Blood and faith The purging of Muslim Spain

Following an overview of Christian-Muslim relations during the Christians' famed Reconquest of Iberia from Muslim rule between the eighth century and the fall of Granada in 1492, journalist Carr focuses on the interplay between politics and religion that culminated in the 1609 expulsion of 300,000 or more Moriscos from Granada, Valencia, Aragon, and other parts of Spain. Primarily engaged in agricultural labor and crafts, the Moriscos were known for their hard work, abstemious habits, and dietary restrictions. Unlike the Jews expelled in 1492, the Moriscos had received Christian baptism, a sacrament placing them under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal of the Inquisition. Nonetheless, inconsistent efforts at religious indoctrination and persecution provoked insurrections, most notably in the Alpujarras region of Granada. After decades of review and half-hearted efforts to Christianize and assimilate the Moriscos, Philip III ordered the long-considered expulsion, an action of enormous cost to the victims and a blow to an already struggling Spanish economy. Drawing upon substantial secondary literature, Carr has provided a well-written, richly detailed volume that will appeal, as intended, to general readers. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. M. A. Burkholder University of Missouri--St. Louis

Centuries ago, Spain expelled its Muslims. 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" 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. The Christian victory in 1492 signaled the start of ethnic cleansing. Andrew Wheatcroft's most recent book is "The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe."

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 is a well-known tragedy. Less well-known is the later expulsion in 1609 of the descendants of the Moors, who had ruled Spain for centuries. Carr (The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism) examines the uneasy coexistence of Christians and Muslims beginning in 1492, when Spain was united under the Christian Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Over the next century, Christian leaders grew less and less tolerant of Iberian Muslims, requiring them to convert to Catholicism. In April 1609, this growing intolerance culminated in an edict accusing these converts, known as Moriscos, of heresy and apostasy and decreeing their expulsion. Over the next five years, an estimated 350,000 Muslims were forced to abandon their homes; many died on the journey to the ships that would take them to North Africa, and many others were terrorized, raped, robbed and killed by forces that were supposed to protect them. Carr deftly narrates the complex events leading up to this little-known but horrific episode as a warning against religious intolerance and xenophobia. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved