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MUSLIMS OF ANDALUS AFTER THE FALL OF
GRANADA:
THE CATHOLIC POLICY OF DESTRUCTION OF
ISLAM (898-934 AH /1492-1525 C.E.)
BY
PUTEH NORAIHAN BINTI A RAHMAN
A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement
for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (History and
Civilization)
Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and
Human Sciences
International Islamic University
Malaysia
JULY 2011
ABSTRACT
This research is an introduction to the historical investigation of the fall of Muslim
civilization in al-Andalus Western Mediterranean, after almost 800 years of rise, rapid
growth and later a sluggish decline. Most of the modern Muslim historians
concentrate on the “Golden Age” of the Andalus at the expense of the other periods of
its history. This work examines the nakbah (catastrophy) and ibādah (annihilation) of
Muslims in Andalus. The end of the “Moorish Spain” is relatively well known to the
readers of world history. Therefore, this research is a study on the dark period of the
Christian Europe. This era of planned and sustained policy of total eradication of
Islam from the southwestern Europe was authorized by the medieval popes, the
European Roman-Catholic kings and emperors and overtly implemented after the
surrender of the last Muslim state of Granada in 1492 CE.
ii
‫ﺧﻼﺻﺔ ﺍﻟﺒﺤﺚ‬
‫ﺗﻌﺪ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻷﻃﺮﻭﺣﺔ ﻣﻘﺪﻣﺔ ﻟﻔﺤﺺ ﺍﳌﻌﻠﻮﻣﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﺘﺎﺭﳜﻴﺔ ﺣﻮﻝ ﺳﻘﻮﻁ ﺍﳊﻀﺎﺭﺓ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ‬
‫ﺑﺎﻷﻧﺪﻟﺲ‪ ،‬ﻭﺫﻟﻚ ﺑﻌﺪ ‪ ٨٠٠‬ﻋﺎﻡ ﺗﻘﺮﻳﺒﺎ ﻣﻦ ‪‬ﻀﺘﻬﺎ ﻭﺗﻘﺪﻣﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﺴﺮﻳﻊ‪ ،‬ﰒ ﺍﳓﺪﺍﺭﻫﺎ‬
‫ﻭﺍﳓﻄﺎﻃﻬﺎ‪ .‬ﻭﻳﺮﻛﺰ ﻣﻌﻈﻢ ﺍﳌﺆﺭﺧﲔ ﺍﳌﺴﻠﻤﲔ ﰲ ﺍﻟﻌﺼﺮ ﺍﳊﺪﻳﺚ ﰲ ﺍﻫﺘﻤﺎﻣﺎ‪‬ﻢ ﺍﻷﻛﺎﺩﳝﻴﺔ‬
‫ﺑﺎﻷﻧﺪﻟﺲ ﻋﻠﻰ "ﺍﻟﻔﺘﺮﺓ ﺍﻟﺬﻫﺒﻴﺔ" ﻋﻠﻰ ﺣﺴﺎﺏ ﺑﻘﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻔﺘﺮﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﺘﺎﺭﳜﻴﺔ ﺑﺎﳌﻨﻄﻘﺔ‪ .‬ﳍﺬﺍ ﲢﺎﻭﻝ‬
‫ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻷﻃﺮﻭﺣﺔ ﺃﻥ ﺗﺪﺭﺱ ﺍﻟﻨﻜﺒﺔ ﻭﺇﺑﺎﺩﺓ ﺍﳌﺴﻠﻤﲔ ﰲ ﺍﻷﻧﺪﻟﺲ‪ ،‬ﻭﻗﺪ ﻛﺎﻧﺖ ‪‬ﺎﻳﺔ ﺍﳌﻮﺭﻳﺴﻜﻴﲔ‬
‫ﺑﺄﺳﺒﺎﻧﻴﺎ ﻣﻌﺮﻭﻓﺔ ﻟﺪﻯ ﺩﺭﺍﺳﻲ ﺗﺎﺭﻳﺦ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﱂ ﻭﻭﻗﺎﺋﻌﻬﺎ‪ ،‬ﻓﺎﻷﻃﺮﻭﺣﺔ ﺳﺘﺪﺭﺱ ﺇﺣﺪﻯ ﺍﻟﻔﺘﺮﺍﺕ‬
‫ﺍﳌﺄﺳﺎﻭﻳﺔ ﺍﳌﻈﻠﻤﺔ ﰲ ﺃﻭﺭﻭﺑﺎ ﻓﻔﻲ ﻫﺬﻩ ﺍﻟﻔﺘﺮﺓ ﻛﺎﻧﺖ ﺳﻴﺎﺳﺔ ﺍﻹﻋﺪﺍﻡ ﺍﳌﺨﻄﹼﻄﺔ ﻭﺍﳌﺴﺘﻤﺮﺓ‬
‫ﻟﻠﻘﻀﺎﺀ ﺍﻟﻨﻬﺎﺋﻲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻹﺳﻼﻡ ﰲ ﺟﻨﻮﺏ ﻏﺮﺏ ﺃﻭﺭﻭﺑﺎ ﳐﻮﻟﺔ ﻣﻦ ﻗﺒﻞ ﺑﺎﺑﺎﻭﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻘﺮﻭﻥ‬
‫ﺍﻟﻮﺳﻄﻰ‪ ،‬ﻭﻣﻠﻮﻙ ﻭﺃﺑﺎﻃﺮﺓ ﺍﻟﺮﻭﻣﺎﻥ ﺍﻟﻜﺎﺛﻮﻟﻴﻚ ﰲ ﺃﻭﺭﻭﺑﺎ‪ ،‬ﺣﻴﺚ ‪‬ﻧﻔﹼﺬﺕ ﻋﻠﻨﹰﺎ ﺑﻌﺪ ﺃﻥ ﺳﻘﻄﺖ‬
‫ﺁﺧﺮ ﺩﻭﻟﺔ ﺇﺳﻼﻣﻴﺔ ﰲ ﻏﺮﻧﺎﻃﺔ ﻋﺎﻡ ‪ ١٤٩٢‬ﻣﻴﻼﺩﻱ‪.‬‬
‫‪iii‬‬
APPROVAL PAGE
I certify that I have supervised and read this study and that in my opinion it conforms
to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and
quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (History and
Civilization).
………………………………..
