Muslim Spain part eight
Welcome to Sheikhy Notes, unique website that features, videos, notes given by traditional Muslim scholars. As well my posts/articles on particular subjects. Scroll down for various topics, scholars, links, quotes and monthly archives or use search engine to find posts. Please note that articles are copyright and cannot be copied without express permission. Allah Subhanu wa Ta’ala knows best. Est. 2005, ma sha Allah.
Showing posts with label Muslim Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslim Spain. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Habib Umar Ibn Hafiz
Message to Spains Muslims
Habib Umar bin Hafiz's Message for Spanish Muslims from Radical Middle Way on Vimeo.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Dr Umar Farooq Abdullah
Andalusian Reflections
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf
February 2000
In the 10th century C.E, Hroswitha—Saxon princess and earliest known German poetess—wrote of Cordoba, the caliphal capital of al-Andalus, that it was: “the ornament of the world.” In the Age of Hroswitha, Islam and civilization were synonymous. The Abode of Islam had a fabulous beacon in the east: Sunni Persia, and another, more spectacular, in the west: al-Andalus
Christian historians in the Middle Ages spoke of “the two Spains,” one Christian and the other Muslim. They meant by Spain, “Hispania”: the Iberian peninsula—Spain and Portugal—not the political entity called Spain today. There was no doubt which of the “two Spains” was the greater and more splendid. Europeans have called the Andalusians Moors and their culture, Moorish. Our names: Moore, Morris, Maurice, and Moritz, were medieval forms of “Moor” and “Moorish”.
Muslims, on the other hand, spoke of“ al-Andalus,” embracing all parts of Iberia that were Muslim. “Al-Andalus” expanded or receded, as the fortunes of Islam in Portugal and Spain ebbed and flowed. Muslims focused not on the phenomenon of the “two Spains” but on that of the “two banks” [al-‘udwatan]: the northern and southern shores of the straits of Gibraltar. The immense cultural, commercial, political, and military power of al-Andalus lay in the secret its “the two banks.” When the banks were united or well linked, al-Andalus was the richest, most formidable land of Europe. When the “two banks” and their peoples were severed, al-Andalus weakened and faced defeat before the barbarous armies from “the vast land” [al-ard al-kabirah]: Europe beyond the Pyrenees.
Al-Andalus was among the greatest manifestations of civilization Europe has ever witnessed. The Andalusians were consciously European and cultivated that identity in their poetry. An Andalusian poet might depart from norms and speak, for example, of a beautiful woman with green eyes and red hair, not the traditional Arabian beauty with black hair and big dark eyes. Ethnically, Andalusian Muslims did not differ significantly from their Christian neighbors to the north Andalusian civilization was tolerant and cosmopolitan. It embraced Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Its Muslim population was diverse: Iberians [Latins and Celts], Berbers, Arabs, Teutons, sub-Saharan Africans, Slavs, Persians, and others. In its darkest times, al-Andalus knew ugly racial divisions—especially between Berber and Arab—but succeeded rapidly in Arabicizing its population and weilding them into one body. Many Christians and Jews embraced Islam. Maimonides [Musa ibn Maimun]—the great Jewish physician and Talmudic scholar of Cordoba—is reported to have held that the greatest danger before an Andalusian Jew was attraction to Islam. The Muslims of al-Andalus had a sincere and deep attachment to Islam and Arabic. In practice, their society was trilingual. It cultivated a sophisticated Qur’anic Arabic but also used Andalusian colloquial Arabic and “al-‘Ajamiyah” [ aljamiado], a romance tongue close to Castillian Spanish but written in Arabic script.
The appeal of the Andalusian way of life enticed Christians and Jews and many populations on the perimeters. Andalusian Christians and Jews took pride in the Arabic tongue and Arab habits and styles. Several Andalusian Jews wrote on the virtues of Arabic and held it superior to Hebrew. Judah ben Tibbon—a physician and translator of Arabic works into Hebrew—held that Arabic was the richest language in the world and the best suited for every type of writing. He felt Arabic—as opposed to Hebrew—was the supreme poetic language and the perfect language for philosophy, since, by its nature, it penetrated the hearts of matters, made the obscure clear, and expounded subtleties.
People of the Book—especially Christians—were called “musta’ribun” [mozarabes]: “those who imitate the Arabs.” When Alfonso VI reconquered large regions of northern and central Iberia in the 11th century, he had to “Europeanize” the Christians of his new domains and make them “Latin” Christians again instead of the Arab Christians they had become. Alfonso introduced the Roman liturgy in place of the Mozarabic. He patronized Romanesque art instead of Moorish and spread the Carolingian script. From the time of Alfonso VI on, one of the chief offices of the Church and, later, the Inquisition would be to obliterate Moorish culture and replace it with that of Latin Christianity.
The “Arabic speaking” phase of Islamic civilization in Iberia lasted more than eight hundred years from 711 until after the fall of Granada in 1492. But Muslim influence in Iberia lasted longer. Millions of Muslims remained in Iberia after Granada’s fall. Those of them who could not leave freely or flee successfully were forcefully converted to Catholicism in the 16th century and forbidden to speak Arabic or keep their Moorish culture. The Church divided Iberia between Old Christians and New, two distinct and unequal social classes kept under the Inquisition’s scrutiny for centuries. Forcefully converted Muslims were called “Moriscos” [little Moors], while forcefully converted Jews were called “Marranos” [swine]. Often Morisco children were taken away to be raised as Christians in monasteries, cloisters, and other Church institutions.
Large populations of Moriscos were expelled from the south of Spain and from its eastern coastal regions and were resettled in the north. But extreme measures could not kill the spirit of Islam in Moriscan hearts. They rebelled frequently and continually begged Muslim powers to come to their rescue. Ultimately, Spain expelled hundreds of thousands of Moriscos from 1609 to 1614. But this same act helped break the power and wealth of Imperial Spain, which relied on the energies and skills of its Moriscos. It marked the end of Spain’s golden age. Never again would “the Catholic kings” recapture their lost glory. The French cardinal, Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, said of the expulsion of the Moriscos that it was: “ . . . the most audacious and barbarous counsel recorded in the history of all preceding ages.”
The genocide of the Moors and Moriscos, Jews and Marranos contrasts to the Islamic toleration, which had been the hallmark of al-Andalus from its beginning and one of the secrets of its great achievements. The “Grand Inquistion”, which began in 1483, was “the first act of united Spain.” Most European Christians loathed the Inquisition, especially when Spain—in its Inquisitorial spirit—sought to crush Protestant movements. Philip II sent his “Invincible Armada” with such an intent against newly Protestant England in 1588. Spain’s murderous wars against the Dutch Protestants, which went on intermittently from 1579 until 1648, were the Inquisition’s work. European hatred of the Inquisition and reaction against it were among the reasons for the Protestant Reformation’s success. The 19th century French historian, Charles, Comte de Montalembert said: “I grant indeed that the Inquisition in Spain destroyed Protestantism in its germ, but I defy anyone to prove that it has not given it throughout Europe the support of public opinion and the sympathies of outraged humanity.” Yet the Inquisition’s long and grotesque shadow has hung over the West for centuries. The bloody Spanish civil war ( 1936 – 1939 ) was in part the fruit of the brutal division of Spanish social classes that the Inquisition fostered. Even the ku klux klan, the genocidal policies of nazi fascism, and Slobodan Milosevic’s policies of “ethnic cleansing” belong to its bastard offspring.
Andalusian Muslims were generally conservative. New developments in the eastern Islamic world were not readily received in al-Andalus. But its civilization was not rigid. Rather, it blended a profound understanding of Islamic tradition with unique originality and improvision when circumstances required. Andalusian legal scholars allowed their Christian minorities to erect new churches, for example, whereas other Islamic lands only allowed them to keep their old ones.
Cordoba and other great Andalusian cities were brilliant centers of learning. Students from as far away as England and continental Europe came there to study. Roger Bacon was among them and held that learning Arabic was essential to scientific progress. Like their counterparts in the east, Andalusians made intelligent use of waqf properties, which supported free hospitals and free schools, maintained roads and bridges, quartered armies and garrisons, provided for official journeys into Europe to free captives and prisoners of war, and even provided mercifully for beasts of burden too old to labor. The legal precedents of Islamic Iberia are an important source of minority fiqh for Muslims in Europe and America today, and the discipline of minority fiqh in Islam may probably be said to have had its origin in al-Andalus.
Al-Andalus produced many of the greatest minds of the Islamic and Arabic sciences. Their works remain unmatched even now. Andalusians also mastered mathematics, geometry, the physical sciences, and medicine. They put down the foundations of the history of science. Even Moorish music was an advanced science, Andalusian music being among the most highly developed music forms the world has known and one of the sources of our classical music. Andalusians did not just use their music for enjoyment but also to cure the insane. Moorish architecture and fine arts developed traditional models with distinctive originalilty. The profound developments of Andalusian art may be traced through the centuries from the great mosque of Cordoba to Granada’s al-Hamra’ in its silent majesty.
During its illustrious centuries, al-Andalus was powerful on land and sea. Like Spain in its golden age, the force of Andalusian arms was based on sea power. Formidable strength in arms was matched with cultural, economic, and political prowess. For centuries, al-Andalus enjoyed an economic prosperity that eclipsed the former achievements of Roman Spain. Andalusian economic power effected continental Europe, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia and altered earlier trade patterns. The powerful Andalusian economy brought prosperity to those within and around Iberia, but it triggered unwittingly centuries of poverty and backwardness in northern Europe by siphoning off the flow of its traditional commerce.
Throughout the world, Andalusians were famed as craftsmen, agrarians, and breeders of horses and livestock. For centuries, the Andalusian Arabian was the finest horse known to Europe. It was also the ancestor of the American Indian pony, which descended from horses the Spanish had brought to the New World. Andalusians mastered waterworking to a degree not thoroughly understood even today. They produced brilliant steels and alloys, fashioned excellent swords and weapons. They built ships worthy of the Atlantic and mosques and other edifices that will be admired until the end of time.. They fashioned silks and made quality textiles, leather goods, ceramics, furnitures, lamps, chandeliers, perfume burners, and jewelry. It was said that in Moorish Seville, one could find anything imaginable, even “sparrows’ milk.” The Muslims of al-Andalus introduced oranges, lemons, cotton, and mulberry trees to Europe and led the medieval world in an agricultural revolution. Olive trees last for centuries, and it is said many of those on the hills of Spain today were planted by Moorish hands.
