Visions of deliverance : Moriscos and the politics of prophecy in the early modern Mediterranean 9781501741463

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VISIONS OF DELIVERANCE

VISIONS OF DELIVERANCE

M O R I S COS A N D T H E P O L I T I CS O F P R O P H ECY I N T H E E A R LY M O D E R N MED I T E R R A N E A N

May te Green-­ Mercado

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu. First published 2019 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Green-Mercado, Mayte, author. Title: Visions of deliverance : Moriscos and the politics of   prophecy in the early modern Mediterranean / Mayte  Green-Mercado. Description: Ithaca, [New York] : Cornell University Press,   2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019020916 (print) | LCCN 2019981118   (ebook) | ISBN 9781501741463 (cloth) |   ISBN 9781501741487 (epub) | ISBN 9781501741470 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Catholic Church—Relations—Islam. |   Moriscos—Prophecies.| Moriscos—Mediterranean   Region—History—16th century. | Muslims—Spain—   History—16th century. | Prophecy—Islam. |   Prophecy—Political aspects—Spain. | Islam—Spain—   History—16th century. | Islam—Relations—Catholic   Church. | Spain—History—Prophecies. Classification: LCC DP104 .G74 2019 (print) | LCC DP104   (ebook) | DDC 305.6/97094609031—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020916 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov   /​2019981118 Cover image: Vicente Carducho, La expulsión de los moriscos (c. 1627), detail. Museo del Prado. Used by permission.

The affairs of Spain ­were so confused, men ­were so perplexed, that it seemed like it was a heavenly scourge, and that another destruction and end would come over ­these kingdoms, worse than it had been in the times of the King Don Rodrigo. They believed in omens; they cast predictions and prognostications threatening g­ reat misfortune. Some demons in­ven­ted who knows what prophecies, which some said ­were by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville, o ­ thers by Fr. Juan de Rocacelsa [John of Rupescissa], and one of Merlin and other wise men, and of St. John Damascene [John of Damascus], and weeping or plaints that St. Isidore cried over Spain. And in all of them [­there ­were] so many bad signs of calamities and destruction for Spain that ­people ­were terrified and went about dazed. Prudencio de Sandoval, Historia de la vida y hechos del emperador Carlos V (1604), part 1, book 6, chapter 12

Co nte nts

Acknowl­edgments  ix Note on Transliterations and Citations  xi

Introduction

1

1. Christian Visionary or Muslim Prophet? Re-­Creating Identities in Late Spanish Islam 19 2. The Return of Muslim Granada: Prophecy and Martyrdom in the Alpujarras Revolt (1568–1570) 64 3. Ottoman Rome: Apocalyptic Prophecies in the Mediterranean (1570–1580) 100 4. “The ­Grand Morisco Conspiracy”: Prophecy and Rebellion Plots in Valencia and Aragon (1570–1582) 130 5. Prophetic Fabrications of a Morisco In­for­mant: Gil Pérez and the Moriscos of Valencia

165

6. Prophecy as Diplomacy: The Moriscos and Henry IV of France

214

Epilogue

237

Appendix A: First Prognostication of the War of Granada  249 Appendix B: Second Prognostication of the War of Granada  254

vi i i

Contents

Appendix C: Third Prognostication of the War of Granada  258 Appendix D: Prophecy of Fr. Juan de Rokasiya  263 Appendix E: Account of the Scandals That W ­ ill Take Place at the End of Times in the Island of Spain  267 Appendix F: Prophecy of St. Isidore  271 Appendix G: Plaint of Spain  274 Appendix H: Muḥammad’s Prophecy about Spain  277 Bibliography  281 Index  303

A c k n o w l­ e d g m e nts

Over the years I have amassed debt that will ­ never be repaid. I would like to thank p­ eople who have been instrumental in the development of this book. I am grateful to my mentors at The University of Chicago who saw this proj­ect come to life when I was a gradu­ate student. Cornell H. Fleischer, Tamar Herzog, Fred Donner, John E. Woods, and the late Farouk Mustafa taught me to think in deep, broad, and connected ways. David Nirenberg supported my work at a crucial moment. His work has served as an inspiration throughout the years, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with him. There ­ are friends and colleagues without whose help I would not have been able to complete this book—­people who are true scholars in ­every sense of the word. Ryan Szpiech, a model colleague and mentor, read an initial full draft of the manuscript and gave valuable feedback. My conversations and collaborations with Evrim Binbaş enriched my work in countless ways, from helping me acquire sources to reading ­every single chapter of this book. I am deeply grateful for his friendship and constant support. My husband Javier Castro-Ibaseta’s sharp and critical feedback on e­ very aspect of my work has made me a better scholar. He saw this proj­ect in its very beginning stages, and has been h­ ere to its very end. I am grateful to him for reading and rereading and never growing tired of it.  Many colleagues helped me refine many of the ideas in this book. I had the privilege and honor to have been part of the Mediterranean working group and the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Michigan. Numerous friends and colleagues discussed specific aspects of my book. Thanks to Kathryn Babayan, Paroma Chatterjee, Hussein Fancy, Enrique García Santo Tomás, Gottfried Hagen, Michele Hannoosh, Karla Mallette, Devi Mays, and Diane Owen Hughes. Karla Mallete and Michele Hannoosh provided impor­tant feedback on my translations from Italian and French. I am grateful to all for making me feel like I was part of a strong intellectual ­family. Four brilliant scholars and dear friends, María Dolores Morillo, Evelyn A ­ lsultany, Deirdre De la Cruz, and Shobita Parthasarathy, have enriched me ix

x

Acknowl­e dgments

intellectually and personally, and continue to be with me in spite of the distance. I am grateful to the WOCAP network at the University of Michigan for the two writing grants that allowed me to spend dedicated time writing this book in the com­pany of Deirdre, Shobita, and Evelyn during two productive and memorable summer writing retreats. My dear friends and life sisters, Montse Rabadán, Rosa Ramos, Betül Başaran, and Lena Jansen, saw this project from dissertation to book. I am grateful that they are part of my life. Having recently arrived at Rutgers University, Newark, I cannot be more grateful for the warm welcome I have received by my ­g reat colleagues in the Federated History Department, and my colleagues in the Middle East and Islamic Studies Working Group. I would like to thank especially Nükhet Varlık and Leyla Amzi for their friendship, and Gary Farney and Karen Caplan for their support and mentoring over the past two years. I would like to acknowledge and thank Rutgers University’s Research Council subvention grant, which has allowed me to defray significant publication costs related to this book. I want to express my appreciation to the Schoff Fund at the University Seminars at Columbia University for their help in publication. The ideas presented in chapter 3 have benefitted from discussions in the University Seminar on Ottoman and Turkish Studies. Colleagues in the US and abroad have also been instrumental in the development of my proj­ect. Claire Gilbert, Daniel Hershenzon, and Danny Wasserman read early drafts of chapters. I thank them for their feedback and for their friendship. Special thanks go to Maribel Fierro, Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, Rafael Benítez Sánchez Blanco, and Bernard Vincent for their guidance, encouragement, and assistance in locating sources. I would like to thank especially Mercedes García-­Arenal for being an anchor in Spain when I first started thinking about this proj­ect, and for her support throughout the years. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my work recently at the Mediterranean Seminar, Spain North Africa Proj­ect, University of Michigan, The University of Chicago, Duke University, University of North Carolina, University of Minnesota, Columbia University, University of Western Ontario, Georgetown University in Qatar. Parts of chapter six appeared in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. I want to thank the editors for allowing me to use the same material in this book. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers assigned by Cornell University Press for their generous and thorough feedback, which was crucial as I revised the manuscript.



Ac k n ow l­ e d g m e n ts

xi

I thank my s­ister, Sylmarie Green, for being t­here even when I was too busy to chat, and for loving me in spite of my absence. My in-­laws Maricarmen Ibaseta and José Antonio Castro have provided support, love, and many cozy spaces to write in Spain. I dedicate this book to the two Sylvias in my life, my daughter, ­ and my mother, ­ Sylvia Mercado Martín, who would have been very proud.

N ote o n Tr a n s l i te r at i o n s a n d C i tat i o n s

For Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, I have followed the International Journal of M ­ iddle Eastern Studies guidelines. Aljamiado texts have been transcribed following the Colección de Literatura Española Aljamiada y Morisca (CLEAM). All transcriptions and translations of Spanish, Italian, and French sources have followed the original texts and have not been modernized. Throughout the book, Julian and Gregorian dates have been used. Dates in the Islamic lunar calendar (Hijrī qamarī) have not been provided. For all translations of the Qurʾān I have used The Qur’ān. Translated by Alan Jones. Exeter: Gibb Memorial Trust, 2007.

KINGDOM OF NAVARRE

Cities Towns Villages

Valladolid

Zaragoza Barcelona

Medina del Campo

N

CROWN OF ARAGON

Arévalo Ávila

Madrid

Toledo

Pastrana Ajofrín

Valencia

CROWN OF CASTILE Cordoba

Murcia

Seville OM GD KIN

O

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

A ANAD F GR

Málaga

Granada Alpujarras Mountains

Iberian Peninsula in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

0 0

50 100

100

150 mi 200 km

Map Area

Huesca

Maleján

Borja

Zaragoza

Aranda de Moncayo

Niguella Brea Morés Alfamén Sabiñán Cariñena Calatayud Villafeliche Almonacid de la Sierra A R Daroca

N

Nuez

Barcelona

Velilla del Ebro Belchite Urrea

Puebla de Híjar

A G O N Calanda Tortosa

Xea (Gea) de Albarracín Teruel

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Toga Gaibiel Navajas Segorbe

V A L E N C I A

Bechí

Benaguacil

Vall de Uxó Segó Valley Murbiedro (Sagunto)

Valencia

Alaquàs Carlet

Capital of kingdom Cities Towns Villages 0 0

30 50

Cullera

60 mi 100 km

Morisco towns in the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia.

Gandía

Valldigna Valley Denia

Gallinera Mountains

Algiers

Béjaïa

Barcelona

La Goleta

P Y RE N EE S M OU N T AI NS

Perpignan

Montréal, Rousillon

100

200

300 mi

0 100 200 300 400 500 km

0

Milan Genoa

Boundaries of the Ottoman Empire (16th century, up tp approximately 1614)

The early modern Mediterranean.

Fez

Alcazarquivir (Wādī al-Makhāzin)

Ceuta

Valencia

Pau

GASCONY

Zante MOREA (Zakynthos)

Chimarra (Himara) Negroponte Napflio

Ragusa (Dubrovnik)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Sicily

Rome

Djerba

Venice

IA BAN

Tangier

Madrid

Zaragoza

Béarn Saint-JeanPied-de-Port

Granada

Toledo

N

Paris

AL

Lesbos (Mytilene)

Cyprus

Cairo

Trabzon

Famagusta

Samsun

A N AT O L I A

Constantinople

Sinop

BLACK SEA

VISIONS OF DELIVERANCE

Introduction

On June 13, 1601, at 11:00 a.m., the bell of the chapel of St. Nicolas of Bari in the small town of Velilla del Ebro near Zaragoza, Aragon, spontaneously began to toll. The following day, a large crowd gathered as the bell continued ringing. On the third day it mysteriously ­stopped. Then, as if announcing a prodigious event, the tocsin resumed for another week before falling s­ ilent.1 This was no ordinary bell, as the residents of the town w ­ ere well aware. It was said to have tolled in 711, warning about conquest and, soon ­after, Muslim troops overran the Iberian Peninsula. News of the Bell of Velilla spread quickly. ­People came from Zaragoza and even from Barcelona to witness the miracle. It was captured in news pamphlets, commented on in correspondence, and discussed at length in many chronicles. Narrating the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, several chronicles counted the tolling of the bell as one of many other omens and super­natural phenomena that predicted the Moriscos’ banishment from Iberian Christian lands.2 Some were ­ convinced that the bell had announced “the secret agreements that the Moriscos w ­ ere plotting with the Turks for the ruination of

1. ​Don Jerónimo López de Ayala y del Hierro, Las campanas de Velilla (Madrid: Librería de Fernando Fé, 1886), 99. 2. ​See, for example, Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las cosas sucedidas en la corte de España desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid: Imprenta de J. Martín Alegría, 1858). 1

2

Introduction

Spain and the destruction of our sacred religion, which led to their expulsion.”3 The Moriscos, for their part, went to the town of Velilla to bear witness to the tolling bell with ­great excitement, saying that it “signaled the end of Chris­ tianity ­ in Spain,” and that the Peninsula would once again be in Muslim hands.4 The bell tolled again in 1610, just as the Moriscos w ­ ere being forced to leave their homeland. Belief in omens, prodigies, and prognostications was widespread in the early modern Mediterranean.5 In the Iberian Peninsula, many interpreted e­ very major historical event in a providentialist and apocalyptic light. This book’s epigraph captures some of the ways in which Spaniards understood apocalyptic phenomena. Its author, Prudencio de Sandoval, was reflecting on the popu­lar sentiment during the uprising of the citizens of Castile in 1520–21 known as the comunero movement, as a reaction to the arrival of their new king, Charles  V. The prophecies predicted destruction at the hands of the new king, whose calamitous takeover could only be compared to the Muslim conquest of the Peninsula “in the times of king Don Rodrigo,” in 711. Sandoval cited the circulation of prophecies by St. Isidore of Seville, John of Rupescissa ( Juan de Rocacelsa or Jean de Roquetaillade), Merlin, and John of Damascus to warn against paying attention to such things. ­ He further identified this kind of worldview as the beliefs of “ignorants.” Yet the real­ity was, as is evident with the example of the Bell of Velilla, that in Sandoval’s own time p­ eople read historical events through heavenly signs as intensely as they had centuries earlier, ­ and that hopes for politi ­ cal ­ and social change were ­ often supported by apocalyptic prognostications. Visions of Deliverance analyzes the efflorescence of apocalyptic beliefs and practices among Moriscos. The last Spanish Muslims to be forcibly converted to Catholicism in sixteenth-­century Spain, Moriscos and their descendants ­were also referred to as New Christians (as opposed to “Old Christians,” whose lineage was not “tainted” with any Jewish or Muslim blood). As this book ­will show, Moriscos w ­ ere not impervious to the apocalyptic excitement of their Old Christian counter p­ arts; they read the same prophecies of St. Isidore of 3. ​J. Cabecías, Relación verdadera de la campana de Velilla (1679), cited and translated by Grace Magnier in Pedro de Valencia and the Catholic Apologists of the Expulsion of the Moriscos (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 170. 4. ​Damián Fonseca, Justa expulsión de los moriscos de España (Rome, 1611), bk. 3, ch. 5, 165. 5. ​For the most recent publication on this subject see Cornell Fleischer, “A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61 (2018): 18–90. See also Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Turning the Stones Over: Sixteenth-­Century Millenarianism from the Tagus to the Ganges,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 40 (2003): 129–61; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “The Politics of Eschatology: A Short Reading of the Long View,” in Historical Teleologies in the Modern World, ed. Henning Trüper, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 25–45.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

3

Seville and John of Rupescissa (among other texts) with a similarly voracious appetite. Paying attention to the diffusion of Morisco apocalyptic texts in the Iberian Peninsula and across the broader Mediterranean sheds light not only on the conditions for the surge in apocalyptic prophecies and the pro­cesses of their production, reception, and transmission among Moriscos, but also on their social and po­liti­cal effects. As in the case of the comuneros described by Sandoval, prophecies served as a catalyzer for Morisco re­sis­tance to Christian monarchical power. This book maps out the ways in which this apocalyptic phenomenon transformed Morisco politi ­ cal ­ culture and practice, and put Moriscos in contact with such powerful ­ Mediterranean actors as the Ottomans, the French monarch Henry IV and the Saʿdī sultans of Morocco. Grounded in early modern Islamic, Spanish, and Mediterranean history, Visions of Deliverance offers multiple examples of the ways nonimperial actors such as the Moriscos w ­ ere able to fully participate in the intellectual and po­ liti­cal life of the early modern Mediterranean. In brief, this book contributes to a shift in our notions of sovereignty, domination, power, and alterity by exploring the agency of a social and po­liti­cal group that has long been relegated to the fringes of historical analy­sis in the fields of early modern history, Spanish culture, and Islamic studies.