Ataullah Bogdan Kopanski
Supervisor
I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable
standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a
dissertation for the degree of Master of Human Sciences (History and Civilization).
……………………………….
Ghassan Taha Yassen
Examiner
This dissertation is submitted to the Department of History and Civilization and is
accepted as fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Human Sciences
(History and Civilization).
………………………………..
Arshad Islam
Head, Department of History and
Civilization
This dissertation is submitted to the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and
Human Sciences and is accepted as fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of
Master of Human Sciences (History and Civilization).
………………………………..
Badri Najib Zubir
Dean,
Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed
Knowledge and Human Sciences
iv
DECLARATIO
I hereby declare that this dissertation is the result of my own investigations, except
where otherwise stated. I also declare that it has not been previously or concurrently
submitted as a whole for any other degree at IIUM or other institutions.
Puteh Noraihan binti A Rahman
Signature………………………
Date……………………..
v
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DECLARATIO OF COPYRIGHT AD AFFIRMATIO
OF FAIR USE OF UPUBLISHED RESEARCH
Copyright © 2011 by Puteh Noraihan Binti A Rahman. All rights reserved.
MUSLIM OF ADALUS AFTER THE FALL OF GRAADA:
THE CATHOLIC POLICY OF DESTRUCTIO OF ISLAM
(898-934 AH /1492-1525 C.E.)
No part of this unpublished research may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the
copyright holder except as provided below.
1.
Any material contained in or derived from this unpublished research
may only be used by others in their writing with due
acknowledgement.
2.
IIUM or its library will have the right to make and transmit copies
(print or electronic) for institutional and academic purposes.
3.
The IIUM library will have the right to make, store in a retrieval
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Affirmed by Puteh Noraihan Binti A Rahman
…………………………….
Signature
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Date
vi
DEDICATIO
For ‘Abdul Rahman Abdullah, Puteh Saroja Ishak
& Saiful Khairi Kamarudin
vii
ACKOWLEDGEMETS
Alhamdulillah, My utmost gratitude to Allah S.W.T. for His blessings and
opportunity, finally I have completed this thesis. An enormous thank to my
supervisor, Prof. Dr. Ataullah Bogdan Kopanski who has assisted me in the quest of
this precious knowledge. His sagacious guidance, insightful criticisms, patience and
encouragement aided the writing of this thesis in incalculable ways. I would also like
to express my bottomless gratitude to my husband, Saiful Khairi Kamarudin for his
understanding and kind cooperation throughout my journey of writing this thesis.