The Spanish and Portuguese identities are linked inseparably to the heritage of al-Andalus, although, even today, few Iberian historians have been able to come to terms with that legacy. But they are not the only heirs of the Andalusian past. The histories of Europe and the Americas are also tied to al-Andalus in subtle and unexpected ways. The emergence and dominance of the vikings from the 9th till the 11th centuries is a profound part of western European and Russian history. This complex phenomenon had several causes, but the powerful Andalusian economy of the time, which sapped economic growth in northern Europe, was among them. The Norman kingdom of 10th century France, which conquered Britain in the 11th, is among the critical developments of medieval history. The Normans originated as Danish vikings whom the Andalusians defeated on the Atlantic in one of the greatest naval battles in history. Victory saved al-Andalus from predations but sent the defeated viking remnants to northern France, where they cut out for themselves their new “Norman [northman] kingdom”. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Muslims had a small governance in Switzerland and eastern France. Toynbee regarded this presence as one of the crucial developments of the Middle Ages prior to the crusades. Swiss Muslim power was related to al-Andalus, directly and indirectly. The Swiss were the only Muslims ever to make the Roman Pope pay jizyah. It took the combined armies of Byzantium and continental Europe to defeat them.
There seems to have been a friendly connection between al-Andalus and medieval Ireland. At the time, Ireland was a land of learning and had the most advanced civilization in northern Europe. The Andalusian period of Jewish history was Judaism’s golden age. Arabized Andalusian Jews studied Hebrew grammar and lexicology in the light of the great Arab grammarians and cultivated other Arabic and Islamic sciences. Andalusian Jews produced many of the great books of Judaism. The banishment of Jewry from Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries dealt Judaism a blow from which it never recovered. Zionism also has roots in al-Andalus, and it has been said that the Zionist movement should be dated from the destruction of Andalusian Jewry. Formerly Andalusian Jews were behind the principal intellectual developments of Judaism in its post-banishment period.
Andalusians may have reached America before Columbus discovered the west Indies in 1492 He claimed to have seen populations there dressed like Granadan Moors. The discovery of the Americas should not be separated from the Andalusian background and the broader relation between medieval Europe and the Islamic world at large. Moriscos built Columbus’ ships in Moorish dry docks. The theory that the earth is round was Moorish, not Christian. Muslims had elaborated the idea and measured the earth’s circumference seven hundred years before Columbus. Columbus brought an Arabic translator to the Caribbean—Luis Torres [a Morisco or Marrano]—hoping to find and communicate through Muslim populations in the Far East which he imagined he had found. Thus, Arabic was the first language Europeans used on American soil to try to speak with the native populations.
Even the brutal Spanish conquests of native Americans from the late 15th until the mid 16th centuries must be understood against the backdrop of the “Moorish problem” of Catholic Spain. Ponce de Leon’s Caribbean battle cry was: “Santiago mata Moros” [Saint James, kill Moors]. It was the old battle cry against the Moors. Ponce de Leon and his Iberian soldiers had been galvinized by the genocide they and their forefathers perpetrated against the Andalusian peoples. The American conquests enacted the reconquest of Spain. But it is also said the conquistadores sought to outdo the great deeds of the Islamic conquerors of the 7th and 8th centuries. Sometimes they imitated them, as, for example, when they founded Lima (Peru) and Popayán (Columbia) after the model of the Arab garrison cities, al-Kufah and al-Basrah. The spirit, techniques, and treacheries of the Spanish campaigns in America had been honed in the long and difficult campaigns against the Moors. Officially, Moriscos were forbidden to emigrate to the Americas, but in reality they came in large numbers, especially to Mexico, Guatamala, Cuba, Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia. Moreover, the Jesuits spread in Latin America a special type of indolent and indulgent Catholicism, which the Inquisition had tailored to depoliticize and control the Spanish Moriscos.
Many Andalusians—Moors and Moriscos—were able to escape Iberia and the Inquisition. They had a tremendous influence on the Islamic world, to which they emigrated. Andalusians helped Arabicize many parts of Africa, especially what are today the Sudan and Mauritania. Andalusian soldiers and sailors made up powerful contingents in the Muslim forces of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other Islamic lands. Many of the corsairs and “Barbary pirates” were Andalusians, some of whom saw themselves not as pirates but as worthy fighters trying to get back the Andalus their forefathers had lost.
Today, the legacy of al-Andalus has many lessons for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We, Muslims, think of al-Andalus as an Islamic “paradise lost.” In reality, it was not a paradise on earth. It had beautiful and ugly sides. It accomplished great achievements but had terrible failures. We must not romanticize al-Andalus but ponder what of its legacy was good and what was bad. Had it not been for its dark side, al-Andalus would have never ceased to exist.
Among the greatest lessons al-Andalus teaches is the nobility of toleration and harmonious coexistence between peoples and faiths. But it also narrates a tale of oppression and genocide that must be told to the world. Today, the Spanish and Portuguese governments have changed and taken praiseworthy stances toward Muslims in their countries. They have also opened the Inquisitorial files. A modern Tunisian scholar tells of going to Spanish municipalities and requesting their Inquisitorial records. In some cases, women officials would bring them to him and hand them over with tears in their eyes, asking the Muslims to forgive them. The history of al-Andalus also shows the absolute necessity of unity and cooperation: a lesson we refuse to learn. Our fledgling Muslim communities in Spain, Britain, and America are as divided as they are small and the nation states of the Muslim world are no better. Indeed, they sometimes work against each other in a manner that would have shocked even the “petty factional kings” [muluk at-tawa’if] of al-Andalus.
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf
February 2000
In the 10th century C.E, Hroswitha—Saxon princess and earliest known German poetess—wrote of Cordoba, the caliphal capital of al-Andalus, that it was: “the ornament of the world.” In the Age of Hroswitha, Islam and civilization were synonymous. The Abode of Islam had a fabulous beacon in the east: Sunni Persia, and another, more spectacular, in the west: al-Andalus
Christian historians in the Middle Ages spoke of “the two Spains,” one Christian and the other Muslim. They meant by Spain, “Hispania”: the Iberian peninsula—Spain and Portugal—not the political entity called Spain today. There was no doubt which of the “two Spains” was the greater and more splendid. Europeans have called the Andalusians Moors and their culture, Moorish. Our names: Moore, Morris, Maurice, and Moritz, were medieval forms of “Moor” and “Moorish”.
Muslims, on the other hand, spoke of“ al-Andalus,” embracing all parts of Iberia that were Muslim. “Al-Andalus” expanded or receded, as the fortunes of Islam in Portugal and Spain ebbed and flowed. Muslims focused not on the phenomenon of the “two Spains” but on that of the “two banks” [al-‘udwatan]: the northern and southern shores of the straits of Gibraltar. The immense cultural, commercial, political, and military power of al-Andalus lay in the secret its “the two banks.” When the banks were united or well linked, al-Andalus was the richest, most formidable land of Europe. When the “two banks” and their peoples were severed, al-Andalus weakened and faced defeat before the barbarous armies from “the vast land” [al-ard al-kabirah]: Europe beyond the Pyrenees.
Al-Andalus was among the greatest manifestations of civilization Europe has ever witnessed. The Andalusians were consciously European and cultivated that identity in their poetry. An Andalusian poet might depart from norms and speak, for example, of a beautiful woman with green eyes and red hair, not the traditional Arabian beauty with black hair and big dark eyes. Ethnically, Andalusian Muslims did not differ significantly from their Christian neighbors to the north Andalusian civilization was tolerant and cosmopolitan. It embraced Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Its Muslim population was diverse: Iberians [Latins and Celts], Berbers, Arabs, Teutons, sub-Saharan Africans, Slavs, Persians, and others. In its darkest times, al-Andalus knew ugly racial divisions—especially between Berber and Arab—but succeeded rapidly in Arabicizing its population and weilding them into one body. Many Christians and Jews embraced Islam. Maimonides [Musa ibn Maimun]—the great Jewish physician and Talmudic scholar of Cordoba—is reported to have held that the greatest danger before an Andalusian Jew was attraction to Islam. The Muslims of al-Andalus had a sincere and deep attachment to Islam and Arabic. In practice, their society was trilingual. It cultivated a sophisticated Qur’anic Arabic but also used Andalusian colloquial Arabic and “al-‘Ajamiyah” [ aljamiado], a romance tongue close to Castillian Spanish but written in Arabic script.
The appeal of the Andalusian way of life enticed Christians and Jews and many populations on the perimeters. Andalusian Christians and Jews took pride in the Arabic tongue and Arab habits and styles. Several Andalusian Jews wrote on the virtues of Arabic and held it superior to Hebrew. Judah ben Tibbon—a physician and translator of Arabic works into Hebrew—held that Arabic was the richest language in the world and the best suited for every type of writing. He felt Arabic—as opposed to Hebrew—was the supreme poetic language and the perfect language for philosophy, since, by its nature, it penetrated the hearts of matters, made the obscure clear, and expounded subtleties.
People of the Book—especially Christians—were called “musta’ribun” [mozarabes]: “those who imitate the Arabs.” When Alfonso VI reconquered large regions of northern and central Iberia in the 11th century, he had to “Europeanize” the Christians of his new domains and make them “Latin” Christians again instead of the Arab Christians they had become. Alfonso introduced the Roman liturgy in place of the Mozarabic. He patronized Romanesque art instead of Moorish and spread the Carolingian script. From the time of Alfonso VI on, one of the chief offices of the Church and, later, the Inquisition would be to obliterate Moorish culture and replace it with that of Latin Christianity.
The “Arabic speaking” phase of Islamic civilization in Iberia lasted more than eight hundred years from 711 until after the fall of Granada in 1492. But Muslim influence in Iberia lasted longer. Millions of Muslims remained in Iberia after Granada’s fall. Those of them who could not leave freely or flee successfully were forcefully converted to Catholicism in the 16th century and forbidden to speak Arabic or keep their Moorish culture. The Church divided Iberia between Old Christians and New, two distinct and unequal social classes kept under the Inquisition’s scrutiny for centuries. Forcefully converted Muslims were called “Moriscos” [little Moors], while forcefully converted Jews were called “Marranos” [swine]. Often Morisco children were taken away to be raised as Christians in monasteries, cloisters, and other Church institutions.
