Session 22

Moriscos: Muslims in a Persecuting

Society

   
1. The Moriscos

2. A resisting minority

3. A persecuted minority

4. The expulsion of the Moriscos

   
1. The Moriscos

   
the Moriscos

Moriscos are Muslims of

the Crowns of Aragon
and Castile converted
to Christianity by force

– during the first three

decades of the 16th
century

– after the conquest of

Nasrid Granada
(1492)

   
the Moriscos

from circa 1530 on nobody could openly live as a Muslim in any

part of Iberia

– no Jews

– no Muslims

– only Christians (Old and New Christians)

an exclusively Christian society

   
the Moriscos

in a context of Christian pressure

– many Moros decided to emigrate to North Africa and other parts of

the Mediterranean

– more Moros decided to stay, as New Christians

highest concentrations of Moriscos, circa 1550

– in Granada, circa 54% of the population

– in Valencia, circa 30% of the population

   
2. A resisting minority

   
a resisting minority identity

the Moriscos preserved

– their cultural identity

their particular names, their particular way of dressing (a la morisca)

– their most important boundary-maintaining elements

• language: aljamia and algarabía

• religion

   
a resisting minority

Moriscos decided to stay as Muslims

– preserving secretly Islam

– simulating in public to be Christians

taqiyya

– dispensation from requirements of Islam under compulsion or threat of injury

– innovation: a whole community in a permanent way

   
a resisting minority religion

in that situation

effort to adapt code of Islam to hostile new environment

a literature for crypto-Muslims: a secret literature, literatura aljamiada

remarkable example: Breviario Sunní (Kitab segoviano) of Ice de Gebir, an imam

and mufti from Segovia

   
Dixo un alim [ulema] d'este rreyno hablando de nuestro encerramiento: "Yo bien conozco que
somos en una época de grande espanto, mas no por eso dexara Allah de darnos cautoriçada
[castigo] si dexamos el pro'o [el pro, la ventaja] de nuestro poderío en lo que toca al preçeptado
mandamiento. Y a quanto l'amonestança [el disimulo, la taqiyya], todos la podemos usar por la
bía prebilejiada y con los cantares ajenos por donde los christianos hacen salva, pues todo cabe
debaxo de buena disimulança, porque la buena doctrina no la puede bedar ninguna ley por
inumana que sea". Mancebo de Arévalo: una invitación dirigida a los moriscos o criptomusulmanes 
españoles para que sigan cumpliendo con las prescripciones islámicas a pesar de las prohibiciones legales y 
   
para que disimulen y se protejan mostrando adhesión púlica a la fe cristiana
3. A persecuted minority

   
a persecuted minority

a situation of de facto tolerance,

circa 1530-1570

with the new reign of Philip II

   
a persecuted minority

a hopeless situation

– Moriscos: largely impervious to mission

– Moriscos: resisting assimilation

resistance and open revolt

– Moriscos: a threat, links with Spain's enemies

particularly Spain's enemies in the Islamic world: the Ottoman Empire

   
a persecuted minority

that gave arguments for a radical solution

– no conversion was ever going to take place

– expulsion as only solution

   
a persecuted minority expulsion

decision for expulsion taken 9th April 1609 by Royal Council

no single decree for whole of Iberia: in the Crown of Aragon

edict was not published until May 29th 1610

   
a figure approaching
300.000 people (out a
population of 8-9
millions)

– entire process lasted

for five years

– armed resistance
occurred only in a few
places

Vicente Carducho, La Expulsión de los Moriscos. 
Museo del Prado, Madrid.

   
the destinies:

– North Africa The expulsion

Morocco
Ottoman Empire of the Moriscos from Iberia, 17th century

– many left to the North:

France, Germany and
Italy, where they could
take a ship for Muslim
countries