Next, I want to express a great appreciation to my examiner, Prof. Dr. Ghassan Taha
Yassen for examining this paper intensely and also his dedicated support. Not to
forget, for my parents and son for being the light inspiration and encouragement in
order for this task to be accomplished. Last but not least, endless appreciation to my
family, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arshad Islam, Sister Azura, Sister Radziah, colleagues,
friends in IIUM and those involved in this project.
viii
TABLE OF COTETS
Abstract ................................................................................................................. ii
Arabic Abstract...................................................................................................... iii
Approval Page ....................................................................................................... iv
Declaration ............................................................................................................ v
Copyright Page ...................................................................................................... vi
Dedication ............................................................................................................. vii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... viii
Table of Contents .................................................................................................. ix
List of Tables......................................................................................................... xi
List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xii
CHAPTER 1: ITRODUCTIO ....................................................................... 1
1.1 Background and History ...................................................................... 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ..................................................................... 3
1.3 The Objectives of the Research............................................................ 5
1.4 Research Questions ............................................................................. 6
1.5 Justification of the Problem ................................................................. 7
1.6 Literature Review ................................................................................ 8
1.7 Research Methodology ........................................................................ 12
CHAPTER 2: SURREDER OF THE LAST ISLAMIC STATE I THE
FAR WEST .......................................................................................................... 14
2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 14
2.2 Islamic State in the Far West ............................................................... 14
2.2.1 Geographical Background of Andalusia ..................................... 14
2.2.2 The Muslim Military Intervention During the Civil War
Among the Visigoths in Spain: al-Futuhat of 93 AH / 711 C.E. . 15
2.3 Betrayal of Jihad.................................................................................. 21
2.4 The Rise of Castilians .......................................................................... 26
2.4.1 Castilian Besieged Muslim Dominions ...................................... 32
2.4.2 Reactions from the Muslims in Malaga ...................................... 40
2.4.3 Invasion of the Castilian King ................................................... 41
2.5 The Capitulation of Abu Abdallah Muhammad “ the Unlucky” .......... 54
2.5.1 The Articles of the Capitulation ................................................ 56
2.5.2 Granada after The Capitulation .................................................. 61
2.6 Aftermath ............................................................................................ 64
2.7 Chronology of the Caliphates and Emirates of the Iberian Peninsula .... 66
2.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 68
CHAPTER 3: MORISCIZATIO OF THE ADALUSIA MUSLIMS ........ 70
3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 70
3.2 Culture Change of the Muslims after the Fall of Granada..................... 70
3.3 Humiliation and Discrimantion of Mudejares after the Capitulation.... 76
3.3.1 Destruction of Mosques ............................................................. 81
ix
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.3.2 Ximenes de Cisneros’ Cruelty and Fanaticism. The Ban of
Veils of Muslim Women ........................................................... 82
3.3.3 Implementation of the Catholic Policies: Forcible Baptized
Muslims .................................................................................... 84
The Catholic Monarchs’ Policy of One Choice for the Surviving
Muslims: Baptism or Expulsion ........................................................... 86
Edict of Grace ..................................................................................... 93
The ‘Infinite Contempt’ of Moriscos & War with Charles V ................ 101
Conclusion .......................................................................................... 108
CHAPTER 4: MODUS OPERADI OF THE HOLOCAUST OF
MUSLIMS I SPAI (1492 C.E.-1525 C.E. AD AFTERMATH) .................. 110
4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 110
4.2 Inquisition of the Medieval Catholic Church........................................ 111
4.3 Spanish Inquisition .............................................................................. 113
4.4 Modus Operandi of Torturing by the Inquisitors .................................. 119
4.5 Popular Modus Operandi ..................................................................... 126
4.5.1 Water-torture (Water Boarding) ................................................. 126
4.5.2 Vuelta de Trampa, Mancuerda and Potro or Rack ...................... 128
4.5.3 Flogging .................................................................................... 135
4.5.4 Enslavement in the Spanish Galleys........................................... 139
4.5.5 Reconciliation ........................................................................... 142
4.5.6 The Perpetual Prison.................................................................. 144
4.5.7 The Sanbenito............................................................................ 148
4.5.8 Disabilities ................................................................................ 151
4.5.9 Auto da fé: Burning “Relaxed” Alive ........................................ 151
4.5.10 Burning of Books ...................................................................... 155
4.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 155
CHAPTER 5: THE CRYPTO-MUSLIMS FIAL SOLUTIO ....................... 157
5.1 Status of Mudejares ............................................................................. 157
5.2 Relationship between Muslims with Jews and Christians ..................... 159
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................ 164
GLOSSARY ......................................................................................................... 167
x
LIST OF TABLES
Table No.
2.1
Page No.
Chart shows the timeline of the Muslims presence in al-Andalus. ...................19
xi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure No.
2.1
Page No.
Map showing the location of al-Andalus which comprised of the main
cities such as Granada, Cordova, Toledo, Murcia, Valencia,
Seville and etc
15
2.2
The map at the left shown the location of Gibraltar.
16
2.3
On the rightside is the image of the rock that Muslims army
landed in May 711.
16
Potrait of Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII. He was known to
Spanish chroniclers as Boabdil el-Chico (“the Chicken”).
Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII was the last king of Granada
20
Map showing the shrinking territory of Islamic al-Andalus from
790 CE until 1300s CE onwards
25
2.6
Ferdinand V of Castile and Leon, also called Ferdinand II of Aragon
30
2.7
Map showing that on the second half of the thirteenth century,
Moorish power in Spain was reduced to the Kingdom of Granada,
which survived for over 200 years. Each of the four
Christian Kingdoms of the peninsula, Portugal, Castille,
Navarre and Aragon also took on separate political entities.
50
2.8
The wedding portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella, c. 1469 C.E.
54
2.9
Map showing the ruling of Caliphate of Cordova
66
2.4
2.5
2.10 Map showing the areas under taifa’s rule (independent states) except,
Leon, Castile, Pamplona, Aragon, France and Barcelona.These
kingdoms were too weak and the taifas’ kings always request help
from Almoravids
67
2.11 Map showing the Al-Murabitun (Almoravids’) Islamic state
67
2.12 Map showing the Al-Muwwahidun (Almohads’) emirate
extention from North Africa up to border with Christian states
like Portugal, Leon, Castile and Aragon
68
3.1
Treaty of Granada. Painting showing Abu Abdullah Muhammad
(Boabdil) confronted Isabelle and Ferdinand.
xii
78
3.2
Illustration of Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (1436-1517 C.E.) who
implemented terror and harsh policies towards Muslims in Spain.
83
3.3
This illustration of mudejares in Valencia, Murica, Aragon and Castile
93
4.1
The garrucha or pulleys or known in Italy as the strappado
125
4.2
Sketch showing the waterboarding, which was the painful technique
of torturing by the Inquisitors
126
Illustration of the Christian torture-chamber where the Muslims
and “heretics” had been badly tortured.
133
4.4
Sketch showing the whipping in a Spanish prison.
137
4.5
Illustration showing the life imprisonment of the immured
Muslim woman
145
Sanbenito was a public humiliation for the Muslims because they
had to wear a garment two yellow crosses, one on the breast and the
other on the back
149
Burning people alive by the Inquisitors.
153
4.3
4.6
4.7
xiii
CHAPTER 1
ITRODUCTIO
1.1 BACKGROUD AD HISTORY
The collapse of the last stronghold of Islamic civilization in al-Andalus is a wellestablished tragic fact in the collective memory of the Ummah but poorly analyzed by
the modern Muslim academia. The well-planned, systematic and sustained antiIslamic crusade of the united Roman Catholic kings and popes that ended with
genocide has also been scrutinized by Jewish, Christian and secular historians but only
trivialized as “expulsion of Moriscos” or “Morisco problem” of the final
“reconquista”. Nationalists and fascists of the modern Spain and Portugal celebrate the
Holocaust of Muslims during the reigns of Aragonese Fernando II, Isabel of Castile,
Carlos I (Carl V), Philip II, Philip III as the final “liberation” of the Catholic
Visigothic-Roman Spain from “the Moorish-Arab occupation”.