Large populations of Moriscos were expelled from the south of Spain and from its eastern coastal regions and were resettled in the north. But extreme measures could not kill the spirit of Islam in Moriscan hearts. They rebelled frequently and continually begged Muslim powers to come to their rescue. Ultimately, Spain expelled hundreds of thousands of Moriscos from 1609 to 1614. But this same act helped break the power and wealth of Imperial Spain, which relied on the energies and skills of its Moriscos. It marked the end of Spain’s golden age. Never again would “the Catholic kings” recapture their lost glory. The French cardinal, Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, said of the expulsion of the Moriscos that it was: “ . . . the most audacious and barbarous counsel recorded in the history of all preceding ages.”
The genocide of the Moors and Moriscos, Jews and Marranos contrasts to the Islamic toleration, which had been the hallmark of al-Andalus from its beginning and one of the secrets of its great achievements. The “Grand Inquistion”, which began in 1483, was “the first act of united Spain.” Most European Christians loathed the Inquisition, especially when Spain—in its Inquisitorial spirit—sought to crush Protestant movements. Philip II sent his “Invincible Armada” with such an intent against newly Protestant England in 1588. Spain’s murderous wars against the Dutch Protestants, which went on intermittently from 1579 until 1648, were the Inquisition’s work. European hatred of the Inquisition and reaction against it were among the reasons for the Protestant Reformation’s success. The 19th century French historian, Charles, Comte de Montalembert said: “I grant indeed that the Inquisition in Spain destroyed Protestantism in its germ, but I defy anyone to prove that it has not given it throughout Europe the support of public opinion and the sympathies of outraged humanity.” Yet the Inquisition’s long and grotesque shadow has hung over the West for centuries. The bloody Spanish civil war ( 1936 – 1939 ) was in part the fruit of the brutal division of Spanish social classes that the Inquisition fostered. Even the ku klux klan, the genocidal policies of nazi fascism, and Slobodan Milosevic’s policies of “ethnic cleansing” belong to its bastard offspring.
Andalusian Muslims were generally conservative. New developments in the eastern Islamic world were not readily received in al-Andalus. But its civilization was not rigid. Rather, it blended a profound understanding of Islamic tradition with unique originality and improvision when circumstances required. Andalusian legal scholars allowed their Christian minorities to erect new churches, for example, whereas other Islamic lands only allowed them to keep their old ones.
Cordoba and other great Andalusian cities were brilliant centers of learning. Students from as far away as England and continental Europe came there to study. Roger Bacon was among them and held that learning Arabic was essential to scientific progress. Like their counterparts in the east, Andalusians made intelligent use of waqf properties, which supported free hospitals and free schools, maintained roads and bridges, quartered armies and garrisons, provided for official journeys into Europe to free captives and prisoners of war, and even provided mercifully for beasts of burden too old to labor. The legal precedents of Islamic Iberia are an important source of minority fiqh for Muslims in Europe and America today, and the discipline of minority fiqh in Islam may probably be said to have had its origin in al-Andalus.
Al-Andalus produced many of the greatest minds of the Islamic and Arabic sciences. Their works remain unmatched even now. Andalusians also mastered mathematics, geometry, the physical sciences, and medicine. They put down the foundations of the history of science. Even Moorish music was an advanced science, Andalusian music being among the most highly developed music forms the world has known and one of the sources of our classical music. Andalusians did not just use their music for enjoyment but also to cure the insane. Moorish architecture and fine arts developed traditional models with distinctive originalilty. The profound developments of Andalusian art may be traced through the centuries from the great mosque of Cordoba to Granada’s al-Hamra’ in its silent majesty.
During its illustrious centuries, al-Andalus was powerful on land and sea. Like Spain in its golden age, the force of Andalusian arms was based on sea power. Formidable strength in arms was matched with cultural, economic, and political prowess. For centuries, al-Andalus enjoyed an economic prosperity that eclipsed the former achievements of Roman Spain. Andalusian economic power effected continental Europe, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia and altered earlier trade patterns. The powerful Andalusian economy brought prosperity to those within and around Iberia, but it triggered unwittingly centuries of poverty and backwardness in northern Europe by siphoning off the flow of its traditional commerce.
Throughout the world, Andalusians were famed as craftsmen, agrarians, and breeders of horses and livestock. For centuries, the Andalusian Arabian was the finest horse known to Europe. It was also the ancestor of the American Indian pony, which descended from horses the Spanish had brought to the New World. Andalusians mastered waterworking to a degree not thoroughly understood even today. They produced brilliant steels and alloys, fashioned excellent swords and weapons. They built ships worthy of the Atlantic and mosques and other edifices that will be admired until the end of time.. They fashioned silks and made quality textiles, leather goods, ceramics, furnitures, lamps, chandeliers, perfume burners, and jewelry. It was said that in Moorish Seville, one could find anything imaginable, even “sparrows’ milk.” The Muslims of al-Andalus introduced oranges, lemons, cotton, and mulberry trees to Europe and led the medieval world in an agricultural revolution. Olive trees last for centuries, and it is said many of those on the hills of Spain today were planted by Moorish hands.
The Spanish and Portuguese identities are linked inseparably to the heritage of al-Andalus, although, even today, few Iberian historians have been able to come to terms with that legacy. But they are not the only heirs of the Andalusian past. The histories of Europe and the Americas are also tied to al-Andalus in subtle and unexpected ways. The emergence and dominance of the vikings from the 9th till the 11th centuries is a profound part of western European and Russian history. This complex phenomenon had several causes, but the powerful Andalusian economy of the time, which sapped economic growth in northern Europe, was among them. The Norman kingdom of 10th century France, which conquered Britain in the 11th, is among the critical developments of medieval history. The Normans originated as Danish vikings whom the Andalusians defeated on the Atlantic in one of the greatest naval battles in history. Victory saved al-Andalus from predations but sent the defeated viking remnants to northern France, where they cut out for themselves their new “Norman [northman] kingdom”. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Muslims had a small governance in Switzerland and eastern France. Toynbee regarded this presence as one of the crucial developments of the Middle Ages prior to the crusades. Swiss Muslim power was related to al-Andalus, directly and indirectly. The Swiss were the only Muslims ever to make the Roman Pope pay jizyah. It took the combined armies of Byzantium and continental Europe to defeat them.
There seems to have been a friendly connection between al-Andalus and medieval Ireland. At the time, Ireland was a land of learning and had the most advanced civilization in northern Europe. The Andalusian period of Jewish history was Judaism’s golden age. Arabized Andalusian Jews studied Hebrew grammar and lexicology in the light of the great Arab grammarians and cultivated other Arabic and Islamic sciences. Andalusian Jews produced many of the great books of Judaism. The banishment of Jewry from Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries dealt Judaism a blow from which it never recovered. Zionism also has roots in al-Andalus, and it has been said that the Zionist movement should be dated from the destruction of Andalusian Jewry. Formerly Andalusian Jews were behind the principal intellectual developments of Judaism in its post-banishment period.
Andalusians may have reached America before Columbus discovered the west Indies in 1492 He claimed to have seen populations there dressed like Granadan Moors. The discovery of the Americas should not be separated from the Andalusian background and the broader relation between medieval Europe and the Islamic world at large. Moriscos built Columbus’ ships in Moorish dry docks. The theory that the earth is round was Moorish, not Christian. Muslims had elaborated the idea and measured the earth’s circumference seven hundred years before Columbus. Columbus brought an Arabic translator to the Caribbean—Luis Torres [a Morisco or Marrano]—hoping to find and communicate through Muslim populations in the Far East which he imagined he had found. Thus, Arabic was the first language Europeans used on American soil to try to speak with the native populations.
Even the brutal Spanish conquests of native Americans from the late 15th until the mid 16th centuries must be understood against the backdrop of the “Moorish problem” of Catholic Spain. Ponce de Leon’s Caribbean battle cry was: “Santiago mata Moros” [Saint James, kill Moors]. It was the old battle cry against the Moors. Ponce de Leon and his Iberian soldiers had been galvinized by the genocide they and their forefathers perpetrated against the Andalusian peoples. The American conquests enacted the reconquest of Spain. But it is also said the conquistadores sought to outdo the great deeds of the Islamic conquerors of the 7th and 8th centuries. Sometimes they imitated them, as, for example, when they founded Lima (Peru) and Popayán (Columbia) after the model of the Arab garrison cities, al-Kufah and al-Basrah. The spirit, techniques, and treacheries of the Spanish campaigns in America had been honed in the long and difficult campaigns against the Moors. Officially, Moriscos were forbidden to emigrate to the Americas, but in reality they came in large numbers, especially to Mexico, Guatamala, Cuba, Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia. Moreover, the Jesuits spread in Latin America a special type of indolent and indulgent Catholicism, which the Inquisition had tailored to depoliticize and control the Spanish Moriscos.
Many Andalusians—Moors and Moriscos—were able to escape Iberia and the Inquisition. They had a tremendous influence on the Islamic world, to which they emigrated. Andalusians helped Arabicize many parts of Africa, especially what are today the Sudan and Mauritania. Andalusian soldiers and sailors made up powerful contingents in the Muslim forces of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other Islamic lands. Many of the corsairs and “Barbary pirates” were Andalusians, some of whom saw themselves not as pirates but as worthy fighters trying to get back the Andalus their forefathers had lost.
Today, the legacy of al-Andalus has many lessons for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We, Muslims, think of al-Andalus as an Islamic “paradise lost.” In reality, it was not a paradise on earth. It had beautiful and ugly sides. It accomplished great achievements but had terrible failures. We must not romanticize al-Andalus but ponder what of its legacy was good and what was bad. Had it not been for its dark side, al-Andalus would have never ceased to exist.
