1492

I'm an avid reader of history and one of my favourite periods has to be that of the Islamic presence in the Andalus. Today I felt inclined to read up a bit about the story of Abd el Rahman the First, the founder of the Ummayad dynasty which ruled in the Iberian peninsula for another three hundred years (many Syrians were in the Andalus by then). Whilst reading an entry about him on Wikipedia, I noticed that it is said he is buried under the Mezquita, now a church, in Cordoba. A morbid fascination overtook me, what happened to the cemetaries for all those Muslim Andalusians who had lived there for over eight hundred years? I began searching for information about the normal people who lived in that era, where were they buried? What trace did they leave behind? What was life like for them? I even wonder what the Andalusian accent would have sounded like, since each part of the Arab world developed it's own distinctive accent by then and I'm sure they would have been no different. My search brought up something very interesting. Google allow you to preview books and amongst the search results, I came across "Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614" by Leonard Patrick Harvey. It wasn't quite what I was after, but it opened my eyes to something I had only noticed fleetingly before. The plight of Muslims in Spain after the fall of Granada in 1492.

1492 is often taken to be the fall of Granada and also the year that the "New World" was discovered. In my opinion, it is a massive watershed, marking the increasing power of a well armed and expansionary Europe and the decline in power of the East. However, I've always tended to think that the expulsion of the "Moors" and Jews of Spain took place in 1492 and that was the end of it. Far from it. What Harvey's book tells us is that in spite of the forced conversion of the Moors or "moriscos" many retained their customs for a very long time and in fact there were three key periods of armed rebellions. The Ottomans were providing logistical and material support from Algiers and the local Muslim community leaders in Granada and other areas were in regular contact with Algiers and Morroco. The period after the fall of Granda was one marked by intense bloodshed, violence and genocide as Spains Islamic identity was steadily purged. During this time, leaders of the various rebel groups sported names such as Ben Humeya (also known as Fernando de Valor), El Zaguer (al saghir or small one), Diego al Guazir, Bernardino Abu Amer and Gonzalo al Seniz. Ben Humeya (Bin Ummaya) claimed to be the final descendant of the Ummayads and led a rebellion against the Spanish crown from the mountains, eventually being strangled in a power struggle and chucked to the bottom of a ravine (somethings never change!). It's almost amusing to read such Spanish/Arabic names which I had never heard of nor thought possible. Yet is it really so difficult to imagine? So many Arabs also moved to Latin America in the late 19th and 20th century and today form a vibrant and wealthy part of the countries they inhabit that retains it's Arab identity. In many ways, these men whose grandparents would have called themselves Andalusian and lived in Granada, were precursors to this merging of cultures and identities, yet who even 4 decades after the exile of King Boabdil, retained enough of their identity and culture to rebel.

From what I can tell, Harvey's book describes the details of what was happening to those Muslims who chose to remain in Spain and the tensions and power struggles which occurred between the community and also with the Spanish conquerors. I find it fascinating that it ties in the rest of the Islamic world at the time and how the Ottomans were inciting rebellion and supporting the Moriscos, until the rise of the Safavids in Iran forced them to turn their attention eastwards. It brings to life the Andalus and connects it with later events, not just as a place that was lost in the depths of history. In Morroco there are still families which keep as family heirlooms the keys to their long lost homes in Granada and Cordoba. As in Sicily, Malta and elsewhere, the Western Mediteranean was a vibrant yet volatile exchange between Europe and the Islamic world, with ideas and people flowing back and forth, rather than a static boundary where the differences are clearly demarcated. His book is definitely on my ever increasing to-read list and should prove a fascinating insight into what many of us think is a long vanished world, but which remains alive within ourselves and cultures.

I try to imagine what living in 1614 would have been like. Did the Muslims still living in Spain and North Africa remember al Andalus like Palestinians remember their home cities? Did the people who lived in al Maghreb imagine the horrors which awaited them only a short time later and the arrival of the first Spanish and French soldiers? Can we even imagine a Morocco or Algeria where it is alien for someone to speak French? Many families in Damascus are descended from those early refugees escaping French and Spanish slaughters and of course who can forget Abd al Qader al Jaza'iri who until recently was buried in Damascus and who played an instrumental role in protecting the Christians of Damascus from slaughter from rampaging mobs? Did the people of Damascus complain of the increase in prices and hardships brought about by that early influx of refugees? At the time, Muslim refugees from Eastern Europe were also settling in the area of Damascus called the Muhajreen.

Some may argue that history is boring or irrelevant, yet I counter by saying that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. Yet reading history is not without its dangers, those who read history can sometimes fall in love with it to the point that they resent the present and wish to reside only in the past. It is truly a fine line that we must tread.