“The creeping decadency, collaboration with the northern Catholic crusading
states and above all the insane power struggle among the ruling clans and dynasties of
the Islamic Far West (Andalus and Maghreb) weakened the whole infrastructure of
tamadun to the point of open treason and apostasy. In 1491 C.E., the ‘failed state’ of
the Nasrid kingdom of Granada - a pitiful remnant of once rich and sophisticated
Islamic regional power, stretched from Atlas Mountains in Morocco to the valleys of
the Swiss Alps – invited the Christian invasion from the warlike North. It was an
1
ironical reversal of the situation of 711 C.E., when the Catholic Visigothic Spain
invited the Islamic futuhat led by Tariq ibn Zayad and Musa ibn Nusair.”1
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile ended eight centuries of Muslim
rule in the Iberian Peninsula in December 31, 1491C.E./897AH tragically. Despite the
steadily declining political power of Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and the Nasirid
Granada's fall in 897AH /1491C.E., the end of Muslim rule in the Peninsula did not
mean the end of Islamic faith and culture for nearly half a million Muslims who
became coerced subjects of the Catholic Monarchs' power (out of a total Iberian
population of circa nine million). “These mudéjar (i.e., “tamed” or “subjugated” by
Christian rule) communities were most numerous in and around Granada and
Valencia, though there were also large “jamaat” in Aragon and smaller, more deIslamized groups scattered throughout Castile”.2
Dragged under the Catholic yoke by the sword and fire, the conquered
Muslims were Arabic speakers, and there were numerous camps of Granadan refugees
around the Mediterranean protected by the powerful Osmanli Turks. The pseudoautonomy conquered Andalusian Muslims who as new subjects of the Castilian
crown, were tolerated de iure but not de facto by the churchmen. The Toledan
Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, known for his fanatical Islamophobia
decided to baptize the Muslims of Granada by force. His “holy water” (santa aqua)
and widespread Christian abuses had provoked the First Muslim Intifadah in the
Alpujarras, which was savagely pacified. King Fernando and Queen Isabel issued
their order in 908AH /1502 C.E. requiring all Muslims in Castile and Leon to convert
1
Kopanski, A.B, The fall and the holocaust of Andalusian Muslims, (1490-1614CE/896-1-23AH):
Lesson of History which always will be repeated if it is not learned or became neglected, (Penang:
Pusat Islam Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2011), 3.
2
Ibid., 2-3. See detailed study of Mudejars, in Mark D. Mayerson’s, The Muslims of Valencia in the
Age of Fernando and Isabel, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 61-99, 143.
2
to Roman Catholicism or leave the Spain immediately. The same edicts were issued
for Navarre in 921AH/1515 C.E. and Aragon in 932AH /1525 C.E. The royal orders
were executed in the atmosphere of terror of forcible mass baptisms. The violent
“conversion” of Iberian Muslims to Christianism of the Roman Catholic sect (the
Muslim majority and Jewish communities of Portugal had been expelled from that
kingdom in 903AH/1497 C.E.) was violently executed and under duress, and the
nominally ‘New Christians” continued to practice Islam as they had before.
This mass ethnic cleansing led to a demographic shift and the Final Solution of
"cuestión morisca." The Catholic clerics and monks advocated enslavement of
Morisco children and wives in cases of their refusal of “full assimilation into the
Spanish Christian society”. However, many Aragonese and Valencian noblemen,
whose large estates depended extensively upon Morisco slave labor, called for
patience and systematic tactics in their Christianization. The Dominican and
Franciscan orders of monks called for total extermination or expulsion of the Moriscos
from the united kingdom of Spain and Portugal.
1.2 STATEMET OF THE PROBLEM
This study focuses on the Catholic policy of destruction of Islam which occurred
between 898-934 AH /1492-1525 C.E. In December 31, 1491 C.E./897 AH,
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile ended the 800 years-long Muslim rule
over the Iberian Peninsula. After the fall of Granada in 1492 C.E. until 1525 C.E., the
forcibly baptized Muslims and Crypto-Muslims were forced either to desperate armed
resistance, survival and civil disobedience, or they were victimized by numerous antiIslamic edicts, bans, unbearable tortures, imprisonment, public burning alive (auto-dafe) and daily harassments by the Catholic courts, governors and clergymen and in the
3
end to the final expulsion of the surviving dehumanized and de-Islamized “moriscos”.
The royal edicts were issued for Navarre in 1515 C.E. and Aragon 1525 C.E. orders
were executed by the terror of forcible mass baptism. Thousand of Muslims preferred
hijrah and the Muslim population of Spain had been reduced to nearly zero. Anwar G.