Among the greatest lessons al-Andalus teaches is the nobility of toleration and harmonious coexistence between peoples and faiths. But it also narrates a tale of oppression and genocide that must be told to the world. Today, the Spanish and Portuguese governments have changed and taken praiseworthy stances toward Muslims in their countries. They have also opened the Inquisitorial files. A modern Tunisian scholar tells of going to Spanish municipalities and requesting their Inquisitorial records. In some cases, women officials would bring them to him and hand them over with tears in their eyes, asking the Muslims to forgive them. The history of al-Andalus also shows the absolute necessity of unity and cooperation: a lesson we refuse to learn. Our fledgling Muslim communities in Spain, Britain, and America are as divided as they are small and the nation states of the Muslim world are no better. Indeed, they sometimes work against each other in a manner that would have shocked even the “petty factional kings” [muluk at-tawa’if] of al-Andalus.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Islam in Spain and the Moriscos
"Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the facts, Sir!"
(1)
The Islamic period of Spain is stated as 711 to 1492 as we are lead to believe by various reports. This does not explain the whole story of Islam in Spain. This is the period of Islamic rule but this is not the full story. Islamic Spain began in 711but it did not end officially until 1610 when the Muslims were expelled from Spain after being oppressed since the fall of the khaliphate in Granada in 1492. This period was something that I was totally unaware of and I felt that some study in this area was needed.
The period after the fall of the khaliphate makes for grim reading. Many a time we have read the blood soaked pages of history but nothing we had read previously could prepare us for what we read. All of the knowledge I knew about Christianity was about to be confirmed and it made the Crusades look like a minor skirmish. In fact the pacifying of the Iberian Peninsula from Islam to Christianity was the most brutal and unforgiving ethnic cleansing that Europe had seen, up until that point. Within less than one hundred and twenty years, Islam was taken off the map in Spain and was replaced with a cross covered in the blood of men, women and children. Many accuse the Muslims of converting by force. This is a normal argument of Orientalists and it is about as unfounded an argument that there could ever be. Forced conversion into Islam is not accepted as is forced apostasy from Islam not accepted. You see forced conversion happens within a very short period of time and actual conversion takes time. It took several hundred years for Muslims to reach fifty percent in many countries of the Middle East. As it did in Spain, Egypt, Syria and other places that you can read about in Thomas Arnold's book "The Spread of Islam."
The Spanish inquisition was one of the world's first organisation of terror who tortured and killed without prejudice of gender or age. This was with the total acceptance of the pope at the time approved of their methods. Anyone with a sound mind can only look back and see that these are nothing but a wretched organisation who fed on the extortion and murder of people. Just because someone is of another faith than what you follow does not mean that they should be killed just because they do not follow your religion. Leave them alone, you force something into someone's heart and claim that they have accepted it! Their methods were brutally over the top and would make you weep if you read what they did. Islam was removed from the public spaces with the 'Reconquista' and then they sought to remove it from the private domain. Spain was not reconquered by the Christians straight away, it was done over centuries and it took many rulers. The real sad part of these conquests was that the Christians did not see any reason why they should not massacre the civilians of the cities and the places they defeated. This included men, women and children; if the latter two were lucky they would be killed or sold into slavery where they would face more humiliation. For me this leaves as indelible stain on Christendom similar to that of the Crusades. If you do not believe me then pick up any book about Muslim Spain by English writers and read. I really find it odd when people slander Islam and make claims that Christianity is a less violent religion, when anyone with sound intellect who has read history can read the most horrific tales of murder, massacre and torture.
For something like five hundred years, Islam was banned as a religion and it was until 1975 when Islam became legal. People who were Muslims who had kept their faith secret came out; it was something that they had hidden from everyone. So you could say Islam began in 711 but did not end in 1492 or 1610 it kept going until today and it will keep going; until an appointed time will come.
We really wanted to write more about this but because of the amount of detail and the time needed to write something to do the subject justice. We hope that we have done the subject some justice. We have read several books about the subject and it is not always comfortable reading.
The Beginning
There are two reports that relate to the coming of the Muslims to the Iberian Peninsula. The first report is in Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher(2):
"A king of Spain in ancient time built a tower in which he deposited a secret. He sealed the tower with a mighty padlock, and laid upon his successors the obligation each by turns to add an extra padlock so as to preserve ever more inviolable whatever was concealed within. Twenty-six kings came and went, respecting his wishes. Then there succeeded a rash and headstrong young king named Roderick. Resolved to penetrate the tower's secret, and against the advice of all his counsellors, he had the twenty-seven padlocks opened. Then he entered the chamber within. On its walls were painted Arab horsemen, scimitars at their belts, spears brandished in their right hands. In the middle of the room stood a table made of gold and silver set with precious stones, upon it carved the words: 'This is the table of King Soloman, son of David, upon whom be peace.' There was an urn on the table, which was found to contain a scroll of parchment. When this was unrolled, the following words were revealed: 'Whenever this chamber is violated, and the spell contained in this urn is broken, the people painted on these walls will invade Spain, overthrow its kings, and subdue the entire lands.'
Fletcher states that this is recorded in both Christian and Muslim sources but the author does not state where. Although a similar story is reported in Stanley lane-Poole's Muslims in Spain.
There is the more factual report which comes in addition to this report and compliments it. The count of Ceuta (In Northern Morocco but is still part of Spain) Julian sent his daughter to Roderick's court to be educated among the queen's waiting women; instead Roderick put her to shame. (3) Julian desired revenge and met with Musa ibn Nosayr, the Governor of North Africa, and said that they are comrades now and that he would assist him conquering Spain. (4) After sending out an investigatory party the governor then sent out Tariq ibn Zayd who with seven thousand troops crossed the land between Africa and Europe. He landed on a lion's rock that has bore his name ever since Jebal Tariq, Gibraltar or the mountain of Tariq. (5) Roderick had an army of one thousand men (6) and Tariq had his army reinforced by five thousand to a total of twelve thousand. After a fierce battle, the battle of Rio Brante, lasting one week the Muslims triumphed and slowly the Iberian Peninsula was assimilated into Islamic territory. The year was seven hundred and eleven, 28th Ramadan ninety two Islamic years;(7) this was the beginning of the story of Islam in Europe. There is a report in Islam in Andalus that there were exploratory forays during the khaliphate of Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him), (8) although it wasn't until the above events that any headway was made.
A Summary of the major events
Muslim advancement continued further into Spain and into Southern France where it was halted after the Muslims were defeated at the battle of the Tours. This is seen as a turning point for Europe because if the Muslims had defeated the Christian forces then there would have been little resistance left in Europe. This did not occur and in the year seven hundred and thirty two the advancement stopped. What occurred after was one of the glorious times in Spanish history that the world has ever seen and even now so few have yet to comprehend. I would just like to say that it is great that Muslims look back at the amazing achievements of the past and rightly so but we must ask ourselves one question. What are we doing, right now, that we could be remembered? Right now it seems that we can be remembered for very little.
Initially, governors came and went (9) until an exiled leader came, Abdurrahman ibn Mu'awiya who had fled the killing of his family after the collapse of the Ummayyad dynasty at the hands of Abbasids. He would become the leader that would establish Islam in Spain. (10)
Subsequently, began a new era of the Ummayyad dynasty in the West after its fall in the East. Leader after leader would come and go, none more so than his namesakes such as Abdurrahman the second and Abdurrahman the third. Abdurrahman the third in particular was one of the just and well remembered of the Muslim rulers of Al-Andulas.
One of the greatest leaders of Al-Andalus was Al-Mansur. During his lifetime was the pinnacle of the Spanish khaliphate and after his death began the decline of the Islamic rule in Spain. After the death of Al-Mansur's son Al-Muzaffar who heralded the beginning of what is known as the "party kings" they were rulers of their own provinces who did not accept or follow a centralised authority. There were many factors that lead to most of the civil wars that broke out between rulers.
There were at least thirty five small kingships (11) which rivalled and competed with each other but the most shocking fact was that they allied themselves with other Christian rulers which made their dream of taking the land back from the Muslims all the more simple. It would have been virtually impossible for them to fight the combined armies of all the forces of Muslim Spain but it would be much simpler to fight small kingships and defeat the Muslims gradually. (12)
Without the ruling of a centralised authority coupled with the rulers to busy indulging themselves in the worldly desires, the ranks of Muslims were easily picked off one by one. Thus the wheel for the conquest of Spain was set in motion and this started with the massacre and murder of Muslim civilians. This was precursor to the event of the Crusades (13) in the Middle East and begin in the East before similar bloodshed it reached the areas around Palestine.
Barbastro, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was taken in 1064 and after a long siege the surviving civilians were massacred, numbering into the thousands and most shocking of all was the rape of women in front of their families. (14) And other atrocities that there is no pen eloquent enough to describe. (15) This was also going to be a glimpse into the horror that the Muslims and to a certain extent Jews would face as the Christians gained more area.
After a seven year siege Toledo fell into the hands of Alfonso VI and from here proclaimed himself 'Emperor of Spain' (16) and from here he would extract tributes from all the Muslims kingships in the land. (17)
"The fall of Toledo was the beginning of the end of Islam's long sojourn in Europe. Toledo was the first domino." (18) As it was the major city of central Spain and this proved to be an ideal base from which the remainder of Spain would return into the hands of the Christians. Almost as suddenly as the sun of Islam rose upon the Iberian Peninsula it was now fast declining.
Following these events the reformists movement of the Almoravids came, who came with religious zeal aimed at reinvigorating Islam in Spain. (19) They made a concerted effort to realign the kingship rulers to their way of governance which unfortunately it was set to be ruled from North Africa and not Spain. From 1145 they defeated various rulers; Algerciras was conquered then they occupied Seville and Malaga. (20) The Muwahidun were next to follow up the Almoravids with a similar zeal to defeat the Christians. The Muwahidun pinnacle was under their leader Abu Yusuf Yaqub, he became the leader in 1184 and his greatest victory was at the battle of Alarcos (21)in 1195. Against the forces organised by Pope Innocent the third. (22) It was said that the Christians lost 146,000 and more than 30,000 were taken prisoner. Unfortunately, this victory was not taken advantage of because at this point Toledo was open to attack but there was no attack and this gave the Christians chance to re-group. Sun Tzu would have approved of taking advantage of their forces that were in disarray. It wasn't until nearly 16 years later did his son Muhammad An-Nasir would try to belatedly take advantage but the advantage was lost. An-Nasir gathered a huge army of 600,000 and subsequently ignored the advices of his generals (23) and it was stated that less than one thousand soldiers escaped the slaughter. (24)
This defeat meant that the Muslims could no longer muster a force needed to fight the Christians because many soldiers were North African. This defeat meant that Muslims could not re-take the land that was lost to the Christians over two hundred years of reversal. Cordoba fell in 1236 followed by Valencia in 1238 and Seville in 1248. (25) The Kingdom of Granada remained and this was the final standing of the Spanish Khaliphate left. Bani Nasr were descendants of the companion Sa'ad ibn Ubaydah and their chief was Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Al-Ahmar; it would be known as Nasrid Kingdom which would rule until 1492.