Morisco Prognostications in Sixteenth-­Century Spain Jofores and Aljamiado Lit­er­a­ture During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, apocalyptic prophecies known as jofores circulated in the Muslim and crypto-Muslim ­ Morisco 6 communities of the Iberian Peninsula. Moriscos drew from the rich trove of Islamic lit­er­a­ture grouped ­under the generic term jafr, which included collections of oracles about the ­f uture. Jafr was originally associated with the belief that the descendants of Fāṭima, the Prophet Muḥammad’s d­ aughter, had inherited a privileged prophetic knowledge—­the ability to predict the f­uture. This knowledge was believed to have been inscribed in a leather-­bound book in which all past, pre­sent, and f­ uture events w ­ ere written. Access to this text was reserved exclusively for sayyids, or descendants of Muḥammad (through the line of Fāṭima and her husband ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Muḥammad’s cousin and son-­in-­law). Historically, jafr also came to be associated with divinatory 6. ​The Spanish word jofor is a derivative form of the Arabic word jafr from the Arabic root j-­f-­r, meaning “divination” or “prognostication.”

4

Introduction

and astrological techniques, the cornerstone of divinatory arts cultivated by saints and mystics, which included ʿilm al-­ḥurūf (or science of letters).7 Yet the most impor­tant aspects of jafr concern apocalypticism and the revelation of God at the End Times. This genre, as Toufiq Fahd has noted, was well developed u­ nder the Umayyads and further expanded u­ nder the ʿAbbāsids in the form of books of oracles, kutub al-ḥidthān. In the Islamic world, jafr lit­er­a­ture continued to have currency well into the ­fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in both eastern and western Islamic lands.8 Muslim apocalyptic lit­er­a­ture emerged mainly as part of the ḥadīth corpus (sayings, actions, and tacit approvals of the Muḥammad) in the form of prognosticative pronouncements attributed to the Prophet. T ­ hese narratives usually relate to specific historical moments of specific Muslim groups.9 They are written in ­either verse or prose and address events that ­will occur in the Muslim umma (community of believers) at the End Times. Moriscos also drew from well-­known medieval Christian sources, which they reinterpreted and adapted to their communities’ concerns. Many Morisco jofores, especially ­those circulating in Aragon and Castile during the fifteenth and sixteenth ­centuries, ­were written in Aljamiado,10 a writing system that employs Arabic script to represent Romance languages, in this case Castilian and Aragonese.11 Many of t­hese Aljamiado texts are translations of Arabic originals. A small number of prophetic texts written in Arabic still survive; t­ hese circulated in the Kingdoms of Valencia and Granada, where Arabic language and culture persisted into the sixteenth ­century.12 The Aljamiado 7. ​For a classic discussion of jafr, see Toufiq Fahd, “Djafr,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 12 vols. and supplements (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954–2003) (hereafter cited as EI2), 2:375–77. 8. ​For example, works of jafr w ­ ere central to the proj­ects of Ottoman, Mamluk, and Timurid intellectuals such as ʿAbd al-­Raḥmān al-­Bisṭāmī, Sayyid Ḥusayn Akhlāṭī, and Ṣāʾin al-­Dīn Turka. For an in-­depth study of the role of jafr among ­these intellectuals and their sociopo­liti­cal proj­ect, see İlker Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf al-­Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), esp. 150–64. The genre also had wide diffusion in North Africa, where this lit­er­at­ ure is known as malāḥim, plural of malḥama, the b­ attle of the End Times. On malāḥim, see Toufiq Fahd, “Malḥama,” EI2, 6:247. For discussion of malāḥim in the late medieval period see Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1967), 2:200–231. 9. ​Ofer Livine-­K afri, “Some Notes on the Muslim Apocalyptic Tradition,” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 17 (1999): 72. 10. ​The word Aljamiado or Aljamiada derives from the Arabic ʿajam (foreign), the term that the Moriscos employed to refer to the Spanish language. 11.  ​L.  P. Harvey contends that the number of Aljamiado texts written in the later ­ fifteenth ­century by Mudejars, Muslims living ­under Christian rule, is very ­limited, and thus we should consider Aljamiado lit­er­at­ ure as a primarily Morisco phenomenon. L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 132. 12. ​Carmen Barceló and Ana Labarta have published two of t­ hese Arabic texts from Valencia; see their Archivos Moriscos: Textos árabes de la minoría islámica valenciana (1401–1608) (Valencia: Universitat

I n t r o d u c t i o n

5

phenomenon flourished among the Aragonese and Castilian Morisco communities, whose ability to read, write, and speak Arabic had progressively eroded through the pro­cess of acculturation resulting from centuries of living ­under Christian rule. Scholars generally concur that crypto-Muslims ­ increasingly turned to Aljamiado as a medium of written communication in order to express their Islamic distinctiveness at a moment when they felt that their identity was ­under threat.13 Arabic, the language of revelation, had the same sacred nature for the Moriscos that it did for other Muslims. It was this perceived s­acrality that likely prompted Moriscos to use Arabic script to write Iberian languages, despite the danger that the possession of papers written in this language posed if found by the inquisitorial authorities. More than two hundred Aljamiado manuscripts have survived, most of which w ­ ere found inside false walls or in between floorboards of ­houses owned by Moriscos, most prob­ably to hide them from Christian authorities. The rec­ords of the Inquisition make reference to books and other written materials confiscated by their agents as evidence of heresy.14 The Aljamiado manuscripts include the most varied collections of texts, ranging from Qurʾāns or extracts of the sacred text, to collections of ḥadīths, sīra liter ­ a­ture ­ (writings on the life of the Prophet), qiṣaṣ al-­anbiyāʾ (stories about prophets), l­egal texts, poetry, popu­lar stories, magical ­recipes, and apocalyptic prophecies. Inquisition sources attest to a robust circulation of books among Moriscos at all levels of society. Even illiterate Moriscos strove to own books written in Arabic. As Jacqueline Fournel-­Guerin has demonstrated, Inquisition t­ rials in Aragon reveal that despite church censorship, many Moriscos preserved their Islamic religious culture by copying, writing, and selling books, as well as by organ­izing schools that taught Arabic and the Qurʾān to c­ hildren and adults alike.15 Not surprisingly, the Qurʾān is the most represented text in the extant Aljamiado corpus of manuscripts. Merchants and muleteers w ­ ere crucial for the circulation of books and other material written in Arabic. ­These itinerant figures went from town to town selling their goods and distributing books de València, 2009). For the Granadan case we have the prognostications translated by the Morisco interpreter Alonso del Castillo, which ­were published by Luis del Mármol Carvajal in his chronicle of the Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras mountains between 1568 and 1570. See Luis del Mármol Carvajal, Historia del rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del reino de Granada, ed. Javier Castillo Fernández (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2015). The latter texts w ­ ill be contextualized and further analyzed in chap. 2. 13. ​Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 133. 14. ​See Mercedes García-­Arenal, “La Inquisición y los libros de los moriscos,” in Memoria de los Moriscos: Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural, ed. Alfredo Mateos Paramio and Juan Carlos Villaverde Amieva (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, 2010), 57–71. 15. ​See Jacqueline Fournel-­Guerin, “Le livre et la civilisation écrite dans la communauté morisque aragonaise (1540–1620),” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 15 (1979): 241–59.

6

Introduction

among their coreligionists. At times they also served as teachers, scribes, ­notaries, and alfaquís (religious leaders). Serafín Tapia has pointed out that transporting goods became a characteristic feature of the Castilian Morisco com­mu­nity, especially during the second half of the sixteenth ­century.16­These “economic-­religious” networks, as Tapia calls them, connected Moriscos residing in the dif­fer­ent territories of the Peninsula, as well as Spanish Moriscos living in exile, especially in North Africa and Ottoman lands. But books w ­ ere not the only cultural goods that circulated along ­these commercial roads; muleteers and merchants also carried news about local and international events.

Prophetic Corpus The textual jofores that constitute the core set of sources studied here most likely traveled along the same routes as the Qurʾāns and other books. I have attempted to collect all prophecies that are extant in written form as individual texts, as well as fragments of apocalyptic prophecies preserved in the trial rec­ ords of Moriscos who w ­ ere accused and sentenced for heresy and apostasy by the Inquisition. Several jofores are contained in Ms. 774 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.17 This manuscript includes four prophetic texts written in Aljamiado: two prophecies attributed to St. Isidore of Seville, a prophecy in the form of an apocalyptic ḥadīth, and a prophecy attributed to a certain ʿAlī ibn Jābir Alferesiyo (al-­Fārisī). This last text is also reproduced in a Spanish translation of an Arabic original that was found among some papers in Arabic seized by the Inquisition in 1602.18 An Arabic version of the text was also appended to a trial rec­ord of a Morisco named Francisco Materra, from Gandía, and dates from 1589–90.19 The Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid h ­ ouses an addi16. ​Serafín de Tapia, “Las redes comerciales de los moriscos de Castilla la vieja: un vehículo para sus ‘complicidades,’ ” Le Ve Centenaire de la Chute de Granade 1492–1992 (Zaghouan, Tunisia: CEROMDI, 1993), 2:646. 17. ​­These prophecies ­were first edited by Joseph Lincoln, “Aljamiado Prophecies,” Publications of the Modern Languages Association (hereafter PMLA) 52, no. 3 (September 1937): 631–44. A se­lection of passages and accounts contained in Ms. 774, including legends and the jofores, have been edited in Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774 de la Biblioteca Nacional de París (Leyendas, itinerarios de viajes, profecías sobre la destrucción de España y otros relatos moriscos) (Madrid: Gredos, 1982). For the most recent edition of t­ hese texts, see Luce López Baralt, La literatura secreta de los últimos musulmanes de España (Madrid: Trotta, 2009). I have consulted the original manuscript for my purposes in this book. 18. ​The exact tribunal is unknown to us, since this is a single Inquisition document bound in a miscellanea that was purchased by Pascual Gayangos in the nineteenth c­ entury. This version, which has never been studied, is ­housed at the Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE) as Ms. 17/890. Another Arabic version of this jofor can be found at the Biblioteca Histórica de la Universidad de Valencia (BHUV) as Var. 30/3. 19.  ​The texts have been edited and translated into Spanish; see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos Moriscos, 312–17.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

7

tional Aljamiado prognostication, Ms. 5305, by a certain Fr. Juan de Rokasia ( John of Rupescissa). This prophecy, which was only recently published, is unmistakably Mudéjar—­that is, from the unconverted Iberian Muslim community living ­under Christian rule before 1501. The archives of the Inquisition confirm that this prophecy continued to circulate in the Iberian Peninsula well beyond the Mudéjar period and that many Moriscos also placed their hopes on its fulfillment in the 1570s, a period of intense apocalyptic speculation by the Aragonese New Christian community. A supplementary corpus of three prophecies in Arabic was translated by Alonso del Castillo, a Morisco who served as official interpreter of the Inquisition and, in 1570, as royal translator. The apocalyptic prognostications ­were included in del Castillo’s compilation of all the documents that he translated for the Inquisition and King Philip II (r. 1556–98) u­ ntil 1575, titled Sumario é recopilación de todo lo romançado por mí el licenciado Alonso del Castillo, romançador del santo oficio desde antes de la guerra del reyno de Granada (Summary and Compilation of Every­thing Translated by Me, Licenciado Alonso del Castillo, Translator for the Holy Office Since Before the War in the Kingdom of Granada).20 Del Castillo provided t­ hese texts to his friend, Luis del Mármol Carvajal, who published an abridged version in his chronicle of the Morisco rebellion in Granada (1568–70), titled Historia del rebelión y castigo de los moriscos de Granada (History of the Rebellion and Punishment of the Moriscos of Granada, 1600).21

Studying Jofores: Content of the Morisco Prognostications As most Islamic apocalyptic texts, the Morisco jofores aim to pre­sent the audience with the dif­fer­ent “Signs of the Hour” (ashrāt al-­sāʿa). When composing their apocalyptic messages, Morisco authors drew from a large corpus of eschatological works that had been circulating in the Peninsula since the M ­ iddle Ages, which adapted well to their circumstances. Maribel Fierro has argued that Mudéjar and Morisco apocalyptic prophecies are part of an eschatology that goes back to early Islam via the Umayyads of al-­Andalus.22 To articulate 20. ​Alonso del Castillo, Sumario é recopilación de todo lo romançado por mí el licenciado Alonso del Castillo, romançador del santo oficio desde antes de la guerra del reyno de Granada hasta oy 1575, vol. 3: Memorial Histórico Español (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1852). 21. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia. 22. ​Maribel Fierro, “Doctrinas y movimientos de tipo mesiánico en al-­Andalus,” in Milenarismos y milenaristas en la Europa medieval: IX Semana de Estudios Medievales, ed. José Ignacio de la Iglesia Duarte (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 1999), 159–76.

8

Introduction

their apocalyptic discourse, Moriscos turned to this rich corpus but they also based their predictions on Christian sources, casting them in an Islamic light. T ­ hese texts, as Luce López Baralt has pointed out, are presented as ancient sources that foretell a triumphant f­uture for the Moriscos.23 Of the corpus of eleven prophecies identified in the previous section, eight are recognizably Islamic, while three are attributed to Christian authors. In t­ hese apocalyptic texts Muḥammad is the authority par excellence: four prophecies are attributed to the Prophet of Islam and presented as ḥadīths, albeit with truncated isnāds (chains of transmission that connect a specific narrative to the Prophet). In t­ hese apocryphal ḥadīths, the Prophet predicts the t­ rials that the last Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula w ­ ill endure. One of the ḥadīths, in a moving display of empathy, portrays a weeping Muḥammad who laments the tribulations that the Moriscos ­will suffer at the End Times.24 Yet not all is lost for the Morisco community in this prediction, for the Prophet promises that God ­will send a king who ­will restore Islam in the Peninsula. A central message in ­these apocalyptic ḥadīths is an admonition to the Moriscos to wake up from their negligence. Recalling the “agitations of the Day of Judgment and the fury of hell, with its fires,” another jofor warns Muslims to “turn to God and do not sleep, for you ­will wake up buried ­under rubble.”25 As noted above, the prophetic text attributed to ʿAlī ibn Jābir Alferesiyo (al-­Fārisī) is preserved in three versions (Aljamiado, Arabic, and Spanish) and was especially popu­lar among Moriscos.26 In it, al-­Fārisī narrates an encounter between an old hermit and a being that descends from heaven to inform him about the state of the Muslims of Spain at the End Times. The divine being laments that “many ugly t­ hings w ­ ill take place among them. The first t­hing that they w ­ ill do is that they w ­ ill cease to learn the Qurʾān, they w ­ ill abandon the asala (prayer), and they w ­ ill not pay the azzake (alms), they w ­ ill fast l­ittle, and they say that Allāh is truthful in their hearts, but they w ­ ill be empty in naming Allāh. And b­ ecause of this, they w ­ ill sow a lot and w ­ ill har27 vest l­ittle, and they w ­ ill work hard and have little benefits.” T ­ here w ­ ill be, the prophecy continues, great ­ tribulations among the Muslims of Aragon and Huesca, and they w ­ ill convert to Chris­tian­ity and their mosques w ­ ill be 23. ​López Baralt, La literatura secreta, 181. 24. ​Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) Ms. 774, f. 429v. 25. ​Castillo, Sumario é recopilación, 91. 26. ​The identity of this figure is contested. Joseph Lincoln identified him as the twelfth-­century traveler Ibn Jubayr; see Lincoln, “Aljamiado Prophecies,” 635. More recently Reem Iversen has offered an alternate identification in the person of Salmān al-­Fārisī, one of the companions of the Prophet. Reem  F. Iversen, “Prophecy and Politics: Moriscos and Christians in Sixteenth- ­and Seventeenth- ­ Century Spain” (PhD diss., Prince­ton University, 2002), 112–13. 27. ​BnF Ms. 774, f. 279r–­v; Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 315 (my translation).

I n t r o d u c t i o n

9

turned into churches. But God will ­ send a sultan “who will ­ dominate the earth and the seas,” and w ­ ill bring justice and order to the world. His name ­will be Aḥmar (in the Arabic version)28 or Aḥmad (in the Aljamiado version).29 God ­will also touch the hearts of the Muslim kings, who ­will come to the aid of the Muslims of the Peninsula, commanded by the Ottomans. This apocalyptic vision ends with the conversion of Christians to Islam and the restoration of peace. Moriscos also drew from well-established ­ Christian apocalyptic material to compose their prognostications. Their tampering with Christian prophecies pre­sents a most in­ter­est­ing exercise of appropriation and mimesis: they adopt and adapt the discourse of the opponent to pre­sent a scenario in which their community emerges as the victors. The Christian texts read and commented on by Moriscos have a common thread inspired by the influential medieval thinker Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202), who foretells the destruction of a corrupt Church that w ­ ill give way to a period of renewal. One jofor is an adaptation of the famous prophecy Vade mecum in tribulatione (The Handbook in Tribulation), written in 1356 by the French spiritual Franciscan John of Rupescissa (d. 1366). This prophecy circulated widely in Spain soon ­after it was composed.30 The Vade mecum depicts the ruin of members of various ­ social and religious groups. The cruel sufferings endured by secular lords and clergy served, as DeVun has noted, “not only as punishments for their sins but also as a purging of sorts for the entire community.”31 Similarly, in the Aljamiado rendition of Rupescissa’s prophecy, people ­ will ­ undergo great ­ tribulations because ­ of the sinful Church, but they will ­ rise against the evil clergymen.32 But in this version, the punishment of Christians serves as vindication for Muslims. The jofor reveals that God’s final chastisement will ­

28.  ​Although this may be a reference to the first Naṣrid king of Granada, Muḥammad I, al- ­ Aḥmar, it is most likely a misreading of the name Aḥmad, as in the Aljamiado version. 29. ​The figure of Aḥmad as bearer of good tidings appears in the Qurʾān, Sūra 61 (The Ranks): 6. “And [recall] when Jesus, the son of Mary said, ‘O C ­ hildren of Israel, I am God’s messenger to you, confirming the Torah that was [revealed] before me, and giving you good tidings of a messenger who w ­ ill come a­ fter me, whose name w ­ ill be Aḥmad.’ And when he brought them clear proofs, they said ‘This is clear magic.’ ” 30. ​Citing Pere Bohigas, who documented the vigorous medieval tradition of apocalypticism in the Catalonian region, Lourdes María Alvarez lists several prophecies, including Rupescissa’s Vade mecum in Tribulatione. Lourdes María Alvarez, “Prophecies of Apocalypse in Sixteenth-Century ­ Morisco Writings and the Wondrous Tale of Tamīm al-­Dārī,” Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 596. For an excellent study of John of Rupescissa, see Leah DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late ­Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 31. ​DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 125. 32. ​BNE Ms. 5305, f. 63v.

10

Introduction

come at the hands of the Ottomans (el Turco), who ­will “come to destroy the Christian ­people.”33 In a subversion of victors and vanquished at the End Times that departs from Rupescissa’s Vade mecum, a­ fter narrating the calamities that w ­ ill befall the most import­ant Eu­ro­pean cities the Aljamiado jofor predicts that only those ­ who profess the Muslim faith will ­ be spared from 34 God’s wrath. The Aljamiado manuscript BnF 774 contains two prognostications that purport to have been prophesied by a Christian authority who envisions a favorable outcome for Iberian Muslims. After ­ describing the terrible trials ­ that the Muslims w ­ ill suffer at the hands of Christians, St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636) predicts the final victory of Islam over Chris­tian­ity. It seems, as Luce López Baralt has pointed out, as though the calamitous events are necessary for the purification of Muslims; only a­ fter enduring g­ reat tribulations w ­ ill 35 this community be worthy of the final victory. As the text forecasts, when the “wheel” (rueda) or turn of 1501 comes no one will be able to read the Qurʾān. The Arabic term dawla, which signifies the period of an individual’s or dynasty’s rule or power, and whose most basic meaning is to turn or alternate, is akin with the medieval Christian idea of the Rota Fortunae (Wheel of Fortune). Taking these ­ two concepts into account, the turn of the wheel signified the moment when Muslim rule over the Iberian Peninsula would come to an end.36 The turn of the wheel would be followed by the forced conversion of Muslims to Christian ­ ity. ­ But a second turn of the wheel in 1502 w ­ ill bring a favorable outcome for Muslims, who w ­ ill rise up against the Christian king, take him captive and send him to Valencia, where he ­will follow him. Upon seeing their king’s conversion, all Christians w ­ ill follow him. St. Isidore concludes his prophecy with the expected prediction: that Muslims w ­ ill be victors with the power of God (rendered in the Aljamiado text as Allāh). The authority of St. Isidore in this prophecy seems to conform to both Christian and Islamic notions of revelatory models. In a manner similar to that of John of Rupescissa in his apocalyptic work Liber secretorum eventuum (The Book of Secret Events), the St. Isidore of the Aljamiado jofor as­suredly asserts

33. ​BNE Ms. 5305, f. 61v. 34. ​For further discussion of this prophecy, see chap. 3. According to the Vade mecum, infidels (namely Jews) ­will convert to Chris­tian­ity, but Muslims ­will be destroyed during the period of tribulations. See DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 43. 35. ​López Baralt, La literatura secreta, 194. 36. ​The term rueda (wheel) is most likely an adaptation of the concept of dawla. The term is often employed to mean “dynasty,” though in this par­tic­ul­ar case it can mean “turn.” See F. Rosenthal, “Dawla,” EI2, 2:177–78.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

11

that he is “neither a prophet or a son of a prophet.”37 Rather, the gift of foresight came to him by virtue of being a “servant of the Unity (God) and his prophets, each one in his own place, and may Allāh place me in his al-­janna (paradise).”38 In the Aljamiado text, then, the Christian deliverer of divine messages strategically places himself beneath Muḥammad, God’s last prophet. A final jofor, attributed to St. Isidore the Plaint of Spain, is not so favorable to the Moriscos. Once again, St. Isidore rejects a potential claim to prophethood but instead draws his knowledge of the f­uture from “a very ancient book” entitled Secreto de los secretos (Secretum secretorum or Secret of Secrets). Also known in medieval Iberia as Poridat de las poridades and in Arabic as Kitāb sirr al-­asrār, the Secreto de los secretos is the celebrated translation of a pseudo- ­ Aristotelian treatise that delineates the princely advice that Aristotle supposedly offered to Alexander the G ­ reat.39 Although the book contains no such prophecy, reference to this famous work imbues the apocalyptic message with antiquity and authority. In the Plaint, St. Isidore, a­ fter lamenting g­ reat calamities for Spain, who w ­ ill “boil in the passions of her evils,”40 foresees that “the Hagarene [Muslim] beasts w ­ ill emerge from their poisonous caves to destroy upper and lower [northern and southern] Spain.”41 Curiously, the images of boiling and burning contained in this prophecy are reminiscent of John of Rupescissa’s alchemical apocalypticism. Evoking the traditional pro­cess of transmutation through images that evoke at once destruction and purification, Rupescissa argued that “­humans who wished to understand prophetic secrets w ­ ere tested by the heat of flames and transformed by whitening and ­dying.”42 ­After this, God ­will send the Hidden King (El Encubierto) to 37. ​For Rupescissa’s denial of his own prophethood, see DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 46. DeVun explains that “a number of prophets of the l­ater M ­ iddle Ages explic­itly denied possessing the gift of prophecy, instead claiming ‘spiritual understanding,’ a special insight that allowed them to understand fully the meaning of Scripture.” 38. ​Aljamiado texts generally use Arabic to render religious terminology. Note the Arabic use of the word Allāh for God. BnF Ms. 774, f. 289r. Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 243 (my translation). 39. ​For recent discussions of the book Secret of Secrets, see Michael A. Ryan, A Kingdom of Stargazers: Astrology and Authority in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011); and Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly C ­ areer of a Pseudo-­Aristotelian Text in the Latin M ­ iddle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). For a mention of the Pseudo-­ Isidorian text, see Iversen, “Prophecy and Politics,” 100. For the medieval Islamo-­Arabic context, see Garth Fowden, “Pseudo-­Aristotelian Politics and Theology in Universal Islam,” in Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Repre­sen­ta­tion in Eurasian History, ed. Peter Fibiger Bang and Dariusz Kołodziejczyk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 130–48; and Kevin van Bladel, “The Ira­nian Characteristics and Forged Greek Attributions in the Arabic Sirr al-­asrār (Secret of Secrets),” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-­Joseph 57 (2004): 151–72. 40. ​BnF Ms. 774, f. 294r. Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 246 (my translation). 41. ​BnF Ms. 774, f. 299r. (my translation). 42. ​DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, 2.

12

Introduction

drive the Muslims out of Spain.43 In her reading of t­hese texts, Luce López Baralt reflects on the contradictions that these last two jofores pose. While one celebrates the final triumph of Islam over Chris­tian­ity, the other one foretells the end of Islam in the Peninsula. Puzzled by this apparent incongruity, López Baralt won­ders how t­hese texts might have been read by Moriscos.44 Shedding light on the ways in which the Moriscos read, commented on, and understood­these jofores is a central concern of this book. The last three de­cades have witnessed a surge in scholarship on the Moriscos. From their religious life, literary production, and persecution by the inquisitorial authorities to the fateful expulsions of 1609–14, nearly e­ very aspect of Morisco life in Spain has been examined. Though still in its infancy when compared to the abundant scholarship on the Moriscos in their Peninsular context, more recent work has moved ­toward studying Moriscos in the Medi­ terranean, their networks, as well as the postexpulsion diaspora in North ­Africa.45 By contrast, the migration of Moriscos around the Mediterranean in the preexpulsion period is still a relatively understudied subject. Visions of Deliverance begins to fill this gap by tracing the networks through which Morisco prophecies circulated. More importantly, unveiling the activities of Iberian Moriscos within the wider Mediterranean world sheds light on a generally underappreciated aspect of Morisco history: their po­liti­cal life and agency. Already in the sixteenth c­ entury, the presence of apocalyptic prognostications and prophecies among Moriscos was noted among their Christian contemporaries, who mentioned that t­ hese narratives surfaced primarily during moments of rebellion. Among modern scholars, the importance of jofores has been recognized since 1930s, although t­ here has recently been a renewed in43. ​The figure of El Encubierto was pop­ul­ar­ized in Iberian apocalyptic lore through the works of a certain Juan Unay el Alemán, or Joan Alemany, whose earliest manuscript dates to the fifteenth c­ entury. The title of the work in Catalan is De la venguda de Antichrist e de les coses que se han de seguir. Ab una reprobació de la secta mahomética. For more on this work, see, for example, María Isabel Toro Pascua, “Milenarismo y profecía en el siglo XV: La tradición del libro de Unay en la Península Ibérica,” Península. Revista de Estudios Ibéricos 0 (2003): 29–37; José Guadalajara Medina, Las profecías del Anticristo en la Edad Media (Madrid: Gredos, 1996); Eulàlia Durán and Joan Requesens, Profecia i poder al Renaixement (Valencia: Edicions 3i4, 1997); Alain Milhou, Colón y su mentalidad mesiánica en el ambiente franciscanista español (Valladolid: Casa-­Museo de Colón. Seminario Americanista de la Universidad de Valladolid, 1983); Sara T. Nalle, “Revisiting El Encubierto. Navigating between Visions of Heaven and Hell on Earth,” in Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Eu­rope, ed. Kathryn A. Edwards (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002), 77–92. 44. ​López Baralt, La literatura secreta, 197–98. 45. ​An example of this is the recent edited volume by Mercedes García-­Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: A Mediterranean Diaspora (Leiden: Brill, 2014), whose focus is the displacement of Moriscos around the Mediterranean that resulted from their expulsion from Spain in 1609.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

13

terest in analyzing ­these texts, employing dif­fer­ent methodological approaches, from historical to literary, to understand their meaning.46 In contrast to this body of scholarship, I seek to understand jofores through an analytical focus that centers on the context and pro­cesses of production and deployment of Morisco prophecies during the sixteenth c­ entury. As a subject of literary and historical analyses, Morisco apocalyptic texts have previously been studied as polemics, as identity myths, or as consolatory lite­ r a­ t­ure that reflects a Morisco consciousness of their own destruction. The most significant drawback of t­ hese analyses is their assumption of a stable and verifiable Morisco identity or culture as reflected by the jofores. Visions of Deliverance challenges fixed notions of Morisco identity by analyzing jofores as dynamic examples of religious and po­liti­cal discourses and practices rather than as an isolated, inert ele­ment of Morisco culture. Moreover, while previous scholarship has regularly portrayed Moriscos as a beleaguered and even endangered group in need of consolation,47 a focus on their prophetic culture, especially in their self-­understanding as protagonists at the End Times, reveals them to be peers of the diverse imperial actors that operated across the Mediterranean. Taking a cue from the work of the historian of religion Bruce Lincoln, who highlights the place of discourse in the construction of social and po­liti­cal identities, I argue that only through a reconstruction of the modes and contexts of circulation of jofores (rather than just their pure textuality) can we understand their exact role in Morisco politics and society. Yet prophecies are not simply “coding devices on which impor­tant information is conveyed, on the basis of which actors can then construct society”; that is, they are not simply 46.  ​See Louis Cardaillac, Morisques et Chrétienes: Un affrontement polémique (1492–1640) (Paris: Klincksieck, 1977), translated into Spanish as Moriscos y cristianos: Un enfrentamiento polémico (1492– 1640), trans. Mercedes García-­Arenal (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1979); Louis Cardaillac, “Le prophétisme, signe de l’identité morisque,” in Actes du II Symposium International du CIEM sur Religion, Identité et Sources Documentaires sur les Morisques Andalous, ed. Abdeljelil Temimi (Tunis: Institut Supérieur de Documentation, 1984), 2:138–46; Mercedes García-­Arenal, “ ‘Un reconfort pour ceux qui sont dans l’attente’. Prophétie et millénarisme dans la péninsule Iberique et au Maghreb (XVIe–­XVII siècles),” Revue de l’histoire des religions 220, no. 4 (2003): 445–86; Mercedes García-­Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdis of the Muslim West (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Luce López Baralt, “Las prob­ lemáticas profecías de San Isidoro de Sevilla y de Ali Ibn Alferesiyo en torno al Islam Español del siglo XVI: tres aljofores del Ms.774 de la Biblioteca Nacional de París,” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 29, no.  2 (1980): 343–66; Luce López Baralt, “Crónica de la destrucción de un mundo: la literatura aljamiado–­morisca,” Bulletin Hispanique 82 (1980): 16–58; Luce López Baralt, “El oráculo de Mahoma sobre la Andalucía musulmana de los últimos tiempos en un manuscrito aljamiado-­morisco de la Biblioteca Nacional de París,” Hispanic Review 52, no. 1 (1984): 41–57; and, more recently, López Baralt, La literatura secreta de los Moriscos; Iversen, “Prophecy and Politics”; Luis Carmelo, A Comunicação Profética e a Codificação das Ortodoxias. O Caso da Alteridade Islamo-­Cristã (Covilhã: Teses Lusosofia Press, 2010). 47. ​See, for example, López Baralt’s reading of the prophecies of Muḥammad in La literatura secreta de los Moriscos.

14

Introduction

messages, but rather practices.48 I contend that it was precisely in the moments of production, circulation, and diffusion of prophecies—­during moments of po­liti­cal upheaval and crisis—­when a par­tic­u­lar kind of Morisco identity was s­haped, one that sought to re-­create a perfected Islamic society at the End Times. As speech acts, prophecies evoked sentiments out of which Morisco society was constructed. The discursive pro­cesses to which Lincoln refers in his discussion of mythical discourses such as prophecy are echoed in the theory of collective identity formation and social mobilization of Alessandro Pizzorno and other Italian sociologists. Collective identity theory suggests that a subject’s identity is not guaranteed u­ nless she or he participates in the formation and preservation of a group that recognizes and acknowledges the individual’s identity.49 When subjects are prey to the uncertainties of their own constitution, they are compelled to construct or give shape (within a group) to an identity in an operation that is, above all, social. In that sense, the subject’s identity does not precede action, but it is inferred from it. Identity, in this context, should be understood as “the pro­cess by which social actors recognize themselves—and ­ are recognized by other actors—as part of broader groupings, and develop emotional attachments to them.”50 This definition of collective action and identity formation is useful in thinking through the centrality of jofores in moments of Morisco mobilization. Thus, the Moriscos’ po­liti­cal identity did not precede their actions, but rather emerged as a result of them. We should look for that identity not only in their collective actions, 48. ​Bruce Lincoln equates the authority of myths to revolutionary slogans and ancestral invocations in that they may have the effect of mobilizing a social grouping. I view prophecy in much the same manner. I contend that they are not simply myths that reflect a fixed Morisco identity, but rather discourses that shaped ­ Morisco society though their deployment. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25. A second edition of this work was published in 2014. 49. ​A good introduction in Alessandro Pizzorno, “Politics Unbound,” in Changing Bound­aries of the Po­liti­cal: Essays on the Evolving Balance between the State and Society, Public and Private in Eu­rope, ed. Charles  S. Maier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 27–62. See also Alessandro Pizzorno, “Rationality and Recognition,” in Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences: A Pluralist Perspective, ed. Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 162–73; Alessandro Pizzorno, Il velo della diversità: studi su razionalità e riconocimento (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2007); and Alessandro Pizzorno, Donatella Della Porta, Monica Greco and Árpád Szakolczai, eds., Identità, riconoscimento, scambio: saggi in onore di Alessandro Pizzorno (Rome: Laterza, 2000). For a use of collective identity theory in the context of early modern Spain, see Jesús Izquierdo Martín, El rostro de la comunidad: La identidad del campesino en la Castilla del Antiguo Régimen (Madrid: Consejo Económico y Social, Comunidad de Madrid, 2001). For a critique of collective identity sociology based on rational choice theory, see Fernando Aguiar and Andrés de Francisco, “Rationality and Identity: A Critique of Alessandro Pizzorno,” Eu­ro­pean Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie 43, no. 1 (2002): 119–31. 50. ​Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diano, Social Movements: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 91.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

15

such as in moments of rebellion, but also in the meanings they gave to them—as part of a divinely inspired plan, articulated in the jofores.

Prophecies in Context: The Circulation of Jofores in Early Modern Iberia I deploy a Mediterranean approach in order to map out the dissemination and reach of Morisco apocalyptic prognostications. First, on this regional scale I analyze chronicles, diplomatic correspondence, and inquisitorial rec­ ords as essential sources to reconstruct a microhistory of Morisco apocalyptic practices. While the use of such source material might be called into question given its deep antagonism ­toward Moriscos, it undoubtedly reveals information not available elsewhere. For example, reading contentious inquisitorial sources alongside Ottoman or Italian sources can cast new light on the information offered by the inquisitorial trial rec­ords.51 Second, I also analyze the transmission of prophecies within and outside the Iberian Peninsula to trace the circulation of apocalyptic ideas and texts through formal and informal networks of merchants, spies, and other channels of diffusion among Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean. An analysis ­ of inquisitorial rec­ ords of Morisco ­trials sheds light on the transmission of prophecies between Istanbul, Venice, and Morisco towns in eastern Spain. The movement of t­hese prophecies from the eastern to the western edges of the Mediterranean illuminates strategies of Morisco politi ­ cal ­ resis ­ tance. ­ As these ­ cases show, apocalyptic prophecies that cast the Ottoman sultan as a messianic redeemer encouraged Moriscos to establish contacts with Muslims in North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean in order to gain Ottoman military support for an insurrection against the Spanish monarchy. Thus, by engaging several lines of inquiry in the fields of Morisco, Mediterranean, and Islamic studies, I reveal Moriscos to be not hapless victims of the Spanish Catholic authorities but members of a group with agency that actively sought ways to resist ­those authorities. This book also aims to highlight the continued fruitfulness of a Mediterranean perspective as an object of inquiry. The Mediterranean turn has begun to garner detractors among scholars moving away from regional or area studies.52

51. ​See, for example, Francisco Márquez Villanueva, “El mito de la gran conspiración morisca,” in Temimi, Actes du II Symposium International du CIEM, 2:267–84. 52.  ​See, for example, Michael Herzfeld, “Practical Mediterraneanism: Excuses for Everything, ­ From Epistemology to Eating,” in Rethinking the Mediterranean, ed. William V. Harris (New York: Ox-

16

Introduction

While it is imperative to bear in mind critiques of Mediterranean perspectives that have served as excuses to advance certain politi ­ cal ­ and cultural agendas that frame the Mediterranean as somehow “inferior” to Northern Eu­rope, the simultaneous unity and diversity of the Mediterranean can shed light on aspects of history that would other­wise be obscured by narrower foci, such as national histories. Peregrine Horden asserts that, as historians, we must put the Mediterranean “within our frame, rather than assume it as the frame itself.”53 In that vein, studying the Moriscos within their Mediterranean setting brings forward connections and continuities that would other­wise be obscured by an exclusively Iberian perspective. In the cases analyzed in this book, seemingly “communal” and “local” phenomena, such as the circulation of prophecies, can only be understood through a wider Mediterranean lens. This perspective inevitably begs the question of how we study the history of Moriscos, who have occupied a liminal space in both the fields of Islamic and Spanish studies. From the perspective of Islamic history, Moriscos are the remnants of the once-­glorious civilization of al-­Andalus. Moreover, b­ ecause the Moriscos w ­ ere forced to convert to Catholicism, they are not considered to be Muslims at all, hence their almost complete exclusion from the Islamicist paradigm.54 A cursory glance at any textbook or survey of Islamic history and civilization w ­ ill confirm this state of the current scholarship. Exercising the methodological approach of regional microhistory but from a broader Islamicist perspective, I argue that Moriscos were as much part of the early modern Islamicate world as the Ottomans were part of the early modern European world. The rhetorical uses and meanings of apocalyptic prognostications, with their hortatory language and images of vio­lence and redemption, permit us to analyze the discursive value of prophecy for social and po­liti­cal mobilization and for the construction of Morisco society. In the age of confessionalization, which entailed pro­cesses of social disciplining and (in the par­tic­ul­ar case of Iberia) forced conversion and assimilation, the deployment of prophecies among newly converted populations radically s­ haped their religious, cultural, and po­liti­cal identities and discourses, inserting them in the dynamics of

ford University Press, 2005), 45–63; Naor Ben-­Yehoyada, “Mediterranean Modernity?,” in A Companion to Mediterranean History, ed. Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (London: John Wiley and Sons, 2014), 107–21. For a response, see Peregrine Horden, “Mediterranean Excuses: Historical Writing on the Mediterranean since Braudel,” History and Anthropology 16 (2005): 25–30. 53. ​Horden, “Mediterranean Excuses,” 26. 54. ​An exception is the Encyclopaedia of Islam, whose first and second editions include an article on Moriscos. See E. Lévi-­Provençal, “Moriscos,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 4 vols. (Leiden: E.  J. Brill, 1913–38), 3:577–78; Gerard Wiegers, “Moriscos,” EI2, 7:241–44.

I n t r o d u c t i o n

17

larger po­liti­cal structures. This is precisely how the Moriscos came to negotiate with Ottomans, Moroccan Saʿdīs, and even French Protestants as they attempted to secure military and logistical aid for their insurrections. In this sense, Morisco apocalyptic thought and practice was not an isolated case within the Iberian Peninsula but was part of a broader intellectual, religious, and po­liti­cal landscape in the early modern Mediterranean.

Organ­ization and Overview Visions of Deliverance is broadly divided into three thematic sections, each comprising of two chapters. The first section deals with the politics of prop­ hecy in sixteenth-­century Iberia. The first two chapters analyze the relationship between prophecy and the delineation of the contours of Morisco identity a­ fter the forced conversion of Muslims in the Kingdom of Castile that began as a result of the rebellion of Granada in 1499. The uprising was sparked by the intervention of the archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros (1436–1517), whose arrival in Granada in the summer of 1499 quickly saw the forced conversion of elches, former Christian converts to Islam. This had taken place in contravention of the Granada Capitulations that regulated the rendition of the Muslim Naṣrid Kingdom (1230–1492) to Ferdinand and Isabella a­ fter its final conquest on January 2, 1492. The conversion of elches was met with the re­sis­tance of the Muslim populations in the city of Granada, which then extended to the countryside. It would take some time for the rebellion to be fully extinguished; the rebel leaders ­were not captured ­until 1501. According to common law, a sovereign had the authority to abolish the rights of a rebellious population and so Ferdinand and Isabella nullified the original Capitulations and determined to expel any Muslims in Granada who did not accept the Christian faith. Much of the rural population had no choice but to convert, lacking the resources to embark on such a difficult and costly journey.55 While many aspects of the daily lives of Mudéjars and Moriscos in Castile remained the same, the experience of forced conversion profoundly shocked the Iberian Muslim communities. Chapters 1 and 2 examine how the newly converted Muslims of Castile dealt with the trauma of forced assimilation into Catholic society from the 1530s to the 1560s. The second section moves from the local Castilian milieu to the circulation of prophecies in the Mediterranean, broadening the geopo­liti­cal scope of the

55. ​Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 36–37.