Chejne writes : “Born and reared in the Iberian Peninsula of mixed ancestry (Spanish,
Jewish, Berber, Arab, and other ethnic groups), the Moriscos were considered aliens
in their own land, heretics, who presented an imminent danger to both church and
state. Edict after edict reinforced this attitude and relegated the Moriscos to the margin
of Christian society.”3
The 400 year-long violent ‘rolling back’ of the Islam (know to the Muslims as
istirdad and to the Spanish Catholics as reconquista) from the northern frontier of the
River Ebro (thugr al-aqsa) to the last Muslims strongholds of the Nasirid kingdom
of Granada and Alpujarra Mountains was also marked by many killing fields and
pillages but the fanatical ferocity, cruelty and
systematic subjugation and
extermination of the enslaved Muslims by the “Holy Office” and municipal tribunals
of the infamous Inquisition between 1492 and 1616 C.E. became a unique pattern of
the total destruction of entire population on base of religion and ‘ purity of blood’
(limpieza de sangre).
The papal bulls (stamps), royal instructions, ecclesial registers, political
advises, clerics’ sermons of this second dark age of the Christian intolerance are
chilling records of inhumanity and barbarity. Ironically and gloomy enough, this age
3
Chejne, Anwar G., Islam and the West. The Moriscos. A Cultural and Social History, (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1983), vii.
4
of anti-Muslim atrocities in the Spain is called by the western historians as the
“Renaissance” or the Age of Humanism.4
1.3 THE OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH
The objectives of this research are to conduct an investigation on the actual number of
the killed, tortured and expelled Muslims in the re-Catholicized Spain and also to
examine historical evidences and documents on the planned ethnic-cleansing of the
Muslims by the Papacy, Spanish clergy and monarchs.
The third objective is to argue with the controversial western deniers of the
expulsion of Muslims in the medieval and early modern Spain by examining biblical
scriptures and the papal bulls which authorize the burning alive, enslaving, and
extermination of the non-Christian peoples.
The fourth objective is to analyze the Spanish Muslims’ expulsion as the model
for latter Christian atrocities and genocide against Muslims in Kipchak, Hungary,
Crimea, and Balkans. In addition, this study also aims to inform readers the history of
the economical and financial degradation of once rich, industrious and prosperous
Muslims who were as a consequence, enslaved by the Catholic system of power.
Next, the help from other Muslim states like Osmanli Turks will also be
examined. This is important to see if there were any contacts, aids and assistance from
other Muslim rulers to the Andalusians.
Apart from the above, the comprehensive, composite history of the last
medieval crusade against Islam in the Far West needs the collection of evidences from
both sides. This initiatory research is the first monographic treatment of the
4
Benjamin, Z. Kadar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims, (Princeton:
University Press, 1984), 14.
5
destruction of Islamic al-Andalus by the Catholic churchmen and monarchs written
from and not nationalistic, secularized or even Eurocentric viewpoint but rather from
the Islamocentric standpoint. My investigation is devoted not to the exploration of the
well-known facts through works of the western and eastern historians but to locate the
tragic Muslim Expulsion from the collective memory of the ‘postmodern’ academia as
well as to the Islamic ummah. As a very pioneering endevour, it cannot do more than
just draft an outline for future full-length study of the hideous acts of the western
Christian state, people and society maddened by Islamophobia in the historical period
called as the Age of Discovery, Humanism, Reformation and Renaissance in Europe.
In addition, the genocidal policy of Ximenes de Cisneros against Islam will
also be thoroughly investigated.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIOS
There are several research questions imposed in this research. These questions are
useful to facilitate my research work.
First, how many Muslims were killed by the Inquisition? This question will
need evidence on the numbers and data of the killing of Muslims in various parts of
Spain.
Secondly, the question that can be asked is how many mosques, libraries, and
madrasahs had been destroyed and burnt down? The collected data regarding this
issue will form a bulk of evidences for the violence acts against Muslims.
Third, who helped the Andalusians during the chaotic situation? This question
will lead to the issues of the resistant movements in al-Andalus and the aids that
Muslims got from the other parts of the world and these questions will be answered
with the help of the primary source.
6
How successful was Hermandez Ximenez de Cisneros in his policy of
destruction of the physical, spiritual, economical, political and religious power of
Islam in Spain?
Apart from that, the political and religious plan deserves some questions like,
who was involved in the extermination of Muslims in Spain. Did the Papacy play the
most important role in religious and ethnic cleansing in Spain? Again, collected
literature of sources will help to answer those issues.
In terms of Catholic policy, several questions need answers. First, how many
Muslims were burned alive at the stakes? How many Muslim children were
kidnapped? How many Muslims were force to exile or gathered in concentration
camp? How many mosques and madrasahs were destroyed? Lastly, how many
libraries were burnt down? The answer can be established through Anwar G. Chejne’s
and Charles Lea’s literature.
1.5 JUSTIFICATIO OF THE PROBLEM
In spite of the existing primary sources and rich secondary literature on the plight and
Holocaust of the Muslims in the re-Catholicized Spain, produced by the Muslim,
Christian, Jewish and secularist authors, there is no single work which
comprehensively investigates the final phases of the total destruction of Islamic
civilization in the Far West. Modern Muslim historians of al-Andalus prefer the
comfort of praising the “scientific and cultural progress of the Islamic Spain” when
the Christianized West was still in the darkest age of its own history than to examine
the darkest pages of the end of this “splendor of Moorish Spain”. Additionally, the
modern Muslim historians have not yet analyzed the “rise and fall of Moorish Spain”
in the context of the religious violence inside the medieval or the early modern
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Christendom. Studies on the Muslim victims of the infamous Catholic Inquisition are
embryonic stage and further investigations are needed.
1.6 LITERATURE REVIEW
The first task is to explain thoroughly the term genocide in order to understand the
root of this issue. For instance, Raphael Lemkin, a controversial Jewish lawyer (1900–
59), coined the modern term-neologism of genocide with the Greek “genos,” (race),
and the Latin “cide,” (killing). “Genocide” is defined as the total destruction of large
communities based on their collective identity, a pre-planned “final solution” aiming
at the obliteration of vital foundations of the life of the condemned community.
Genocide is double-pronged: destruction of the cultural pattern of the oppressed and
the imposition of the cultural pattern of the oppressor. Apart from that, I refer to
dictionaries like McMillan and Oxford to explain more on genocide terminology in
relation to Pope’s policy, which was to kill a large number of Muslims. This act is
termed as genocide.
Books by Henry Charles Lea are the best source of information on the
genocides’ policy of the Catholic kings. He used manuscripts from AHN in Madrid in
his monumental work (four volumes) on the history of the Spanish Inquisition,
published in 1901. In his writing, he showed the real situation of the forcibly baptized
Muslims in Spain. For example, he stated that “At Olivia, the soldiers of Orihuela
drove the Moors in droves to the church of baptism, striking and robbing them, while
the latter were crying “Sancta Maria, have mercy, the hour has come!” Subsequently a
good frail of el Pi armed with a crucifix brought in a little band of 20 or 30 to save
their lives; dead Moors lying on the roadsides, the Moreria of the Olevagra was set on
fire and two sick Moors were burnt in their homes. At Grandia, on the very day of the
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rout, the Agermanados celebrated their victory by killing some Moors and dragging
the rest to the church, shouting “Death to the Moors!” and “Dogs be baptized!”5 Many
evidences like this support the occurance of the extermination and expulsion of
Muslims in Spain. Furthermore, he refuted the apologetic and nationalist approach in
the studies of the Spanish Inquisition.
J. Aranda Doncel and R. Carrasco published valuable articles and statistics on
the 80-year-long period of forcible baptism and terror of Inquisition in which the
persecuted Spanish Crypto-Muslims still continued to practice Islam and survived as
communities. Their works were published in Los Practicas Musulmanas des los
Moriscos Andaluces 1452-1605 (The Muslim practices of Andalusian Moriscos, 14521605), edited by Abejelil Temimi (Zaghouan, Tunisia, 1989.)
The controversial
method of survival by taqiyya (“concealment of faith”) i.e., the dispensation by which
a Muslim under compulsion or threat of injury, death and destruction is relieved of his
or her overt observance of saum of Ramadan, salat, and halal diet, had been adopted
by the Crypto-Muslims in the re-catholized Spain. The production of traditional
narratives, copied clandestinely in the Castilian and Aragonese dialects of the Spanish
language but handwritten in the Arabic script known to modern scholars as aljamiado
(Arabic adjective 'ajamiyya, which means, "non-Arabic," or "Others"), played a very
important role of “collective memory” within the enslaved Morisco ummah . This
book shed a significant light in explaining the actions taken on the Muslims by the
Catholics. The problem with this book is that it has no sufficient data in numbers.