This was the point that we would see the Muslims who were not in Muslim controlled areas face torture, death and or various other demeaning punishments metered out to them by the Christians. This would begin the punishments that would lead to the gradual expulsion of the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula.
In 1329 Don Pedro would attempt to finally remove Muslim influence from Spain by conquering Granada. After breaking a pledge to accept a tribute and leave the Muslims alone, (26) he decided to attack the forces of Abu l'Walid Ismail ibn Faraj. The Muslims had only five thousand warriors to call upon compared to the fifty thousand solders that the Christians contained. (27) Some reports as little as ten or thirteen Muslims soldiers were killed. (28) This victory was later reversed when Abu I'Hassan's forces were defeated in the battle of Rio Salado this loss allowed the Christians to make inroads to Granada. (29)
As the decay continued so did the re-taking of land by the Christians. Malaga and its surrounding areas were taken by 1487 and only the citadel of Granada remained by 1489. (30) The prince at the time Abu Abdullah or Boabdil surrendered the citadel after a siege of seven months. Musa, one of the military commanders, refused to capitulate and rode out to meet the Christians; he died the death of a martyr. The treaty was signed on the 25th November 1491 and the gates were opened on the 2nd January 1492. Boabdil was allowed to leave with whatever he could and just before he left he gave Granada once last glance. He sighed and began to cry, his mother's response was withering, and it became known as the 'el ultimo suspiro del Moro' (31) or the Moors last sigh, she said, "Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man." (32)
This was the end of Islamic rule at one end of Europe and the beginning on the other side; The Ottomans would conquer Constantinople in a few years. What follows was the main reason for writing this essay. The next chapter of Islam in Europe was brutal history of torture and punishment that was ever to be documented. The Muslim leadership had gone but the Muslims were still present in large numbers and this is the subject of the next section.
The Moriscos
"You have built here what you, or anyone else, might have built anywhere; to do so you have destroyed what was unique in the world." Said Charles the fifth after he entered in the masjid of Cordoba, which had been converted into a church. (33) It is also a summary of the damage that the Christians had done when they regained political power.
After the fall of the last khaliphate in Spain, the Christians did not cease their conquest; they wanted to retake the hearts of Muslims back to their faith. The physical battle had been lost over four hundred or so years and now the spiritual battle was about to be fought and the victory could not be measured in the same way.
Although in many ways the battle for the hearts had already started. In 1216 the Lateran Council ordered that all Muslims and Jews to wear what became known as the 'san benito.' This distinguished them from the Christians and made them open to humiliation and attack with recourse in some cases. (34) In 1248 Pope Innocent IV ordered the king of Aragon to only allow Muslims as slaves in his kingdom. (35) In 1250 no one could buy or sell from a Muslim without a licence. (36) In 1312 the Council of Vienna ordered that the princes of Spain to suppress Islamic worship and offer Christian worship or else endure a 'terrible punishment.' (37) Worse was to follow, in 1385 and 1387 more slavery was introduced. 1388 saw a law pass that all Muslims had to kneel when Christian 'sacraments' were being paraded in the streets and the Friday was made obligatory for them to work. (38) In 1412 there was further legislation preventing Muslims and Jews from holding office, taking up certain professions and worse. (39) This is the real beginning of the punishment that anyone other than the Christians would face in that time and it really is shocking but it wasn't until 1483 that the Spanish inquisition was established even though the Holy office of the inquisition existed in Europe from 1184.
Systematically anything that was Muslim was removed from the public space and replaced by something Christian. There was destruction of people, masjids, books, public baths, libraries and worst of all was the history of forced conversion en masse. Anyone who wants to read about forced conversion should read Henry Charles Lea's book the Moriscos of Spain and they will see that the forced conversion is almost strictly a Christian phenomenon in Spain. For further information of how Islam spread see T. Arnold's work 'How Islam spread in the world' or 'The Preaching of Islam' they are both the same book.
The treaty of Granada, which was agreed to by Ferdinand and Isabella, was broken within seven years of it being ratified in November 1492. (40) The treaty contained articles that protected Muslims in fields of their religion and many other aspects. The breaking of this treaty paved the way for the Spanish inquisition.
Pope Innocent the 3rd commanded that all heretics be punished (41) what they meant was anyone who was not Christian should be punished and this would be a century for it. There was an incident in Granada that led to a riot because of a claim of a Muslim girl that she was being taken to be forced into Christianity. The Cardinal Ximenes denounced the uprising as a rebellion and said that there were only two choices left for the Muslim: expulsion or conversion. (42) Thousands were forcibly converted but in name only and because of this, they were given the insulting title Moriscos which means little Moor.
The Grand Mufti of Oran, Ahmad ibn Abu Juma'a, issued an edict in 1504 that allowed Muslims act like Christians and accept the Christian faith on their tongues as long as they rejected it in their hearts. (43) Faith in Islam is defined as belief in the heart with affirmation on the tongue (also performing actions by the limbs) so the affirmation of the Christian faith did not mean anything as long as they did not believe it in their hearts. Also note that this was in a situation of life and death, this was a dispensation given to Muslims in such times.
Armies of Christian militia randomly attacked Muslim areas, in Andarax a masjid was burned down, in it were women and children and in Belfrique all the men were killed and the women were taken as slaves. (44) The children were taken from their parents, sold into slavery never to be seen again. Copies of the Quran were burnt as were any Arabic books. (45) If the Muslims wanted to leave they had to pay a sum of money but people who had converted were not allowed to leave. (46) There was also the massacre of the Muslim population of Lisbon which lasted three days and three nights. (47) The Muslims were told to keep their doors open during wedding and feast celebrations, (48) and a Christian midwife had to be present during birth of a child thus preventing the call to prayer being announced into the newborns ear.
The Spanish inquisition would confiscate the land of anyone they suspected as not being a true Christian and anyone else they suspected of being dangerous. They used many different methods of torture and the most famous was the 'auto de fe' which was the burning at the stake of the accused. The Spanish inquisition did not discriminate women from men, even if the women were pregnant this did not matter, they would torture them for days, weeks and sometimes months. Majids were changed into churches, some were demolished totally and people were preventing from bathing! (49)
Part of the reason why they called them Moriscos was they were for all intents and purposes Christians in the public space but in the private space they acted as Muslims. This caused resentment from the Christians and thus this name was insulting because their forefathers adoption of Islam, before them.
Charles the fifth addressed notables in early September 1525 informing them of his determination not to allow a Muslim or other infidel to remain in his dominions except as slaves; he recognised that expulsion would affect their revenues and leave their lands 'depopulated.' (50) He followed this with an edict that stated that no other faith but Christianity would be allowed to be present in Spain. (51)
These false 'converts' had their lands confiscated by the Spanish Inquisition (52) so in some bizarre way the Inquisition funded itself on the misery of these illegal acts. The Moriscos were disarmed during Ximenes mass baptism thus leaving them defenceless (53) and open to attack from Christians who saw it as their religious duty to kill the moors.
The edict issued by Phillip II in 1567 that forbade the customs, language of the Moors namely Arabic and Moorish clothes were forbidden. (54) The public baths were finally all closed and destroyed; and the people forgot the custom of washing themselves in Spain well into the 19th century. (55) This is very strange for us to understand, the Christians were happy with being dirty and unclean. If we look at the Quran it describes polytheism/Shirk as filth from the devil. Moorish names and surnames were not used because of the harm that they would receive for it. Silk clothes were all forbidden (56) all of these prohibitions make for difficult reading for anyone living in a time when these things are normal in most western societies. So this was an active and deliberate intention to bring forth the Spain that they knew and remove any Spain that made it anew. They wanted to bring everything back the clothes, landscape basically everything.
Many other stories can be related and some contain the saddest stories of human suffering that you could ever read. Amid various rebellions that were lead by the Muslims was the one of the brutal massacres on Spanish soil. Phillip Don John put down the rebellion in 1569 by force; he and his forces massacred the three thousand men, women and children in Gelera. As he did in the villages of Alpuxarras, butchered the inhabitants and raised them to the ground. (57) For this, the Pope, at the time, called him 'a champion of Christianity.' (58) The survivors were sold into slavery and exiled but there were few. (59) Twenty thousand were massacred and a further seventy thousand were butchered during the celebrations of All Saints day in 1570. (60)
These massacres that occurred are some of the worst acts of religious intolerance that could ever fill the pages of the books of history. A reader of history will find it difficult to really look at these events and not feel a sense of great grief over the loss of life. Did it matter that the people had a different religion? Why did they feel it their religious duty to murder thousands if not millions of people just because they saw them as heretics? The Muslims did not do this to them, there was no mass massacres of the people carried by the Muslims in Spain when they came into the country in 711. Any act of genocide and violence on this scale and to this grandiose scale was rarely repeated in Europe. As the crusaders were sent home during the 13th century this internal crusade continued until there was no one left to kill! (61)
After these events there no more cause for 'rebellion' by the Moriscos because it was impossible as there was not enough people to even speak up now never mind to organise forces.
Families were broken up further with children separated from their families, some were sent to Priests to learn texts, (62) and most were sold as slaves. (63)
In the Early period of Islam in Spain the ratio of Muslim to others was 1 to 8, in the ninth century the number was 1 to 4 and by the tenth Century the Muslims began to outnumber the other groups. (64) This also proves that this was gradual and not sudden which was like the massacre of the Muslims was, sudden. The converts to Islam were gradual, in number, and occurred over a number of years. The population who they were killing were Muslims who were genetically of Spanish stock. This may have been strange for the Christian Spaniards to see the Muslim Spaniards. People who had taken on this 'foreign' religion as their own and they did whatever they could to remove it from the Iberian Peninsula. Worse was to come for the Moriscos and it came with the brutality that they had come to know under the rule of the Christians.
Another edict issued on the 6th October 1572 meant that they were under perpetual surveillance. (65) It meant that the Moriscos could be punished with various punishments depending on the extent of the 'crime.'
From 1591 to 1593 two inquisitors collected all weapons that the Moriscos held in their possession. (66) This effectively meant that any proposed rebellion did not have the means to occur. The Christians were afraid that the Ottomans would attack and seek assistance from the Moriscos which never occurred and their fears were unfounded.
By 1595 the numbers of the Moriscos began to increase as did their wealth. (67) This was also seen as a danger by the Christian rulers and because these reports came from a Vatican envoy. They lived an existence outside the influence of the ruling elite and stayed away from entering the army or engaging in religious education. Despite all the massacres, killings and the brutal force of the Spanish Inquisition the Moriscos clung to their faith in the darkest moments of their time. Even at this late juncture all was not lost.
King Phillip II, who had engineered the massacres and killings of Moriscos, lay on his death bed for two months. (68) Covered in tumours and abscesses he died a painful death. The power shifted from him to his son Phillip III then to Duke of Lerma.
There was a supposed 'plot' that was uncovered that somehow the Moriscos and Henry IV of France were about to conspire. This lead to a decree that stated that all the Moriscos had to leave Spain, within one month. The deportation continued until 1610 when half a million Moriscos were expelled from Spain. (69) Other books state that the deportation started on 6th October 1609 and finished in 1614. (70) Also the number of people deported ranged from half a million to three million. (71)
The expelled fled with virtually nothing and spread across parts of Northern Africa and other areas of the Islamic world.
The revenue that the Muslims brought in because of their trades and farming was lost. This caused problems because many work practices for farming were only known to Moriscos. (72)
Final remarks
Islam remained banned until 1975 when it was 'allowed' again. Many families who had hid their faith for centuries came out as Muslims. Today around one million (2.3%) Muslims live in Spain (73) according to National statistics. Many are from migrant communities living and working in Spain.
With this essay we wanted to primarily highlight the suffering of the Moriscos. It was something that I was in total ignorance of and I decided to read about it until my ignorance was removed. At the beginning of the essay I stated Islam in Spain is wrongly understood to be from 711 to 1492 and that it should read 711 to 1614 but the real date should be 711 to date, because Islam is still there. The first set of dates was the Islam as the political power, the second was Islam as an active force and the third is Islam's survival as a religion.
When we look back at history we normally feel sadness at the loss of Spain but really all that was lost was the political power. It also behoves us that we look at history using eyes that do not concentrate on a single event or events but look at the whole period.
Islam as a religion survives in modern day Spain. The blood of the martyrs who fought and the Moriscos, who died needlessly, was not in vain. And despite all the centuries of effort by the Christians of the time, Islam was never removed from the hearts of the people. It remained there like a flag blowing in the storms but never coming down. People do not realise that land can be conquered very easily but hearts are not conquered completely except by the truth.
With thanks to Adnan for proofreading.
Sources
1. P.1 Dickens C 1854 Hard times Penguin popular classics
2. P. 15 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
3. P.10 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
4. P.11 Ibid
5. P.13 Ibid
6. P.14 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
7. P.22 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
8. P.10 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
9. P.31 Ibid
10. Ibid
11. P.216 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
12. P.79 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
13. P.81Ibid
14. Ibid
15. Ibid
16. P.82 Ibid
17. Ibid
18. P.357 Lewis D.L God’s Crucible Norton
19. P.247 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
20. P189 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
21. P.105 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
22. Ibid
23. P.106 Ibid
24. P.106 Ibid
25. P.107 Ibid
26. P.161 Ibid
27. Ibid
28. Ibid
29. Ibid
30. P.163 Ibid
31. P.305 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
32. Ibid
33. P.3 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
34. P.114-5 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha publishers
35. P.115 Ibid
36. Ibid
37. Ibid
38. Ibid
39. Ibid
40. P.166 Ibid
41. P.16 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
42. P.167 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
43. P.281-303 1966 Monroe James, ‘A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,’ Al-Andalus, 31.
44. P.169 Ibid
45. Ibid
46. Ibid
47. P.218 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
48. P.280 Ibid
49. P.239 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
50. P.83 Lea H. C. 2001 The Moriscos of Spain Goodword press
51. Ibid
52. P.190 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
53. P.199 Ibid
54. P. 234 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
55. P.200 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
56. P.201 ibid
57. P.231 Lea H. C. 2001 The Moriscos of Spain Goodword publishers
58. P.244 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
59. P.411 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
60. P.244 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
61. Ibid
62. P.204 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
63. http://freewebs.com/qalam2/muslimexpulsion2_boase.htm
64. P.205 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
65. P.49 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
66. P.205 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
67. P.215 Ibid
68. P.209 Ibid
69. P.217 Ibid
70. P.245 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
71. P.351 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
72. Ibid
73. P.248 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
74. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4385768.stm
(1)
The Islamic period of Spain is stated as 711 to 1492 as we are lead to believe by various reports. This does not explain the whole story of Islam in Spain. This is the period of Islamic rule but this is not the full story. Islamic Spain began in 711but it did not end officially until 1610 when the Muslims were expelled from Spain after being oppressed since the fall of the khaliphate in Granada in 1492. This period was something that I was totally unaware of and I felt that some study in this area was needed.
The period after the fall of the khaliphate makes for grim reading. Many a time we have read the blood soaked pages of history but nothing we had read previously could prepare us for what we read. All of the knowledge I knew about Christianity was about to be confirmed and it made the Crusades look like a minor skirmish. In fact the pacifying of the Iberian Peninsula from Islam to Christianity was the most brutal and unforgiving ethnic cleansing that Europe had seen, up until that point. Within less than one hundred and twenty years, Islam was taken off the map in Spain and was replaced with a cross covered in the blood of men, women and children. Many accuse the Muslims of converting by force. This is a normal argument of Orientalists and it is about as unfounded an argument that there could ever be. Forced conversion into Islam is not accepted as is forced apostasy from Islam not accepted. You see forced conversion happens within a very short period of time and actual conversion takes time. It took several hundred years for Muslims to reach fifty percent in many countries of the Middle East. As it did in Spain, Egypt, Syria and other places that you can read about in Thomas Arnold's book "The Spread of Islam."
The Spanish inquisition was one of the world's first organisation of terror who tortured and killed without prejudice of gender or age. This was with the total acceptance of the pope at the time approved of their methods. Anyone with a sound mind can only look back and see that these are nothing but a wretched organisation who fed on the extortion and murder of people. Just because someone is of another faith than what you follow does not mean that they should be killed just because they do not follow your religion. Leave them alone, you force something into someone's heart and claim that they have accepted it! Their methods were brutally over the top and would make you weep if you read what they did. Islam was removed from the public spaces with the 'Reconquista' and then they sought to remove it from the private domain. Spain was not reconquered by the Christians straight away, it was done over centuries and it took many rulers. The real sad part of these conquests was that the Christians did not see any reason why they should not massacre the civilians of the cities and the places they defeated. This included men, women and children; if the latter two were lucky they would be killed or sold into slavery where they would face more humiliation. For me this leaves as indelible stain on Christendom similar to that of the Crusades. If you do not believe me then pick up any book about Muslim Spain by English writers and read. I really find it odd when people slander Islam and make claims that Christianity is a less violent religion, when anyone with sound intellect who has read history can read the most horrific tales of murder, massacre and torture.
For something like five hundred years, Islam was banned as a religion and it was until 1975 when Islam became legal. People who were Muslims who had kept their faith secret came out; it was something that they had hidden from everyone. So you could say Islam began in 711 but did not end in 1492 or 1610 it kept going until today and it will keep going; until an appointed time will come.
We really wanted to write more about this but because of the amount of detail and the time needed to write something to do the subject justice. We hope that we have done the subject some justice. We have read several books about the subject and it is not always comfortable reading.
The Beginning
There are two reports that relate to the coming of the Muslims to the Iberian Peninsula. The first report is in Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher(2):
"A king of Spain in ancient time built a tower in which he deposited a secret. He sealed the tower with a mighty padlock, and laid upon his successors the obligation each by turns to add an extra padlock so as to preserve ever more inviolable whatever was concealed within. Twenty-six kings came and went, respecting his wishes. Then there succeeded a rash and headstrong young king named Roderick. Resolved to penetrate the tower's secret, and against the advice of all his counsellors, he had the twenty-seven padlocks opened. Then he entered the chamber within. On its walls were painted Arab horsemen, scimitars at their belts, spears brandished in their right hands. In the middle of the room stood a table made of gold and silver set with precious stones, upon it carved the words: 'This is the table of King Soloman, son of David, upon whom be peace.' There was an urn on the table, which was found to contain a scroll of parchment. When this was unrolled, the following words were revealed: 'Whenever this chamber is violated, and the spell contained in this urn is broken, the people painted on these walls will invade Spain, overthrow its kings, and subdue the entire lands.'
Fletcher states that this is recorded in both Christian and Muslim sources but the author does not state where. Although a similar story is reported in Stanley lane-Poole's Muslims in Spain.
There is the more factual report which comes in addition to this report and compliments it. The count of Ceuta (In Northern Morocco but is still part of Spain) Julian sent his daughter to Roderick's court to be educated among the queen's waiting women; instead Roderick put her to shame. (3) Julian desired revenge and met with Musa ibn Nosayr, the Governor of North Africa, and said that they are comrades now and that he would assist him conquering Spain. (4) After sending out an investigatory party the governor then sent out Tariq ibn Zayd who with seven thousand troops crossed the land between Africa and Europe. He landed on a lion's rock that has bore his name ever since Jebal Tariq, Gibraltar or the mountain of Tariq. (5) Roderick had an army of one thousand men (6) and Tariq had his army reinforced by five thousand to a total of twelve thousand. After a fierce battle, the battle of Rio Brante, lasting one week the Muslims triumphed and slowly the Iberian Peninsula was assimilated into Islamic territory. The year was seven hundred and eleven, 28th Ramadan ninety two Islamic years;(7) this was the beginning of the story of Islam in Europe. There is a report in Islam in Andalus that there were exploratory forays during the khaliphate of Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him), (8) although it wasn't until the above events that any headway was made.