18

Introduction

book to explore the movement of apocalyptic ideas and texts and analyze the place of the Ottomans in Morisco apocalyptic thought and practice. Chapter 3 examines Morisco apocalyptic texts and inquisitorial sources alongside parallel Venetian, Greek, and Ottoman prophecies in the aftermath of the B ­ attle of Lepanto (1571) to trace the Mediterranean-­wide idea of the Ottoman sultan as a just ruler. Chapter 4 analyzes the most significant Morisco rebellion plot in the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon ­after 1570, highlighting Morisco agency in their dealings with the Ottomans. The final section of the book presents ­ prophecy as a broader politi ­ c­ al discourse deployed outside the Morisco community for strategic purposes. In this sense, prophecy reveals itself as a language of negotiation and diplomacy. Chapter 5 centers on the ­career of a man by the name of Gil Pérez, a Morisco double agent who acted as in­for­mant of the inquisitors of Zaragoza and spy for the Morisco communities of Aragon and Valencia. His story reveals a ­great deal about the socioreligious functions of prophecy among ­those Moriscos who identified as Muslims, and the ways in which prophecies w ­ ere deployed as po­liti­cal discourses. Chapter 6 centers on the period immediately before the expulsion (1601–5), examining several attempts by the Moriscos to secure help from Henry IV of France for an uprising planned for the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon. Returning to the incident that opened this introduction, the Bell of Velilla tolled “with g­ reat fury,” so that when the parish priest attempted to grab the rope attached to it, he was violently pulled to the ground.56 The bell continued to toll for weeks, and news about this miraculous occurrence spread to Italy and France, according to the eighteenth-­century Benedictine monk Benito Jerónimo Feijóo. What calamity did this tolling anticipate? An imminent threat to Spain, wrote Feijóo: the Moriscos of Aragon and Valencia w ­ ere g­ oing to rebel, having sent ambassadors to the Ottoman court. The conspiracies to which he was referring, discussed in chapter 6, failed, and the bell would ring again in 1609 to announce the decree expelling the Moriscos and in 1610 to mark their final expulsion. Visions of Deliverance concludes with a reflection on the Morisco expulsion and the ways in which Moriscos read their banishment from Iberia in a providentialist and apocalyptic light, much as Christians interpreted the tolling Bell of Velilla.

56. ​Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, Teatro crítico universal, vol. 5: Discurso XVI—­“Disertación sobre la Campana de Velilla” (Madrid: Imprenta Blas Román, 1778).

Ch a p te r 1

Christian Visionary or Muslim Prophet? Re-­Creating Identities in Late Spanish Islam

In 1540 the General Council of the Inquisition in Madrid wrote to the inquisitors of Toledo asking for a thorough investigation of a Morisco youth named Agustín de Ribera. According to a Morisca denouncer named Ana de Fonseca, groups of Moriscos in the Castilian towns of Toledo, Arévalo, Ávila, Medina del Campo, and Valladolid believed that young Agustín was a “prophet and messenger of Muḥammad (profeta y mensajero de Mahoma).”1 The General Council ordered the Toledo inquisitors to interrogate the young Morisco “about the t­ hings he is said to have done in Arévalo, ­because if he confesses the truth of what he knows, it ­will shed ­g reat light on uncovering what we suspect is being concealed in Arévalo and other places where Moriscos live.”2 By August 1541, a­ fter a long and careful investigation, Agustín was arrested and had begun to confess.3 What exactly did the inquisitors suspect was being concealed? W ­ ere they worried, as they had expressed, that the evangelization attempts carried out 1.  ​Third book of letters, provisions, and dispatches of the Suprema to the tribunals, Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN), Inq. Lib. 574, f. 38r. 2. ​Ibid., f. 18: “Que se hagan con el diligencias en examinarle bien cerca de las cosas que se dize aver fecho en Arebalo, porque si el confiesa la verdad de lo que sabe, sera gran lumbre para descubrir lo que se sospecha que ay encubierto en Arebalo y otros lugares donde ay moriscos” (my translation). As can be noted from this inquisitorial letter, most of the sources analyzed in this book use archaic spellings. 3. ​Ibid., f. 99r. 19

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Chapter 1

by local parish priests w ­ ere not bearing fruit? W ­ ere the stubborn Moriscos still holding on to their old religion? Was the Inquisition, as they suspected and argued, the instrument most apt to carry out not only the religious instruction of the Moriscos but also oversight of all m ­ atters pertaining to the new converts? Or was it rather that what was being “concealed” was a conspiracy of another sort? Perhaps a secret plan to take the road of exile, as had been happening in all the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula,4 or even worse, a rebellion plot? The story begins in the small Castilian village of Ajofrín, where young Agustín began to have what appear to be highly Christianized visions. It then takes us through the city of Ávila, where he lived with a merchant f­amily, and ends in Toledo, where his c­ areer became markedly Islamic. As this chapter shows, in his contacts with merchant and artisan nuclei in Castile, and as his circle broadened, Agustín came to fulfill the religious and communitarian expectations of a crypto-­Muslim community that desperately wanted to be re-­Islamized. Yet not only did the content of his message change; his spiritual persona transformed accordingly. Over the course of his young life, Agustín went from being a Christian visionary to becoming a Muslim saint, culminating in a promised f­ uture as a prophet. In this pro­cess, apocalyptic prognostications and prophetic visions became the medium for the reconstruction of a community whose pro­ cess of conversion and of learning about Catholicism was not yet complete. When a circle of followers that extended from the Castilian cities of Valladolid to Toledo began to or­ga­nize around young Agustín, the inquisitors ­were naturally alarmed. Not only w ­ ere they worried that the new converts might still harbor an allegiance to their old religion, but they ­were suspicious of any claims to prophethood.5 The presence of a prophetic figure among the New Christian Morisco community was unpre­ce­dented. This is not to say that be4. ​AHN Inq. Lib. 574, f. 90v. 5. ​The number of self-­proclaimed prophets in Iberia soared during the sixteenth ­century. See, for example, Lu Ann Homza, The Spanish Inquisition 1478–1614: An Anthology of Sources (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006); Richard L. Kagan and Abigail Dryer, Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 60–87; Richard  L. Kagan, Lucrecia’s Dreams: Prophecy and Politics in Sixteenth-­Century Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); María V. Jordán Arroyo, Soñar la historia: riesgo, creatividad y religion en las profecías de Lucrecia de León (Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, 2007). During a short-lived insurrection against Christian rule in the kingdom of Valencia in 1360–61, the leader of the Mudéjars is identified in the Christian sources as a certain Çilim, the prophet. Not much is known about his role as prophet, or whether in fact he was considered as such by his Muslim coreligionists, but this is certainly an instance of prophethood among Iberian Muslims in the Mudéjar period. For more see John Boswell, The Royal Treasure: Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the Fourteenth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), 376–78; 489–90; and María Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, La frontera amb l’Islam en el segle XIV. Cristians i sarraïns al País Valencià (Barcelona: Institución Milá y Fontanals, CSIC, 1988), 41–43. I would like to thank Mark Meyerson for his help in locating these references.



Christian Visionary or M u s l i m P r o p h e t ?

21

lief in End Times prophecies and prognostications was trifling to the Moriscos, rather that we have no information about the presence of prophets or other figures whose mission was to bring divine messages to this par­tic­ul­ar community at this time. Among the Old Christian and Converso Jewish communities, in contrast, many “prophets” stood before the Inquisition throughout the sixteenth c­ entury. In the 1520s and 1530s the number of Christian prophets bearing eschatological revelations of spiritual and po­liti­cal reform multiplied, particularly among the Franciscans and Dominicans.6 A similar apocalyptic fervor had spread among crypto-­Jews ­after 1492, when a series of prophets urged the Conversos to continue believing in “the law of Moses,” vowing they would return to the Promised Land. Among the Moriscos, however, this sudden proliferation of divinely inspired messengers did not occur. Rather, a phenomenon of circulating apocalyptic prognostications emerged from the very moment of the conquest of Granada, intensifying after ­ the subsequent forced conversions to Catholicism ­after 1502. The case of Agustín de Ribera thus provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the issue of prophethood among the Moriscos. The apparent lack of divine messengers begs the question of the plausibility of such a figure for a community that desperately strug­gled to hold on to Islam. Was the presence of a new prophet even pos­si­ble? Was Agustín viewed as a prophet in the Islamic sense if Muḥammad was the Seal of the Prophets, the last prophet sent by God to His ­people? Would his followers be aware of the dif­fer­ent notions of prophethood in Islam, such as the distinction between rasūl (a prophet who brings a law) and nabī (a messenger)? Or was he seen as one of many Christian prophets in sixteenth-­century Iberia who brought messages about the f­uture? Agustín de Ribera’s case complements the Morisco prognosticative texts ( jofores), in this way providing an invaluable source of information for understanding Morisco apocalyptic thought in its own terms. It also offers glimpses of the ordinary and religious life of the Castilian Moriscos in the first half of the sixteenth c­ entury. Although Agustín de Ribera’s inquisitorial trial rec­ord is not extant, his numerous confessions to the inquisitors, as well as his testimonies against neighbors and family ­ members, are contained in the records ­ of several of his 7 followers. The most impor­tant source on the activities of the young Morisco 6. ​See Alastair Hamilton, Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth-­Century Spain: The Alumbrados (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); José Nieto, “The Franciscan Alumbrados and the Prophetic- ­ Apocalyptic Tradition,” Sixteenth ­Century Journal 8, no. 3 (1977): 3–16; and the latest and most comprehensive work on the subject, Stefania Pastore, Una herejía española: Conversos, alumbrados e Inquisición (1449–1559) (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010). 7. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16. I am most grateful to Mercedes García-­Arenal for initially directing me to Juan de Sosa’s trial rec­ord in the papers of the tribunal of Toledo held at the AHN. This case sheds light on the movement created by the young prophet. Since the case was first mentioned by historian of the

22

Chapter 1

prophet is contained in the trial rec­ord against Juan de Sosa, Agustín’s older cousin and one of his staunchest supporters. In addition to the statements made by members of the group before the Inquisition, the trial rec­ords also contain the confessions of Agustín’s older ­brother, Luis de Ribera, which form a rich trove of information on the activities of the young prophet. By contrasting the confessions and accusations contained in the trial rec­ords of Agustín’s followers with the testimonies in Juan de Sosa’s inquisitorial dossier, this chapter sheds light on the socioeconomic composition of Agustín’s followers, the geo­graph­i­cal reach of the movement, as well as their beliefs.8 The testimonies included in t­hese inquisitorial trial rec­ords thus provide a wealth of information about the ­mental universe of Castilian Moriscos. What follows is a chronological narrative of the trajectory of Agustín’s ­career. Through a close reading of the events of Agustín’s visionary experience, a concept of how the Moriscos in sixteenth-­century Castile understood holiness emerges, shedding light on the social and po­liti­cal implications of prophethood, sainthood, and apocalypticism for Spanish Moriscos and highlighting the centrality of apocalyptic ideas to the reconstitution of the Castilian Moriscos as a community in the early de­cades a­ fter their conversion to Catholicism.

A Domestic Affair A Young Visionary in the Making: Agustín de Ribera’s Encounter with Spirits Agustín de Ribera lived in the village of Ajofrín, situated twelve miles south of Toledo, with his f­ ather, Agustín de Ribera el viejo (the elder), a Morisco Inquisition Jaime Contreras Contreras almost thirty years ago, scholars have worked with a series of letters between the General Council of the Inquisition and the inquisitors of Valladolid and Toledo, but they have not had access to Agustín de Ribera’s trial rec­ords. This lack of sources has led specialists to speculate about the identity of Agustín de Ribera. L. P. Harvey and ­others have hypothesized that Agustín might be the famous yet enigmatic Morisco author Mancebo de Arévalo (known as the Young Man of Arévalo). Tempting as this identification may be, the scant biographical information that Mancebo de Arévalo offered in his works does not correspond to the personal information about Agustín contained in the Inquisition sources, which means the young men cannot be the same person. See Jaime Contreras Contreras, “Los moriscos en las inquisiciones de Valladolid y Logroño,” in Les morisques et leur temps (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983), 475–92; Serafín de Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1991), 228–30. The most recent treatment of the subject is Mercedes García-­Arenal, “A Catholic Muslim Prophet: Agustín de Ribera, ‘the Boy Who Saw Angels,’ ” Common Knowledge 18, no. 2 (2012): 267–91. For the identification of Agustín with the Mancebo de Arévalo, see María Teresa Narváez Córdoba, Tratado [Tafsira] Mancebo de Arévalo (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2003), 22; and more recently, Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 171. 8.  ​­These records ­ are of the trials ­ against Isabel Díaz, AHN, Inq. Leg. 192/15; Francisco el Piní, AHN, Inq. Leg. 196/20; Juan de Ribera, AHN, Inq. Leg. 196/29; and Juan de Piña, AHN, Inq. Leg. 196/21.



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23

potter; his m ­ other, Elvira de Çervatos, also a Morisca; b­ rothers Luis and Gonzalo; and ­sisters María and Lucía. When Agustín began confessing in 1541, he was referred to as el mozo (the youth). According to the seventeenth-­­century dictionary Tesoro de la lengua castellana, “mozo ordinarily means juvenile age, Latin adolescens.”9 According to the information extracted both from Agustín’s confessions and from those ­ of other witnesses, Agustín began to see super­ natural beings approximately seven to eight years before he was arrested by the Inquisition, between 1533 and 1535. According to a witness, a few years a­ fter Agustín’s initial contact with the super­natural his youn­gest s­ ister was around nine or ten years of age.10 We know from the Inquisition sources that Agustín was not much older than his ­sister, and thus we can conclude that the boy must have been between eleven and twelve years of age when he began having visions. Therefore, he was born approximately between 1521 and 1523; that is, some two de­cades a­ fter the forced conversions of the Castilian Muslims. According to William Christian, the cutoff point between niño (boy) and mozo was between eleven and twelve years old. Agustín’s age would have had serious implications for the way in which his visions ­were construed, especially by the religious authorities. ­There was a fundamental difference between being a child and being a youth. Whereas c­ hildren w ­ ere innocent figures, symbols of purity who could serve as intercessors between their communities and God,11 mozos w ­ ere considered potentially sinful. It is not surprising, then, that Agustín’s b­ rother Luis de Ribera would talk about the young visionary as a “child” (niño) in his confessions before the inquisitors. Perhaps he was trying to convince the inquisitors that Agustín’s ­were legitimate visions, or at the very least, the product of the child’s imagination, in this way exculpating his ­brother from any heretical be­hav­ior. Luis de Ribera confessed to the inquisitors of Toledo that one August morning in 1533, as his young b­ rother was leaving for school in the church of the village of Ajofrín, he complained about having sharp pains in his stomach, his temperature began to rise, and he started having seizures, which he suffered regularly a­ fter that. The boy then claimed that he could see two fairies that 9. ​Sebastián de Covarrubias y Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, 2nd ed., ed. Felipe C. R. Maldonado (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1995), 766. Originally published in 1611. 10. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 196/29, f. 9r. 11. ​William Christian  Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Princeton, ­ NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1981), 216. This is true in both the Christian and the Muslim contexts. See, for example, Naveeda Khan, “Of ­Children and Jinn: An Inquiry into an Unexpected Friendship during Uncertain Times,” Cultural Anthropology 21, no. 2 (2006): 234–64. For studies on the concept of childhood in early modern Iberia and colonial Latin Amer­ic­ a, see Raising an Empire: C ­ hildren in Early Modern Iberia and Colonial Latin Ameri­ca, ­ eds., Ondina  E. Gonzalez and Biance Premo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007).