However, other books like Meyerson, Monter and Hennigst provide support for this
case in terms of the statistic of the deportation to North Africa.
5
Lea, H.C., The Moriscos of Spain: The Conversion and Expulsion, (New York: Burt Franklin, 1901),
65.
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British historian Henry Kamen in his Spanish Inquisition (1965), which he
revised and published in 1985 as the Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth centuries, cannot satisfy the Muslim readers of history because of his
apologetic style of writing.
William Monter in Spanish Inquisition from the Basque lands to Sicily (1990)
explored archives of Zaragosa, Navarre, Barcelona and Valencia tribunals governed
by the Aragonese Secretariat of the “Holy Office” created in 1517-1618 CE to
persecute “Moriscos”, Crypto-Muslims, Protestants, “witches”, Illuminados and the
baptized Jews. The Crypto-Muslims made the highest percentage of Inquisition’s
victims. His work provides me with good data bank for this case study. The best
quantitative history of the inquisitional terror
examined
50 000 trial records of
presents Gustav Hennigst
who
twenty-one Spanish tribunals dealing with
‘blasphemy’, ‘opposition to the Holy Office, ‘unrestricted sexual behaviour’ (i.e.
Muslim tradition of polygamy) and “propositions” (insulting the Catholic dogmas).
Anwar M. Chejne with his studies on Crypto-Muslim literature written in
Aljamiado published in Islam and the West. A cultural and social history of
Moriscos(1983) is very helpful. His writing contributes to this research in many
angles; one of them is in terms of the Muslims torture by Catholics soldiers. Anwar
M. Chejne once stressed that:
Cisneros came prepared with expensive gifts for Muslim leaders whom
he hoped to employ in converting the masses. He succeeded in baptizing
some of them and three thousand other Muslims in a single day. He
imprisoned many, among them their proud leader, Zegri, who starved
until he begged for conversion under the name of Gonzalo Fernandez
Zegri. Cisneros ordered the main mosque of Albacin to be converted
into a church, had all Arabic religious books burned, and transferred
Arabic books in philosophy to the University of Alcala de Hanares,
which he had founded. In 1501, a royal ordinance was issued calling for
the conversion of the Muslims of Castile to choose between baptism and
exile. In 1516, Cisneros not only insisted on force baptism, but
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instituted an ordinance calling for the abandonment of Moorish dress
and customs.6
Besides torture, this book contains a lot of survey and analysis of selfexpression of the Moriscos as what can be seen in the Aljamiado literature. It provides
me with the evidences of Crypto-Muslims’ struggle for survival, with reference to the
ideology conflict, the clash of religions and cultures and differences in mutual
perceptions.
The best primary Muslim narrative source to the study of tragedy of these
enslaved Muslims of Spain is chronicle ?afh at-tib min gusn al-andalus ar-ratib wa
dikt waziriha lisan ad-din ibn al-hatib,(translated and edited by R. Dozy and Pascal
de Gayangos under the titles of The History of Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain) by
Abu al Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tilmisiani al-Maliki al-Ashari al-Makkari,
published in London, 1840-43, and anonymous ?ubdhat al-nas al-akhbar, (edited and
translated by A. Bustani,1940) . Al- Makkari wrote the whole history of al-Andalus
from Tariq ibn Ziyad’s expansion of Islam in al-Andalus until the last Islamic empire
collapsed. He also wrote on other sources like al-Jami’ado. He was a good writer and
in fact, he was one of the Muhaijirin who were deported from Spain. Al-Makkari who
lived in 16th century had vast information about the situation. Therefore, his two
volumes books will be my biggest sources from the Islamic point of view on this
issue. It was very critical for the Nasrids. He criticized the hypocrisy and cowardice of
the last Emir of Nasrids, Muhammad II, Abdullah, called by the Spanish writers as
Boabdil el-Chico. In his writing, he despised Boabdil. For him, this Emir Abdullah II
led to the fall of Granada and brought misery to the Muslims.
6
Chejne, 6-7.
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