A Summary of the major events
Muslim advancement continued further into Spain and into Southern France where it was halted after the Muslims were defeated at the battle of the Tours. This is seen as a turning point for Europe because if the Muslims had defeated the Christian forces then there would have been little resistance left in Europe. This did not occur and in the year seven hundred and thirty two the advancement stopped. What occurred after was one of the glorious times in Spanish history that the world has ever seen and even now so few have yet to comprehend. I would just like to say that it is great that Muslims look back at the amazing achievements of the past and rightly so but we must ask ourselves one question. What are we doing, right now, that we could be remembered? Right now it seems that we can be remembered for very little.
Initially, governors came and went (9) until an exiled leader came, Abdurrahman ibn Mu'awiya who had fled the killing of his family after the collapse of the Ummayyad dynasty at the hands of Abbasids. He would become the leader that would establish Islam in Spain. (10)
Subsequently, began a new era of the Ummayyad dynasty in the West after its fall in the East. Leader after leader would come and go, none more so than his namesakes such as Abdurrahman the second and Abdurrahman the third. Abdurrahman the third in particular was one of the just and well remembered of the Muslim rulers of Al-Andulas.
One of the greatest leaders of Al-Andalus was Al-Mansur. During his lifetime was the pinnacle of the Spanish khaliphate and after his death began the decline of the Islamic rule in Spain. After the death of Al-Mansur's son Al-Muzaffar who heralded the beginning of what is known as the "party kings" they were rulers of their own provinces who did not accept or follow a centralised authority. There were many factors that lead to most of the civil wars that broke out between rulers.
There were at least thirty five small kingships (11) which rivalled and competed with each other but the most shocking fact was that they allied themselves with other Christian rulers which made their dream of taking the land back from the Muslims all the more simple. It would have been virtually impossible for them to fight the combined armies of all the forces of Muslim Spain but it would be much simpler to fight small kingships and defeat the Muslims gradually. (12)
Without the ruling of a centralised authority coupled with the rulers to busy indulging themselves in the worldly desires, the ranks of Muslims were easily picked off one by one. Thus the wheel for the conquest of Spain was set in motion and this started with the massacre and murder of Muslim civilians. This was precursor to the event of the Crusades (13) in the Middle East and begin in the East before similar bloodshed it reached the areas around Palestine.
Barbastro, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was taken in 1064 and after a long siege the surviving civilians were massacred, numbering into the thousands and most shocking of all was the rape of women in front of their families. (14) And other atrocities that there is no pen eloquent enough to describe. (15) This was also going to be a glimpse into the horror that the Muslims and to a certain extent Jews would face as the Christians gained more area.
After a seven year siege Toledo fell into the hands of Alfonso VI and from here proclaimed himself 'Emperor of Spain' (16) and from here he would extract tributes from all the Muslims kingships in the land. (17)
"The fall of Toledo was the beginning of the end of Islam's long sojourn in Europe. Toledo was the first domino." (18) As it was the major city of central Spain and this proved to be an ideal base from which the remainder of Spain would return into the hands of the Christians. Almost as suddenly as the sun of Islam rose upon the Iberian Peninsula it was now fast declining.
Following these events the reformists movement of the Almoravids came, who came with religious zeal aimed at reinvigorating Islam in Spain. (19) They made a concerted effort to realign the kingship rulers to their way of governance which unfortunately it was set to be ruled from North Africa and not Spain. From 1145 they defeated various rulers; Algerciras was conquered then they occupied Seville and Malaga. (20) The Muwahidun were next to follow up the Almoravids with a similar zeal to defeat the Christians. The Muwahidun pinnacle was under their leader Abu Yusuf Yaqub, he became the leader in 1184 and his greatest victory was at the battle of Alarcos (21)in 1195. Against the forces organised by Pope Innocent the third. (22) It was said that the Christians lost 146,000 and more than 30,000 were taken prisoner. Unfortunately, this victory was not taken advantage of because at this point Toledo was open to attack but there was no attack and this gave the Christians chance to re-group. Sun Tzu would have approved of taking advantage of their forces that were in disarray. It wasn't until nearly 16 years later did his son Muhammad An-Nasir would try to belatedly take advantage but the advantage was lost. An-Nasir gathered a huge army of 600,000 and subsequently ignored the advices of his generals (23) and it was stated that less than one thousand soldiers escaped the slaughter. (24)
This defeat meant that the Muslims could no longer muster a force needed to fight the Christians because many soldiers were North African. This defeat meant that Muslims could not re-take the land that was lost to the Christians over two hundred years of reversal. Cordoba fell in 1236 followed by Valencia in 1238 and Seville in 1248. (25) The Kingdom of Granada remained and this was the final standing of the Spanish Khaliphate left. Bani Nasr were descendants of the companion Sa'ad ibn Ubaydah and their chief was Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Al-Ahmar; it would be known as Nasrid Kingdom which would rule until 1492.
This was the point that we would see the Muslims who were not in Muslim controlled areas face torture, death and or various other demeaning punishments metered out to them by the Christians. This would begin the punishments that would lead to the gradual expulsion of the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula.
In 1329 Don Pedro would attempt to finally remove Muslim influence from Spain by conquering Granada. After breaking a pledge to accept a tribute and leave the Muslims alone, (26) he decided to attack the forces of Abu l'Walid Ismail ibn Faraj. The Muslims had only five thousand warriors to call upon compared to the fifty thousand solders that the Christians contained. (27) Some reports as little as ten or thirteen Muslims soldiers were killed. (28) This victory was later reversed when Abu I'Hassan's forces were defeated in the battle of Rio Salado this loss allowed the Christians to make inroads to Granada. (29)
As the decay continued so did the re-taking of land by the Christians. Malaga and its surrounding areas were taken by 1487 and only the citadel of Granada remained by 1489. (30) The prince at the time Abu Abdullah or Boabdil surrendered the citadel after a siege of seven months. Musa, one of the military commanders, refused to capitulate and rode out to meet the Christians; he died the death of a martyr. The treaty was signed on the 25th November 1491 and the gates were opened on the 2nd January 1492. Boabdil was allowed to leave with whatever he could and just before he left he gave Granada once last glance. He sighed and began to cry, his mother's response was withering, and it became known as the 'el ultimo suspiro del Moro' (31) or the Moors last sigh, she said, "Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man." (32)
This was the end of Islamic rule at one end of Europe and the beginning on the other side; The Ottomans would conquer Constantinople in a few years. What follows was the main reason for writing this essay. The next chapter of Islam in Europe was brutal history of torture and punishment that was ever to be documented. The Muslim leadership had gone but the Muslims were still present in large numbers and this is the subject of the next section.
The Moriscos
"You have built here what you, or anyone else, might have built anywhere; to do so you have destroyed what was unique in the world." Said Charles the fifth after he entered in the masjid of Cordoba, which had been converted into a church. (33) It is also a summary of the damage that the Christians had done when they regained political power.
After the fall of the last khaliphate in Spain, the Christians did not cease their conquest; they wanted to retake the hearts of Muslims back to their faith. The physical battle had been lost over four hundred or so years and now the spiritual battle was about to be fought and the victory could not be measured in the same way.
Although in many ways the battle for the hearts had already started. In 1216 the Lateran Council ordered that all Muslims and Jews to wear what became known as the 'san benito.' This distinguished them from the Christians and made them open to humiliation and attack with recourse in some cases. (34) In 1248 Pope Innocent IV ordered the king of Aragon to only allow Muslims as slaves in his kingdom. (35) In 1250 no one could buy or sell from a Muslim without a licence. (36) In 1312 the Council of Vienna ordered that the princes of Spain to suppress Islamic worship and offer Christian worship or else endure a 'terrible punishment.' (37) Worse was to follow, in 1385 and 1387 more slavery was introduced. 1388 saw a law pass that all Muslims had to kneel when Christian 'sacraments' were being paraded in the streets and the Friday was made obligatory for them to work. (38) In 1412 there was further legislation preventing Muslims and Jews from holding office, taking up certain professions and worse. (39) This is the real beginning of the punishment that anyone other than the Christians would face in that time and it really is shocking but it wasn't until 1483 that the Spanish inquisition was established even though the Holy office of the inquisition existed in Europe from 1184.
Systematically anything that was Muslim was removed from the public space and replaced by something Christian. There was destruction of people, masjids, books, public baths, libraries and worst of all was the history of forced conversion en masse. Anyone who wants to read about forced conversion should read Henry Charles Lea's book the Moriscos of Spain and they will see that the forced conversion is almost strictly a Christian phenomenon in Spain. For further information of how Islam spread see T. Arnold's work 'How Islam spread in the world' or 'The Preaching of Islam' they are both the same book.
The treaty of Granada, which was agreed to by Ferdinand and Isabella, was broken within seven years of it being ratified in November 1492. (40) The treaty contained articles that protected Muslims in fields of their religion and many other aspects. The breaking of this treaty paved the way for the Spanish inquisition.
Pope Innocent the 3rd commanded that all heretics be punished (41) what they meant was anyone who was not Christian should be punished and this would be a century for it. There was an incident in Granada that led to a riot because of a claim of a Muslim girl that she was being taken to be forced into Christianity. The Cardinal Ximenes denounced the uprising as a rebellion and said that there were only two choices left for the Muslim: expulsion or conversion. (42) Thousands were forcibly converted but in name only and because of this, they were given the insulting title Moriscos which means little Moor.
The Grand Mufti of Oran, Ahmad ibn Abu Juma'a, issued an edict in 1504 that allowed Muslims act like Christians and accept the Christian faith on their tongues as long as they rejected it in their hearts. (43) Faith in Islam is defined as belief in the heart with affirmation on the tongue (also performing actions by the limbs) so the affirmation of the Christian faith did not mean anything as long as they did not believe it in their hearts. Also note that this was in a situation of life and death, this was a dispensation given to Muslims in such times.
Armies of Christian militia randomly attacked Muslim areas, in Andarax a masjid was burned down, in it were women and children and in Belfrique all the men were killed and the women were taken as slaves. (44) The children were taken from their parents, sold into slavery never to be seen again. Copies of the Quran were burnt as were any Arabic books. (45) If the Muslims wanted to leave they had to pay a sum of money but people who had converted were not allowed to leave. (46) There was also the massacre of the Muslim population of Lisbon which lasted three days and three nights. (47) The Muslims were told to keep their doors open during wedding and feast celebrations, (48) and a Christian midwife had to be present during birth of a child thus preventing the call to prayer being announced into the newborns ear.