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Chapter 1

looked like tiny friars (frailecicos) dressed in the garb of the Dominicans, “with their white and black habits, double-­soled shoes and rope around their waist down to their feet”; the fairies instructed him to keep the vision a secret before quickly disappearing.12 The following day, a­ fter invoking the fairies in God’s name to disclose their intentions, Agustín learned through them that he had been chosen by God to see this vision a­ fter being granted grace (gracia). Attempting to discern what type of spirits they w ­ ere, Agustín’s ­brother asked the fairies “by God and Our Lady” if they ­were infernal spirits; the tiny visions responded that they ­were lost souls (ánimas en pena), and then vanished ­after bidding the boy farewell.13 The encounter with the fairies initiated young Agustín in what would become a prolific visionary c­ areer, one that from its beginning would be mediated by his older b­ rother Luis. The boy’s first encounters with the divine had been preceded by physical ailments—­pains, fevers, and seizures. As with other visionaries, ­these spells seem to have appeared in preparation to receive God’s grace. The fairies thus served as b­ earers of news about the boy’s privileged status as communicator with the divine and recipient of grace. This initial episode sheds light on the m ­ ental universe of Castilian newly converted Moriscos and the degree of their immersion in Christian popu­lar culture. Friar fairies w ­ ere a common figure in the popu­lar imaginary of sixteenth-­century Spain. According to Antonio de Torquemada’s 1570 treatise Jardín de flores curiosas (Garden of Curious Flowers) p­ eople claimed to see t­hese harmless fairies (trasgos or duendes), which w ­ ere “nothing but familiar or domestic spirits (demonios)” in the shape of friars, while ­others saw them in the shape of animals, such as dogs or monkeys. While many could feel their presence, not every­one could see t­ hese spirits. For young Agustín, communicating with fairies was a manifestation of God’s ­will, and in this way, ­these super­natural beings became instruments of the divine and part of God’s plan. Through the gift of God’s grace, Agustín had become a mediator between his ­family and the divine. A ­ fter this first encounter with super­natural beings, the boy began to have more terrifying visions, which culminated in an encounter with the devil. Again according to his ­brother Luis, one day at church the boy became frightened and stated that he could see the figure of a naked man telling him that he (the man) was a lost soul. The spirit wanted to know ­whether Agustín could see him and begged the boy to pray to God to have mercy on him.14 In his testimony before the inquisitors, Luis recalled that the day ­after this unsettling 12. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 57v. 13. ​Ibid., f. 58r. 14. ​Ibid., f. 58v.



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25

vision, the boy began frothing at the mouth, a­ fter which Agustín described having a vision of the devil dragging the lost spirit he had seen the previous day. Once again, Luis instructed his ­brother to continue invoking God’s name while ordering the beast to leave the soul alone.15 Confirming Agustín’s status as someone imbued with God’s grace, the devil l­ater confirmed that he had spared the soul b­ ecause of the grace that God had granted to Agustín. The boy described the terrifying vision as that of a medium-­height man with black skin, long thin hair, and a flat fingernail-­tipped nose. He had sunken eyes, fire coming out of his head, four goat-­like horns, a large mouth with boar tusks, hands like bird feet, nails sticking out of his elbows, flaming mouths on his knees, four toes with bird claws, and large bat wings.16 Agustín’s visions are consistent with con­temporary popu­lar Eu­ro­pean repre­sen­ta­tions of the devil: a dark or black figure with horns, clawed feet or hands, thin hair, and bat wings who is almost always accompanied by a sulfuric stench. This figure is documented in many fables, popu­lar legends, and iconographic forms.17 In this sequence of super natural ­ encounters, the young visionary’s communication with tormented and evil spirits also served to announce his chosen status. Defeating the devil was the last stage of Agustín’s initiation pro­cess, elevating his power to a higher level in preparation for what was still to come. What do ­these highly personal visionary experiences tell us about the child, the f­amily, and the community in which they w ­ ere revealed? In her study of discernment of spirits in the M ­ iddle Ages, Nancy Caciola outlines the multiple ways in which visionaries ­were surrounded by “a series of competing and overlapping communities, from f­ amily to neighborhoods to town to diocese to religious order.”18 In the unfolding story of Agustín’s visionary c­ areer, as ­will become clear in the following pages, the visions ­were interpreted and carried specific meaning depending not only on who narrated them, but also on whom they ­were being recounted to. Thus, if we are to understand Agustín’s visionary experience we must first consider how the story has reached us. Let us first focus on the testimonies of Luis de Ribera, who gave the account of the early trances during a confession before the inquisitors of Toledo. Luis had assumed his role as intermediary in his young ­brother’s visionary experience,

15. ​Ibid., ff. 59v–60r. 16. ​Ibid., f. 60r. 17. ​See James Amelang and María Tausiet, El diablo en la edad moderna (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2004). See also Gábor Klaniczay, “The Pro­cess of Trance: Heavenly and Diabolic Apparitions in Johannes Nider’s Formicarius,” in Pro­cession, Per­for­mance, and Ritual: Essays in Honor of Bryan R. Gillingham, ed. Nancy van Deusen (Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval ­Music, 2007): 203–58. 18. ​Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the M ­ iddle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 125.

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instructing the boy on how to address the spirits and to ask questions and invoke them. In this sense, at this early stage young Agustín’s visionary experience was mediated closely by his nuclear f­amily. Yet this was not the only layer of mediation that Luis was involved in. In his confessions before the Inquisition, Agustín’s older b­ rother interpreted the visions to the inquisitors in a highly Christianized manner. Moreover, he made it a point to stress the fact that the f­amily frequented church, that the boy attended catechism classes, and that they w ­ ere all good Christians.19 The f­ amily’s religious convictions w ­ ill be dealt with shortly, but for now, suffice it to say that when Luis took it upon himself to interpret the boy’s experiences with the super­natural for the inquisitors of Toledo, he did so in a calculated way, attempting to explain the visions within a Christian framework that his audience would understand. Yet from Luis’s answers during his interrogations, it is clear that the inquisitors ­were not interested in discerning the nature of Agustín’s visions (as was the case for many visionaries during the sixteenth c­ entury who ended up tried by the Inquisition).20 Discerning spirits—­that is, testing w ­ hether visions, apparitions, or otherworldly messages were ­ divine interventions or demonic communications—­was a source of g­ reat concern to medieval and early modern Christians. This was, after ­ all, an important ­ soteriological question: by learning to distinguish false prophets and visionaries, “in the coming cosmic conflict of good and evil, one may be sure of remaining among the righ­teous who w ­ ill inherit the kingdom of God.”21 It was also as much a question of knowledge production as it was of spiritual leadership. From the twelfth c­ entury onward, the question of testing spirits became a topic of debate, with a surge in self-­proclaimed prophets, teachers, and visionaries.22 Lay p­ eople and Church leaders alike strove to make sense of extraordinary phenomena like visions, apparitions, trances, super natural ­ messages, possessions, and the like, and the discernment of spirits became a

19. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 57r. 20. ​Scholarship on medieval and early modern discernment is vast. See, for example, Caciola, Discerning Spirits; Moshe Sluhovsky, Believe Not E­ very Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Wendy Love Anderson, The Discernment of Spirits: Assessing Visions and Visionaries in the Late ­Middle Ages (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); Nancy Caciola and Moshe Sluhovsky, “Spiritual Physiologies: The Discernment of Spirits in Medieval and Early Modern Eu­rope,” Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 1, no.  1 (2012): 1–48; Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, ­ The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval W ­ oman between Demons and Saints (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Michael D. Bailey, Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Bound­aries of Superstition in Late Medieval Eu­rope (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016). 21. ​Caciola, Discerning Spirits, 3. 22. ​Caciola and Sluhovsky, “Spiritual Physiologies,” 5.



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long-t­erm l­abor of social interpretation.23 But it was also a discourse that had to be mastered “not only by the clerics charged with examining visionaries and writing about them, but by the visionaries themselves.”24 In the case of Agustín’s visionary experience, the person apparently most interested in the question of discernment was his brother, ­ Luis de Ribera. As Caciola has stressed, discernment of spirits “was not a neutral decision.”25 Agustín’s fate depended on his b­ rother’s testimony to the inquisitors: how he presented the visions, what meanings he gave to them, and what role he assigned to the child. Luis’s discernment of Agustín’s visions was thus “an ideological act, an interpretation inflected by local mentalities, the observers’ self-­interest, and the exigencies of power.”26 The way in which the inquisitors of Toledo responded to Agustín’s visions is equally impor­tant. At a time of intense debate in early modern Spain on visionaries and visionary experiences, it is puzzling that the boy’s claims did not seem to concern the inquisitors.27 Rather, the inquisitors w ­ ere intent on discovering w ­ hether or not the Moriscos continued to follow “the law of Muḥammad.” Luis must have been aware of this fact. But his testimonies must not be dismissed as mere attempts to deceive the inquisitors. Regardless of ­whether he wished to convince his interrogators of the sincerity of the family’s Christian beliefs, his descriptions of Agustín’s visions confirm their acquaintance with con­temporary Christian popu­lar religious beliefs and practices. It is not improbable that Agustín’s ­family did in fact follow the new religion that had been imposed on them three de­cades before the boy began to have his visions. Ajofrín was a small Castilian village, and it is not unlikely that in their efforts to integrate Agustín’s f­amily adapted to the new circumstances by adopting the Christian faith and forgetting the religion of their forefathers. Additionally, the existence of a shared language for expressing these ­ kinds of visionary experiences must also be considered. As many scholars have noted, the Moriscos of Castile seem to have been the group of New Christians of Muslim descent most integrated into Christian society and culture. Along with their economic integration came linguistic assimilation, which explains their gradual loss of the Arabic language and their adoption of Aljamiado (Spanish text written in Arabic script) as a medium of written expression. The most 23. ​Ibid., 2. 24. ​Blumenfeld-­Kosinski, Strange Case of Ermine de Reims, 131. 25. ​Caciola, Discerning Spirits, 125. 26. ​Ibid. 27. ​For a study on claims of sanctity in early modern Spain, see, for example, Andrew W. Keitt, Inventing the Sacred: Imposture, Inquisition, and the Boundaries ­ of the Super natural ­ in Golden Age Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2005).

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extreme example of this phenomenon, as María Jesús Rubiera contends, was the adaptation by the Castilian Mudéjars and Moriscos of Christian religious formulae in Castilian to express Muslim religiosity. Redefining a term coined by the famous Arabist Miguel Asín Palacios, Rubiera has called the religious expressions of Castilian Mudéjars and Moriscos a form of “Christianized Islam.”28 Thus, w ­ hether Luis was attempting to demonstrate his f­amily’s religious zeal or was expressing Muslim concepts in a Christianized language, what stands out about Agustín’s first visionary experiences is their marked Christian flavor, something that would change once the ­family came into contact with Moriscos from the neighboring towns.

Agustín Receives Divine Messages Agustín’s demonic encounter was the last of a series of terrifying visions, and it initiated his role as recipient of divine messages. Once the beast had departed, Agustín saw a naked man carry­ing a wax torch descending from the skies. According to the young visionary, the man went down to the church and then ascended to the heavens, taking with him the lost soul that had been attacked by the devil. The man in the vision told the boy that through his prayers to God the tormented soul had been liberated, and he encouraged Agustín to keep praying for his f­amily.29 To probe the nature of this spirit, the boy’s b­ rother instructed him to ask the figure w ­ hether it was a good or bad vision, to which the apparition replied that he was “a glorified body, a celestial being,” and proceeded to reveal his identity as that of the apostle St. Andrew.30 The apparition of St. Andrew to young Agustín seems puzzling, considering that visions of that apostle w ­ ere not frequent in early modern Spain. However, iconography associated with St. Andrew was prevalent in Spain, particularly the so-­called Cross of St. Andrew, which adorned the sanbenitos worn by penitent heretics in the autos de fe. St. Andrew’s Cross was a sign of reconciliation, according to Julio Caro Baroja.31 Nonetheless, the description offered by young Agustín of St. Andrew does not correspond with any other sixteenth-­ century repre­sen­ta­tions of the saint, who appears carry­ing e­ ither the cross

28. ​María Jesús Rubiera Mata, “El Islam cristianizado de los moriscos castellanos en época de Carlos V,” in Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558): Congreso internacional, Madrid, 3–6 de julio de 2000, ed. José Martínez Millán, 4 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2000), 1:469–86. 29. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 60v. 30. ​Ibid., f. 60r. 31. ​Julio Caro Baroja, Los judíos en la España moderna y contemporánea, 4th ed., 3 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 2000), 1:347.



