Abstract
One of the most significant transformations that occurred in sixteenth-century Iberia was the systematic conversion of the conquered Muslims of Granada and Castile in 1501/1502. A hitherto largely unstudied text, the 1501 Granadan poetic appeal (or qaṣīda) to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II can illustrate the various dimensions at play during the late-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries with regards to the Mudéjars and Moriscos in Iberia.. This appeal represents an important ideological watershed and a critical turning point in the history of the Andalusi Muslims as they responded to their transition from Mudéjar (tolerated Muslims) to Morisco (crypto-Muslim) status at the close of the fifteenth century. The 1501 qaṣīda to Bayezid II is a significant historical document because it represents one of the only contemporary reflections of the Iberian Muslims on the end of al-Andalus, the end of toleration for Islam in Castile, and the forcible conversions that occurred between 1499 and 1501 in Granada. As such, this document can help shed light on how contemporary Andalusi Muslims understood—and, more importantly, how they sought to represent—the end of Islam as a publicly practiced and legally-tolerated religion in Castile. Rather than suggesting that the Hispano-Muslims were passive victims of Castilian Reconquista or unwilling agents of Ottoman jihād, the text represents an attempt by a particular faction, the rebels of the Alpujarras, to transform the existing reality from a local Iberian affair into a broader “civilizational” conflict by actively engaging with both of these forces. It was by constructing a narrative of victimization in which not merely Muslims but Islam itself was humiliated and subjugated that these Andalusi Muslims invoked the Ottoman sultan’s obligation as the legitimate imam and caliph, and hence the defender of the faithful, in order to ensure that he would come to their aid that the text exhibits this transformative agency.
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