The Spanish inquisition would confiscate the land of anyone they suspected as not being a true Christian and anyone else they suspected of being dangerous. They used many different methods of torture and the most famous was the 'auto de fe' which was the burning at the stake of the accused. The Spanish inquisition did not discriminate women from men, even if the women were pregnant this did not matter, they would torture them for days, weeks and sometimes months. Majids were changed into churches, some were demolished totally and people were preventing from bathing! (49)
Part of the reason why they called them Moriscos was they were for all intents and purposes Christians in the public space but in the private space they acted as Muslims. This caused resentment from the Christians and thus this name was insulting because their forefathers adoption of Islam, before them.
Charles the fifth addressed notables in early September 1525 informing them of his determination not to allow a Muslim or other infidel to remain in his dominions except as slaves; he recognised that expulsion would affect their revenues and leave their lands 'depopulated.' (50) He followed this with an edict that stated that no other faith but Christianity would be allowed to be present in Spain. (51)
These false 'converts' had their lands confiscated by the Spanish Inquisition (52) so in some bizarre way the Inquisition funded itself on the misery of these illegal acts. The Moriscos were disarmed during Ximenes mass baptism thus leaving them defenceless (53) and open to attack from Christians who saw it as their religious duty to kill the moors.
The edict issued by Phillip II in 1567 that forbade the customs, language of the Moors namely Arabic and Moorish clothes were forbidden. (54) The public baths were finally all closed and destroyed; and the people forgot the custom of washing themselves in Spain well into the 19th century. (55) This is very strange for us to understand, the Christians were happy with being dirty and unclean. If we look at the Quran it describes polytheism/Shirk as filth from the devil. Moorish names and surnames were not used because of the harm that they would receive for it. Silk clothes were all forbidden (56) all of these prohibitions make for difficult reading for anyone living in a time when these things are normal in most western societies. So this was an active and deliberate intention to bring forth the Spain that they knew and remove any Spain that made it anew. They wanted to bring everything back the clothes, landscape basically everything.
Many other stories can be related and some contain the saddest stories of human suffering that you could ever read. Amid various rebellions that were lead by the Muslims was the one of the brutal massacres on Spanish soil. Phillip Don John put down the rebellion in 1569 by force; he and his forces massacred the three thousand men, women and children in Gelera. As he did in the villages of Alpuxarras, butchered the inhabitants and raised them to the ground. (57) For this, the Pope, at the time, called him 'a champion of Christianity.' (58) The survivors were sold into slavery and exiled but there were few. (59) Twenty thousand were massacred and a further seventy thousand were butchered during the celebrations of All Saints day in 1570. (60)
These massacres that occurred are some of the worst acts of religious intolerance that could ever fill the pages of the books of history. A reader of history will find it difficult to really look at these events and not feel a sense of great grief over the loss of life. Did it matter that the people had a different religion? Why did they feel it their religious duty to murder thousands if not millions of people just because they saw them as heretics? The Muslims did not do this to them, there was no mass massacres of the people carried by the Muslims in Spain when they came into the country in 711. Any act of genocide and violence on this scale and to this grandiose scale was rarely repeated in Europe. As the crusaders were sent home during the 13th century this internal crusade continued until there was no one left to kill! (61)
After these events there no more cause for 'rebellion' by the Moriscos because it was impossible as there was not enough people to even speak up now never mind to organise forces.
Families were broken up further with children separated from their families, some were sent to Priests to learn texts, (62) and most were sold as slaves. (63)
In the Early period of Islam in Spain the ratio of Muslim to others was 1 to 8, in the ninth century the number was 1 to 4 and by the tenth Century the Muslims began to outnumber the other groups. (64) This also proves that this was gradual and not sudden which was like the massacre of the Muslims was, sudden. The converts to Islam were gradual, in number, and occurred over a number of years. The population who they were killing were Muslims who were genetically of Spanish stock. This may have been strange for the Christian Spaniards to see the Muslim Spaniards. People who had taken on this 'foreign' religion as their own and they did whatever they could to remove it from the Iberian Peninsula. Worse was to come for the Moriscos and it came with the brutality that they had come to know under the rule of the Christians.
Another edict issued on the 6th October 1572 meant that they were under perpetual surveillance. (65) It meant that the Moriscos could be punished with various punishments depending on the extent of the 'crime.'
From 1591 to 1593 two inquisitors collected all weapons that the Moriscos held in their possession. (66) This effectively meant that any proposed rebellion did not have the means to occur. The Christians were afraid that the Ottomans would attack and seek assistance from the Moriscos which never occurred and their fears were unfounded.
By 1595 the numbers of the Moriscos began to increase as did their wealth. (67) This was also seen as a danger by the Christian rulers and because these reports came from a Vatican envoy. They lived an existence outside the influence of the ruling elite and stayed away from entering the army or engaging in religious education. Despite all the massacres, killings and the brutal force of the Spanish Inquisition the Moriscos clung to their faith in the darkest moments of their time. Even at this late juncture all was not lost.
King Phillip II, who had engineered the massacres and killings of Moriscos, lay on his death bed for two months. (68) Covered in tumours and abscesses he died a painful death. The power shifted from him to his son Phillip III then to Duke of Lerma.
There was a supposed 'plot' that was uncovered that somehow the Moriscos and Henry IV of France were about to conspire. This lead to a decree that stated that all the Moriscos had to leave Spain, within one month. The deportation continued until 1610 when half a million Moriscos were expelled from Spain. (69) Other books state that the deportation started on 6th October 1609 and finished in 1614. (70) Also the number of people deported ranged from half a million to three million. (71)
The expelled fled with virtually nothing and spread across parts of Northern Africa and other areas of the Islamic world.
The revenue that the Muslims brought in because of their trades and farming was lost. This caused problems because many work practices for farming were only known to Moriscos. (72)
Final remarks
Islam remained banned until 1975 when it was 'allowed' again. Many families who had hid their faith for centuries came out as Muslims. Today around one million (2.3%) Muslims live in Spain (73) according to National statistics. Many are from migrant communities living and working in Spain.
With this essay we wanted to primarily highlight the suffering of the Moriscos. It was something that I was in total ignorance of and I decided to read about it until my ignorance was removed. At the beginning of the essay I stated Islam in Spain is wrongly understood to be from 711 to 1492 and that it should read 711 to 1614 but the real date should be 711 to date, because Islam is still there. The first set of dates was the Islam as the political power, the second was Islam as an active force and the third is Islam's survival as a religion.
When we look back at history we normally feel sadness at the loss of Spain but really all that was lost was the political power. It also behoves us that we look at history using eyes that do not concentrate on a single event or events but look at the whole period.
Islam as a religion survives in modern day Spain. The blood of the martyrs who fought and the Moriscos, who died needlessly, was not in vain. And despite all the centuries of effort by the Christians of the time, Islam was never removed from the hearts of the people. It remained there like a flag blowing in the storms but never coming down. People do not realise that land can be conquered very easily but hearts are not conquered completely except by the truth.
With thanks to Adnan for proofreading.
Sources
1. P.1 Dickens C 1854 Hard times Penguin popular classics
2. P. 15 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
3. P.10 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
4. P.11 Ibid
5. P.13 Ibid
6. P.14 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
7. P.22 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
8. P.10 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
9. P.31 Ibid
10. Ibid
11. P.216 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
12. P.79 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
13. P.81Ibid
14. Ibid
15. Ibid
16. P.82 Ibid
17. Ibid
18. P.357 Lewis D.L God’s Crucible Norton
19. P.247 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
20. P189 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
21. P.105 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
22. Ibid
23. P.106 Ibid
24. P.106 Ibid
25. P.107 Ibid
26. P.161 Ibid
27. Ibid
28. Ibid
29. Ibid
30. P.163 Ibid
31. P.305 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
32. Ibid
33. P.3 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
34. P.114-5 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha publishers
35. P.115 Ibid
36. Ibid
37. Ibid
38. Ibid
39. Ibid
40. P.166 Ibid
41. P.16 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
42. P.167 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
43. P.281-303 1966 Monroe James, ‘A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,’ Al-Andalus, 31.
44. P.169 Ibid
45. Ibid
46. Ibid
47. P.218 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
48. P.280 Ibid
49. P.239 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
50. P.83 Lea H. C. 2001 The Moriscos of Spain Goodword press
51. Ibid
52. P.190 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
53. P.199 Ibid
54. P. 234 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
55. P.200 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
56. P.201 ibid
57. P.231 Lea H. C. 2001 The Moriscos of Spain Goodword publishers
58. P.244 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
59. P.411 Plaidy J 1959 the Spanish Inquisition Robert Hale London
60. P.244 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
61. Ibid
62. P.204 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
63. http://freewebs.com/qalam2/muslimexpulsion2_boase.htm
64. P.205 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
65. P.49 Fletcher Richard 1992 Moorish Spain Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
66. P.205 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
67. P.215 Ibid
68. P.209 Ibid
69. P.217 Ibid
70. P.245 Lane-Poole Stanley 1901 Muslims in Spain Goodword press
71. P.351 Azizurrahman Syed 2002 The Story of Islamic Spain Goodword Press
72. Ibid
73. P.248 Thomson Ahmad and Muhammad Ata Ur Rahim 1996 Islam in Andulus Ta ha Publishers
74. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4385768.stm
Friday, March 27, 2009
Islamic spain
Skip the first few minutes!
You can view another video on Islamic/Muslim Spain
http://sheikhynotes.blogspot.com/2007/08/muslim-spain.html
You can view another video on Islamic/Muslim Spain
http://sheikhynotes.blogspot.com/2007/08/muslim-spain.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Sheikh Abdul hakim quick
Muslim spain legacy parts one to three which concludes with an interesting slideshow
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Friday, August 24, 2007
Muslim Spain
Parts one and two
There are some opinions in this video that should be taken with a pinch of salt but it is a good historical record.
Part two
There are some opinions in this video that should be taken with a pinch of salt but it is a good historical record.
Link:
Part two
Link:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)