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on which he was martyred or a fishing net, representing his trade.32 From the inquisitorial rec­ords we can gather that the boy had his encounter with the apostle sometime in November.33 Did the saint appear to Agustín on his feast day, November 30? Many fellow visionaries often claimed to have visions of saints precisely on the saints’ feast days. L­ ater that day Agustín claimed to have seen “a young man (mancebo) with beautiful wings and radiantly beautiful hair.”34 The figure was ascending with a creature by the hand. As in all his previous visions, the figure told the boy that he had come to inform him that God had granted him grace, and he told the young visionary that he was blessed among all the ­people in the world.35 When asked for his name, the vision responded that he was the angel Michael (Micael). Michael, as Agustín described him, was a young man with thin beard; blond, thick, curly hair; and red lips—and ­ he was wearing a white robe, wide and closed like a cleric’s, which extended from his neck down to his ankles, with wide sleeves tied at his wrists and a rope tied around his waist that had strings of multicolored pearls tied to it.36 The winged figure was carry­ing a trumpet on his right hand, which, according to Agustín, the angel played from time to time. Visions of holy figures w ­ ere not uncommon in medieval and early modern Spain. As William Christian has pointed out in his work on apparitions, saintly encounters usually preceded the establishment of a chapel or a church.37 In numerous cases, the saint appeared to the visionary and instructed her or him to relay a message to the community to build a chapel or a church in the saint’s honor. In this way the system of local devotion was periodically renewed.38 Coincidentally, the Relaciones topográficas, the topographical survey ordered by Philip II in 1575, confirms the existence of a chapel (ermita) in honor of the archangel Michael in the village of Ajofrín at least in the second half of the sixteenth ­century.39 W ­ hether this chapel was constructed “at the request of the Archangel” or not is beyond our knowledge. It is also unclear w ­ hether the presence of the chapel dedicated to Michael might have inspired the young boy’s visions. In 32. ​See Juan Carmona Muela, Iconografía de los santos (Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 2008), 27–29, 362. 33. ​According to his deposition on August 2, 1542, Luis de Ribera confessed that Agustín had begun to have his visions in August, and they continued u­ ntil November, when he saw the friar-­like fairies and the rest of the visions. AHN Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 57r. In Apparitions, William Christian rec­ ords a number of cases of visionaries to whom saints have appeared on their feast day. 34. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 60r. 35. ​Ibid. 36. ​Ibid., f. 61v. 37. ​Christian, Apparitions, 204. 38. ​For the same phenomenon in the Islamic context, see Nile Green, “The Religious and Cultural Roles of Dreams and Visions in Islam,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 13, no. 3 (2003): 287–313. 39.  ​I have consulted the copy housed ­ in Madrid’s Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia (BRAH), Ms. 9/03954, ff. 66r–72v (description of the town of Ajofrín). The original manuscript of the

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any case, the messages delivered by ­these two saints, Andrew and Michael, ­were not of a communal kind, at least not yet. Rather, they w ­ ere personal confirmations by a messenger of a higher rank. Throughout Eu­rope the archangel Michael was considered one of the most power­ful divine figures.40 In the sequence of visions experienced by Agustín, the apparition of the archangel occurs a­ fter the boy had defeated the devil. Yet while traditional Christian iconography depicts Michael as stepping on the devil and carry­ing a sword or a spear with which he has just defeated the latter, in Agustín’s visions the angel is carry­ing a trumpet, not a sword. Agustín had already defeated the devil, so the archangel appears as God’s messenger. Perhaps the trumpet in Agustín’s vision is the one that Michael w ­ ill sound on the Day of Judgment.41 The image of the archangel Michael carrying ­ a trumpet (and not the traditional sword) would suggest that Agustín was not relying exclusively on contemporary ­ visual sources and that t­hese Moriscos w ­ ere also well acquainted with biblical imagery of the apocalypse. Yet while the archangel was a familiar ele­ment of early modern visionary encounters, Michael is also a central figure in Islamic angelology. Michael (Mikhāʾīl) has the highest status among all other angels, except for the angel Gabriel (Jibrāʾīl), and in many versions of the Prophet Muḥammad’s night journey (al-­isrāʾ) and ascension to the throne (al-­miʿrāj), the angels Michael and Gabriel appear to Muḥammad, preparing him for his journey.42 Are we thus confronted with traces of Islamic angelology? W ­ ere t­ hese Moriscos not as devoutly Christian as they w ­ ere attempting to present themselves to the inquisitorial authorities? Or was Agustín’s vision of Michael an expression of a “hybrid” nature of Castilian Morisco belief—­a form of Christianized Islam? The answer to ­these questions w ­ ill become apparent upon delving deeper into the boy’s visions. Relaciones topográficas is located at the Biblioteca del Escorial. The Relaciones w ­ ere the results of a survey conducted on the order of Philip II to gather information on all the towns and cities in the Peninsular realms. They provide a wealth of information about the economic and religious culture of the dif­fer­ent Iberian regions. In present-­day Ajofrín, t­ here is a chapel in honor of St. Andrew (Ermita de San Andrés) that dates to the sixteenth ­century. The chapel, however, is not recorded in the Relaciones of 1575, and thus we cannot know ­whether it existed when Agustín had his visions of the saint. 40. ​Christian, Apparitions, 94. The archangel Michael is also pre­sent in the messianic and apocalyptic calculations of Jews and Conversos in Spain and Portugal at the turn of the sixteenth c­ entury. Isaiah Tishby cites an in­ter­est­ing account of a Jewish visionary from Portugal who claimed to have been revealed the date of the deliverance of the Jews from Portugal by Michael. See Isaiah Tishby, “Acute Apocalyptic Messianism,” in Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History, ed. Marc Saperstein (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 259–86. 41. ​1 Thess. 4:16: “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, ­will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ ­will rise first.” The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, ed. Michael Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 343 NT. 42. ​Gisela Webb, “Michael,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, 5 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2001–6) (hereafter cited as EQ), 3:388–89.



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The apparition of the angel Michael was the last of the series of visions that Agustín experienced in preparation for God’s greatest message to humanity. The angel’s trumpet gains significance when understood as part of this sequence of visionary experiences. The vision of Michael carry­ing a trumpet suggests the angel’s mission as the announcer of the Final Judgment. As ­will become clear in the account that follows, the message of the impending End Times was superseded by a message of redemption: the restoration of order in the world.

Agustín Meets the Angel of God: Fit for Prophethood One November day when arriving home from work, Luis de Ribera and his ­father found a familiar scene: his ­mother and siblings ­were sitting around the fire talking. Luis and his ­father joined the rest of the ­family, when his ­mother began to say that they should all pray to the Lord to deliver them from the temptations of the devil. Upon hearing this, Luis recalled a tall tale about an old ­woman in the neighboring town Orgaz who used to ask the Lord to grant her knowledge about paradise and access to it. Luis joked that the Lord could grant more to whomever he wished. Agustín, who was sitting quietly, began to whisper a prayer in which he asked God to grant him and his ­family knowledge of paradise and access to it. Suddenly, the boy began to ­tremble and stated that the angel of God was speaking to him.43 According to Agustín, the angel confirmed that he had been sent by the Lord to let him know that he already had access to paradise, and that the rest of the f­amily would have it as well. Upon hearing this, the boy’s m ­ other and his b­ rother Gonzalo began to cry. The angel then spoke again, telling the f­ amily not to cry but rather to happily praise God. As had happened before, Luis intervened, asking the apparition who it was and ­whether it was good or evil. The vision responded that he was an angel sent by God and that his name was Gabriel; he then warned Luis against doubting. ­After giving Agustín God’s blessings and announcing ­f uture visits, Gabriel urged the boy’s f­ather to always give alms. Agustín the elder was so amazed by this that he nearly fainted. Alarmed, he asked his older son if he thought they should go before the Inquisition, to which Luis was sharply opposed. He tried to convince his f­ather that the young boy was innocent and that no sin was being committed.44 On his second visit, Gabriel performed a miracle intended to make every­ one believe. The angel greeted the boy and asked him to bring a chair. Agustín 43. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 62r. 44. ​Ibid., ff. 61v–62r.

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then sat on the chair and began to speak to them with words that, according to his older b­ rother, w ­ ere too complex for the boy to have devised. Gabriel told the boy to warn his f­ ather not to doubt God’s miracles, that God had already forgiven his sins, and to praise and give thanks for the ­great marvels that his son would do in the f­uture. The angel told the old man not to think of himself as undeserving, for “if it ­were a ­matter of deserving, not even the good deeds of all of humanity would be enough to deserve the smallest of God’s miracles.”45 Rather, God, the angel declared, was merciful. Asking for forgiveness for his sins, Agustín’s f­ather wanted to know why his son had been granted such a ­great blessing. Gabriel proceeded to reveal the greatest of God’s messages to the boy’s ­family. According to Gabriel, the child’s visions ­were tidings (albricias) of what was to come, for at the age of thirty, which was the “perfect age,” Agustín would receive full grace (sería cumplido de entera gracia), and through him the Lord would restore “a large part of the world among the human ­ generation that was being lost,” presumably by saving their souls.46 The angel warned, though, that u­ ntil then God’s grace would not be complete. He added that the purpose for sharing the news of Agustín’s grace at this tender age was “so that they would suffer while waiting, and in suffering with desire they would deserve in some way what the creator of all ­things wanted to do.”47 Gabriel also said that from the time of the announcement u ­ ntil the boy reached the perfect age he would not fall into error b­ ecause he would have somebody to train him. Supported and guided by God, Agustín would have grace according to his age.48 Before departing, Gabriel instructed the ­family to smell the chair on which the boy was sitting and said that so long as no one e­ lse sat on it, the scent of linalool would last. The sequence of Agustín’s visions follows a logic in terms of degrees of importance of otherworldly entities, ascending from penitent souls to the most prominent of God’s angels, Gabriel. Each messenger came to corroborate the boy’s status as being selected by God, which culminated with the most impor­ tant of messages: the boy’s ­f uture as prophet at the perfect age of thirty. This announcement of Agustín’s prophetic mission elicited dif­fer­ent reactions in his immediate f­amily. Some experienced fear and sorrow; o­ thers displayed doubt. Aware of ­these emotions, Gabriel soon reprimanded the ­family. Yet the angel had more than a s­ imple reprimand. William Christian has observed in the case of other early modern Spanish visionary experiences that if ­there are

45. ​Ibid. 46. ​Ibid., f. 62r. 47. ​Ibid., f. 62v. 48. ​Ibid., f. 64r.



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no other seers or witnesses, the visionary has to provide some kind of proof so that he or she w ­ ill be believed.49 Gabriel provided such proof with the miracle of the fragrant chair, which proved the real­ity of the visionary experience and served as confirmation of the boy’s privileged status, his God-­g iven grace. T ­ here is, however, something unusual about this last vision. Apparitions of the angel Gabriel w ­ ere not frequent in early modern Spain. Thus, the vision of Gabriel in this par­tic­u­lar Morisco context makes his appearance all the more significant. Was not Gabriel’s mission to reveal the word of God, the Qurʾān, to the Prophet Muḥammad, thus announcing his prophethood? Could an Islamic influence once again be seeping into this affair, which would make the vision of the angel Gabriel comprehensible? According to Muslim narratives, the presence of prophets is perceived as a sign of God’s benefaction (niʿma) unto His p­ eople.50 Moreover, in Islamic prophetology the divine election of prophets endows t­hese figures with abilities not shared by ordinary humans, ­ mainly knowledge of the unseen (ghayb).51 But was Agustín a prophet in the Islamic sense?

The Circle Expands: Sainthood and the Spread of Islam Agustín’s encounter with the angel Gabriel significantly changed his f­ amily’s f­uture. What began as a domestic m ­ atter would soon become a communal affair. Upon receiving the first messages from the angel, Agustín’s ­father summoned his extended ­family from Toledo to come to Ajofrín to bear witness to the boy’s raptures. Believing that the messages that Agustín was relaying ­were truly God-­sent, Agustín’s older cousin, Juan de Sosa, was compelled to ask the divine messenger a question that was on the mind of many early modern Spaniards. He wanted to know from Gabriel which of the three laws (Islam, Chris­tian­ity, or Judaism) was the true one. In other words, Sosa wanted to know by which law the Moriscos could be “saved.”52 This was a question of soteriology as much as one that reflected an anxiety over identity. The answer to this question had spiritual as well as politi ­ cal ­ implications, and it profoundly affected the subsequent development of Agustín’s experiences with

49. ​Christian, Apparitions, 140. 50. ​Uri Rubin, “Prophets and Prophethood,” EQ, 4:289–307. 51. ​Ibid. 52. ​For an in-­depth study of this m ­ atter, see Stuart Schwartz, All Can Be Saved (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

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the divine. In God’s redemptive plan, Gabriel responded, Islam was the road to salvation; in other words, the true law.53

Agustín de Ribera Goes to Toledo Upon Juan de Sosa’s arrival in Ajofrín, Agustín the elder began to express a desire to move his f­amily to Toledo. This was a m ­ atter that preoccupied the old man, for he feared that without any money, and many pressing commitments, he would not be able to leave his small town. What happened next sheds light on the difficult question of agency in divine intervention. In one of his confessions, Luis de Ribera recalled that one eve­ning his f­ ather was bemoaning his trou­bles when Agustín, who was listening to the conversation and was deeply troubled by it, announced that Gabriel was bidding them solace and happiness. The boy proceeded to say that the Almighty Lord was prompting his ­father to put his desire to move into action and to ­free himself from sadness, “because ­ God could not be served in sorrow.”54 Then, as if questioning the f­ather about his commitment to his son’s mission, the angel asked w ­ hether Agustín the elder “desired worldly gains without effort more than a drop of God’s grace with all its challenges.”55 The old man asked for forgiveness and replied that all he wanted was God’s grace. Gabriel’s intervention on this occasion was clearly guided by the boy’s concerns about his f­ ather’s well-­being. This was not the only instance when the angel’s intersession responded to Agustín’s immediate concerns. Agustín himself had confessed to the inquisitors that when his cousin asked the angel which of the three religions was the true one, he responded what he knew his cousin wanted to hear: that Islam was the true religion.56 As Agustín’s audience grew, Gabriel’s visits became more frequent, normally the result of someone’s summoning. On these ­ occasions the angel’s messages tended to fulfill the expectations of the p­ eople who w ­ ere gathered to receive divine messages through the boy. But the divine messages ­were not exclusively guided by the young visionary’s anx­ie­ ties. As we have seen, the boy’s visions w ­ ere closely mediated by his f­amily, particularly by his b­ rother Luis. ­After the ­family’s arrival in Toledo, Gabriel announced that news about Agustín’s mission could be shared only with his u­ ncle, Diego Ruiz, and his cousins Juan de Sosa and Francisco Ruiz. Why did the boy’s mission have to

53. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 26v. 54. ​Ibid., f. 65v. 55. ​Ibid., f. 26v. 56. ​Ibid.



