By ANDREW WHEATCROFT
Published: January 29, 2010
Who remembers the last survivors of Muslim Spain, whom Spaniards
contemptuously called Moriscos ("little Moors")? Impressive research on them
has appeared in the last 30 years, yet until now, none of it has escaped
beyond the walls of the academic ghetto. Matthew Carr's well-balanced and
comprehensive book brings the story of their tragic fate to a wider public.
BLOOD AND FAITH
The Purging of Muslim Spain
By Matthew Carr
350 pp. The New Press. $28.95
"Blood and Faith" is a splendid work of synthesis. The story begins with the
10-year war — a crusade — to conquer the Moorish Kingdom of Granada. The
Christian victory in 1492 signaled the beginning of the long ethnic
cleansing of Holy Spain. Spanish Jews were the first victims; they were
quickly forced into exile. The other ethnic and religious minority in the
Iberian peninsula, the Muslim Moors, posed a more complex problem.
Moors had lived for centuries in Spain and were valued for their hard work
and expertise as farmers and craftsmen. Every noble landlord knew the old
saying "Whoever has a Moor has gold," and aristocratic fortunes were built
on a simple basis: "The more Moors, the more profit."
The slow breakdown of this living-together (convivencia) began with the
conquest of Granada. In 1492, the Muslim Granadinos were unwillingly
incorporated into Christian Spain, but this brought nothing but trouble.
Most fought an unremitting rear-guard action in defense of their culture,
Islamic faith and social institutions, resisting a forced conversion to
Christianity by any possible means.
They posed a real danger to Christian Spain. Granada's long coastline
offered an open frontier to the Ottoman Turks, Spain's mortal enemies. In
1568, after repeated small revolts, a civil war of unceasing savagery
erupted. It was bloodily suppressed by 1571, and thereafter there was no
going back on either side. As many as 80,000 Muslims — men, women and
children — were deported deep into the Christian heartland. Yet this
provided no solution. Some contemporary writers had contrasted the
"peaceable" Moors of Aragon and Castile with the "savage" Moors of Granada,
but this distinction soon became irrelevant. All Muslims, peaceable or
savage, were increasingly regarded by their Christian neighbors as malign
and dangerous.
What was a Morisco in their eyes? A murderer, highwayman or bandit. All
Moriscos became pollutants of Roman Catholic Spain, with their secret
Islamic rituals and contempt for the values of the majority. And like the
Jews in 1492 they were impure, their blood self-evidently corrupting; their
very presence in Spain was an abomination.
Over the next four decades, Spanish officials planned the purgation of the
Muslim threat. Every remote possibility was canvassed — drowning,
castration, exposure on the icy shores of Newfoundland. As time passed, the
government's resolution hardened: it was no longer a matter of if but of
when and how. Finally, from 1609 to 1614, an estimated 300,000 Muslims were
marched to the coasts and put on ships for North Africa.
Carr, the author of "A History of Terrorism," charts this steady breakdown,
though without demonizing either Christian or Muslim. He suggests that the
growth of mutual mistrust and the spiral of increasing violence were the
igniting spark of the final expulsion. Yet it is impossible to read this
book without sensing its resonance in our own time.
In his epilogue, "A Warning From History?," Carr's message is stark. The
current language of outrage in Europe — indulging prophecies of imminent
demographic doom brought on by fertile Muslims — is heading toward the idea
of an "agreeable holocaust," which is what a 17th-century Dominican friar
called Spain's final solution to its insoluble problem. We should know
better.
Andrew Wheatcroft's most recent book is "The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs,
Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe."
--
Sesungguhnya, hanya dengan mengingat Allah, hati akan tenang.
now surely by Allah's remembrance are the hearts set at rest.
N'est-ce point par l'évocation d'Allah que se tranquillisent les coeurs.
im Gedenken Allahs ist's, daß Herzen Trost finden können.
>> al-Ra'd [13]: 28
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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