Muslims In Spain Summary

The book, Muslims in Spain by L.P Harvey depicts the history of Spanish Islam during the late 15th century to the year 1614, when the remaining Muslim population was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 16th century, Catholic kings Ferdinand and Isabella had already expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, which was the year in which they acquired the Islamic Kingdom of Granada; King Ferdinand and Isabella made all of the Muslims living in the territories of the Crown of Castile convert to Christianity. In 1526, the same action was extended to convert Muslims of Aragon and Valencia, which officially ended the existence of legal Muslims in Christian territories of Iberia, where they lived under the name of “Mudejares” throughout the entire medieval period.
He describes the “Mudejares” as being part of the Castilian society for centuries and therefore did not speak Arabic, were uncircumcised, and there were a very small population of them which did not make them a threat to the Spanish. On the other hand, the “Moriscos” was the name given to the new Christian converts, many of who were crypto-Muslims. The purpose of this book is to determine whether Muslims can be Europeans, whether they can be us. The problem with the “Moriscos” was that they were forced to become Christians unwillingly and therefore will always be Muslims underneath. The merging of the words Muslims and “Morisco” is the underlying problem in this book. The chapter, “Assimilation or Rejection” is a chapter I believed was rushed and not given enough attention which makes me perplexed because the underlying message of this book is that Muslims were mistreated and abused by the Spanish during this time period. Although Harvey does a good job of showing sympathy towards the Muslims; one of his main concerns being how cruel and inhumane the Expulsion