a sixteenth-century practice of disposing the Moriscosnewly converted Muslims– on condition of their spirituality, and thereby reducing the identity of Spanish Muslims entirely to biblical exegesis (115). Additionally, Dorotea’s inquisitiveness suggests her role as a collective mouthpiece, which in order to quell her anxiety toward Muslim otherness probed the status of the mora’s conversion. Indeed, the ubiquitous nature of unrest felt toward the “Morisco problem” span over a hundred years leading up to their expulsion and is vastly ...

Franciscan Studies, 2013

This work is the result of studies led by me during my long stay in Blanca (Murcia, Spain). At the same time the desire awoke in me to learn more about the culture of this territory. The darkness and oblivion opposed my purpose, of a nation that almost for eight centuries dominated in Spain. On the other hand the political history of the Spanish Arabs (Muslims) in Murcia remained in the deepest darkness until recently. I do not deny the glory of Dozy and the immense service he has done with its publications to Spain, but we cannot ignore that today we have Arabists in Muria and Spain who follow the footsteps of the wise Dutch and have improved on him a lot. Murcia belonged to Al-Andalus and throughout the period of Islamic rule, Al-Andalus was a remarkable example and outstanding model of tolerance. All Jews and Christians were allowed to maintain their beliefs and live their lives as they desired as long as they respected their Muslim rulers. The Muslims played a principal role in the history of Spain. Their presence illuminated the Iberian Peninsula while the rest of Europe was engulfed in darkness. And so, Andalusia produced a great civilization far ahead and advanced than the rest of Europe. Under their rule, Muslims made Spain a center for learning and knowledge.

American and Muslim Worlds before 1900, 2020

During the 16th century, the conversion of the Muslims and the Christianization of the Moriscos of Spain gave rise to large debates among the counsellors of the Catholic Kings and Church members in the definition of the royal policies vis-à-vis this minority. The precedent of the forced conversion of the Jews appears to be present at the various stages and on various issues concerning these debates. This lecture aims to analyze the extent of the “Jewish precedent” over the Morisco phenomenon, showing a strong link between the conversion and/or expulsion of the Jews and the conversion and/or expulsion of the Muslims and Moriscos from Iberian soil.

This essay proposes a number of possible new spaces for the study of Islam in the Americas, relating this field to questions of cultural relationship in the medieval Mediterranean world – particularly Spain and Italy – and their projection in the Atlantic. After reviewing some of the ways in which Islam shaped the memory of the conquistadores, and influenced the practices of adaptation to the conditions of the New World, the article turns to the debated question of the presence – or absence – of men and women of Muslim faith; it concludes by suggesting that the most fruitful paths of inquiry may lie not in tracing the presence of a Muslim population, but rather in addressing the questions of cultural and linguistic interaction, all the more complex now that it no longer appears legitimate to conceive of a homogenous “Muslim,” “Arabic” or “Berber” cultural bloc.

This thesis focuses on Muslim circumstance under Christian hegemony from the fall of Islamic Andalusia up until Muslim " Moriscos " expulsion in the seventeenth century, in which according to international law this example of annihilating group injuriously can effectively be classified as a genocide action. This study is based on the library research and the method used in this study is the historical research method with the qualitative descriptive approach as follows; Heuristic, source criticism, data interpretation, and historiography. In this research, the writer discusses some important points such as; a series of related event before Muslims lose their last besiege in Granada and some mistreatments conducted by the Spanish monarch toward Muslims after the fall of the last Islamic kingdom in Granada to which many scholars categorized it as a genocide action.