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remain a secret? Now that the circle was expanding, was this an attempt by the boy’s ­family to secure control of Agustín’s visionary ­career? Or was it perhaps that they feared that p­ eople would not believe the boy’s visions, as in fact Luis expressed? T ­ here was also the question of the danger of claims to sanctity, to which so many self-­proclaimed saints of the time fell victim, especially the alumbrados, adherents of a strand of mysticism in fifteenth-­and sixteenth-­century Spain. In fact, several Morisco potters of Toledo, conscious of the dangers of such claims, had warned Agustín the elder in 1536 “to look into what was being said in the potteries of the city about the grace that ­people say his younger son has, for if it is a lie, it could be a very dangerous t­ hing.”57 To appease their suspicions and to divert the men’s attention, Agustín’s­father quickly dismissed his young son’s claims as a prank.58 After ­ some initial doubts, Agustín’s uncle ­ and cousins claimed unrestricted access to the blessed child and his divine wisdom. Soon, however, the angel warned that the men ­were sinful and that their disbelief would not allow them to experience the boy’s gift. This would become one of the Gabriel’s most frequent complaints. For Agustín’s followers to receive God’s blessings, they had to purify themselves from sin by staying away from vices and paying alms, which he said washed away sin.59 Gabriel would give further instructions, but for the moment, to quell their anx­i­eties and doubts, he announced that he would provide proof of the child’s privileged status. The boy would experience strong heart palpitations just before the angel’s arrival, and on his next encounter with the child, Gabriel would give the boy something in his hand, which would appear physically so that every­one could see it.60 Just as Gabriel had predicted, the miracle occurred soon ­after. One eve­ning Luis and Agustín went to their cousin Juan’s h­ ouse to play chess, and while they w ­ ere gathered, the boy began having palpitations and said that he could see two angels who bid every­one peace. According to Luis’s testimony to the inquisitors, the boy appeared to be dead, when suddenly his heart gave two or three hard throbs and a small stone appeared in his right hand, the size of a small walnut and of reddish color with tiny specks that resembled silver. The boy awoke abruptly and told his audience not to touch the stone with their hands. It was beneficial for curing illness but could be used only by t­ hose to

57. ​Ibid., f. 26r. 58. ​Ibid. 59. ​Ibid. Giving alms (zakāt) is one of the five pillars of Islam. According to Islamic theology, paying zakāt is a ritual act of purification and blessing for the one who offers it. 60. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 70v.

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whom God had granted permission. The boy then wrapped it in a piece of cloth and gave it to his cousin Juan to keep.61 Now in Toledo, Agustín’s ­family had a social network of extended ­family that acted as a support system for the boy’s prophetic calling. As the circle expanded, Agustín began to receive new messages from his angelic friends, and the recipients of ­those messages now included his extended ­family. At the same time, new elements ­ began to appear in Agustín’s visions, elements ­ that unambiguously could be identified with Islam. As Agustín’s visionary experience gained significance in the Castilian Morisco community at large, his own prophetic persona began to transform from visionary to saint. Vincent Cornell has explained that “witnesses to the holy person’s be­hav­ior ‘selectively perceive’ the saint’s actions according to their shared experiences, faith, and religious doctrines.”62 Once in contact with other Moriscos, Agustín’s prophetic mission was understood by the community through an Islamic prism, and this in turn affected the way in which the young visionary presented himself to the community.

Agustín Ascends to the Heavens, Sees Hell, and Visits Paradise The young visionary’s encounters with the angel Gabriel served as proof of his chosen status. Now that God’s message had been delivered through him, Agustín would continue to grow in his spiritual path through a closer experience with the divine. He was ready to be shown some of the miracles of God’s creation by being taken up to the heavens and shown hell. The following scene reflects some of the difficulties in attempting to interpret Agustín’s first visionary experiences: Must they be seen through an exclusively Christian or an Islamic prism? Or might a bifocal (Christian-­Islamic) view result in a deeper understanding of the phenomenon before us? Ultimately, what the following account reveals are the contradictions of the recently converted Mudéjar community of early sixteenth-­century Castile. Agustín had many models available from which to draw to create his next vision. One after­noon the young seer was at his cousin Juan’s ­house when suddenly he fell into a trance-­like state, as if dead (amortecido). The boy remained in that state for some time, and upon waking he enthusiastically explained how Gabriel had appeared to him, and taken him by the right hand up into the air.

61. ​Ibid., f. 49r. 62. ​Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), xxxi. For other examples of North African saintly culture, see Jonathan Glustrom Katz, Dreams, Sufism, and Sainthood: The Visionary ­Career of Muhammad Al-­Zawāwī (Leiden: Brill, 1996).



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When the boy and his companion w ­ ere at a significant height, Gabriel told the boy to look at the earth, and the earth appeared to him as merely a few towns, and the rest covered with ­water, according to Agustín, three times the surface of the earth.63 Then the angel instructed him to look down below, and the boy saw a g­ reat wall that was so thick that he could not compare it to anything he had seen before. The wall contained fires and smoke, and he could hear roars and howls that terrified him. The angel reassured Agustín that the Lord was with him, and they descended even lower, where the boy saw the most intense light he had ever seen. Gabriel then said, “What you have just seen was hell, where the evil and sinners pay for their wrongdoings.”64 They proceeded to go up to heaven, where Agustín felt at peace and rested. He saw beautiful trees and fragrant flowers and roses, bright light, and he could hear the m ­ usic of the angels. In heaven each generation of angels was separated according to its rank.65 Gabriel then took the boy’s right hand and told him to kneel. There ­ was such brightness that Agustín was nearly blinded. Up higher ­there was a light with fifty pieces of silk hanging down from it in an unidentifiable shape, like a bulge (un bulto). The boy could see eyes and hands and a mouth, and something that resembled a nose.66 Both Agustín and Gabriel w ­ ere kneeling, and the boy felt the urge to ask his guide what they w ­ ere looking at. Before he could utter his question, as if having read his mind, the angel said, “Look, you are kneeling before the one who created this, the Divine Power (potencia divina), which is in all parts of the heavens; as you can see him h­ ere, he can be seen in all the levels of the heavens.”67 According to Agustín, the heavens w ­ ere divided into dif­fer­ent levels, which the angels called grados. Then the boy saw a foot coming out but could not see anything e­ lse except for a footprint that it left, which the angel touched and offered him to kiss. They continued to admire the won­ders of God’s creation when they saw some angels carry­ing a soul (anima) or celestial body, as they celebrated and sang. The angels ­were dressing the soul in beautiful clothes. It was the feast day of St. Thomas, and Gabriel told the boy that the soul was that of the apostle and that the heavens and the earth w ­ ere celebrating.68 Then Gabriel suddenly brought the boy back to his body, and before departing told him that on his next appearance the ­others would also feel his presence.69

63. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 68r. 64. ​Ibid., f. 68v. 65. ​Ibid. 66. ​Ibid., f. 69r. 67. ​Ibid., ff. 69r–69v. 68. ​According to the Catholic calendar, St. Thomas the Apostle’s feast day is celebrated on July 3. 69. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 70r.

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On Agustín’s second ascent to heaven, he was shown the levels of the heavens in g­ reat detail. In e­ very one he saw the Lord at the right-­hand side. Upon seeing God in the first heaven, Agustín knelt and was taken to the second heaven, where he saw many w ­ omen in g­ reat glory and many c­ hildren of dif­ fer­ent sizes and ages, sitting in rows and singing. On the third level ­there ­were numerous saintly souls “of t­ hose who had endured strug­gles and adversities in this world, who had suffered with patience, and the souls of martyrs.”70 In this heaven t­ here w ­ ere rivers and fruit trees with bright green leaves. On the fourth level Agustín saw the glorious souls of very old men who seemed not to age. Gabriel explained that these ­ were ­ prophets and patriarchs, and fathers ­ of generations since Adam, the first father, ­ to the present. ­ There ­ w ­ ere also w ­ omen saints and w ­ idows, m ­ others of generations, prophetesses, and female martyrs. On the fifth level he saw a g­ reat number of virgins and maidens, and choirs of angels. Among the virgins was Mary, sitting on a high chair. Mary touched the boy’s face and told him that he was the blessed one who would be known among the ­people, and that his generation would be blessed. A ­ fter reaching the fifth level, the boy was brought down back to earth.71 In ­these journeys Agustín claimed to have been transported by Gabriel to the holy site of Mecca (a la casa de Meca), where he saw many ­things in ­g reat detail, though he was not allowed to tell his followers what he had seen.72 The heightened religious enthusiasm that swept throughout Castile in the first half of the sixteenth ­century provided fertile ground for Agustín’s visions to take root in. Calls for a political-­religious reform that ­were heard especially among some Franciscans and dejados (mystics) found echoes among crypto-­ Jews and crypto-­Muslims. Articulated in an apocalyptic and messianic key, reform consisted in a return to their old religion. Oftentimes ­these messages of religious renewal ­were received by visionaries who claimed to have been taken to the heavens and given divine instructions for their par­tic­ul­ar communities.73 Several of t­ hese visionaries w ­ ere tried by the Inquisition in Toledo and Córdoba in the first de­cades of the sixteenth ­century. ­These trial transcripts are testimony of the hopes harbored by Converso Jews who believed in the im-

70. ​Ibid. 71. ​Ibid., f. 73v. 72. ​Ibid., f. 122v. 73. ​See Haim Beinart, “Inés of Herrera del Duque: The Prophetess of Extremadura,” in ­Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 42–52; Haim Beinart, “A Prophesying Movement in Córdoba in 1499–1502,” Zion 45 (1979): 190–200; John Edwards, “Elijah and the Inquisition: Messianic Prophecy among ‘Conversos’ in Spain, c. 1500,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 28 (1984): 79–94.



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minent advent of the Messiah and the redemption of their community with their return to the Promised Land. An account made by the inquisitors of Córdoba in 1502 states that a Converso named Juan de Córdoba was arrested with his wife and four d­ aughters, along with a Muslim young slave girl who had been instructed in the Jewish faith. A ­ fter learning the Jewish prayers and rites, the young slave girl was proclaimed prophetess of the community and began to experience trance-­like states. The girl claimed to have been taken to the heavens by Elijah, who instructed her to relay to the Conversos of Córdoba that they should follow the law of the Jews, perform all the Jewish ceremonies, and deny the law of Christ. In this way God would take them out of their captivity.74 The young prophetess acquired about three hundred followers, who kissed her hand and accepted her teachings. Similarly, around the same time another young Converso prophetess, Inés, in the town of Herrera del Duque, Badajoz, claimed that she had been taken to heaven, also by Elijah. En route she passed through purgatory, where she saw many souls who w ­ ere suffering. Inés was given proof of her journey in the form of a letter from heaven, which she was to show to her followers so that she would be believed.75 The message that Inés had been given for the Converso community was that they should observe the Sabbath, keep their fasts, and believe in the law of Moses, for they would soon be taken to the Promised Land. Visionary experiences like ­these can help us make sense of Agustín’s encounters with the divine. Although Agustín’s visionary journey may seem ordinary, when considered in the context of other visionary claims of Conversos and Old Christians it appears radically original from the perspective of Morisco history. While Conversos drew inspiration from biblical imagery of prophetic revelation in their visions of heaven and hell, for Moriscos like Agustín and his followers Muslim narratives may have provided a perfect archetype for such visions. The Prophet Muḥammad’s own journey to the heavens and to paradise served as a model for the spiritual journey of saints and mystics.76 The story of Muḥammad’s night journey to Jerusalem and his ascension through the seven heavens accompanied by the angel Gabriel is also amply represented in Aljamiado lit­er­at­ure. The inclination of Moriscos to preserve this account—­rendered in manuscripts such as Declaración del xubimiento del Annabi á lox çielox (Declaration of the 74.  ​ Relación de unos inquisidores de Córdoba de varios judaizantes de esa ciudad, Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Estado, Leg. 1/2, ff. 392–93, reprinted in R. García y García de Castro, Virtudes de la reina católica (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1961), 440–43. 75. ​Edwards, “Elijah and the Inquisition,” 83. 76. ​See James Wonston Morris, “The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn ʿArabī and the Miʿrāj, Part I,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107, no. 4 (1987): 629–52; James Wonston Morris, “The Spiritual Ascension: Ibn ʿArabī and the Miʿrāj, Part II,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 108, no. 1 (1988): 63–76.

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Ascent of the Prophet to the Heavens), El alhadiz del puyamiento del Anabi á los cielos (The Ḥadīth on the Ascent of the Prophet to the Heavens) and Libro de la escala (Book of the Ladder)—­suggests that Moriscos w ­ ere well acquainted with the story.77 Moreover, the trajectory of Agustín’s divine experiences—the ­ announcement of his prophethood, his ascent to the heavens and his visions of hell, and his final revelations—is reminiscent of Muḥammad’s own prophetic journey. ­Whether or not paradise served as a source of inspiration for the young visionary, as it had for many Muslim saints and mystics, what is evident is that this experience transformed Agustín’s childhood into a story of one whose intimacy with God was beyond normal h­ uman experience. It was precisely this type of experience that Agustín’s contemporaries (Moriscos, Conversos, and Old Christians alike) recognized as a sign of divine predilection.

The Young Visionary Goes to Arévalo and Learns about Islam When word began to spread in Toledo that Agustín de Ribera had a special gift from God, p­ eople rushed to see the blessed boy, yearning to have access to him. This was how, in 1536, a Morisco merchant from Arévalo named Antonio Casado, who was traveling through Ajofrín on his way to Portugal, came to see Agustín. Fascinated by the stories about the angel Gabriel’s visits to young Agustín, Casado begged the boy’s f­ ather to travel to Arévalo, approximately 125 miles to the north, to mind his shop, and to take his son with him, a proposal that the old man accepted. Agustín’s contact with the p­ eople of Arévalo revealed to him a new and deeper knowledge about Islam. A ­ fter all, it was well known among the Castilian Moriscos that the New Christians of Arévalo, as well as t­hose of Ávila, Valladolid, and other towns of Castilla la Vieja, or Old Castile, w ­ ere all good Muslims.78 Fabián Bori, a Morisco youth who went to see young Agustín, had remarked that the newly converted Muslims of Arévalo lived better than t­ hose in La Mancha; according to him, “all the Moriscos of southern Castile were ­ pork-rind ­ eaters (torrezneros).”79 Arévalo had boasted a thriving community of Muslims during the M ­ iddle

77. ​For a transcription and analy­sis of several Aljamiado renditions of this story, see Reinhold Konzi, “La ascensión del profeta Mahoma a los cielos en manuscritos aljamiados y en el manuscrito árabe M518,” in Actes du II Symposium international du CIEM (Tunis: Institut Supérieur de Documentation, 1984), 2:45–54; Consuelo López-­Morillas, Textos aljamiados sobre la vida de Mahoma: El profeta de los moriscos (Madrid: CSIC-­AECI, 1994). Other stories of journeys to the heavens, like the famous tale of Bulukiya in 1001 Nights, ­were favorites among the Moriscos, and are found in numerous Aljamiado versions. 78. ​See Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila. 79. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 3r.



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Ages. The Old Castilian Mudéjars w ­ ere, for the most part, a well-­off urban population whose activities centered primarily on construction, metalwork, commerce, and transportation.80 Those ­ Old Castilian cities and towns that had impor­tant Mudéjar populations like Ávila, Valladolid, and Segovia had at least one aljama (Muslim town council) with its own alfaquí (faqīh, jurist). On one of his first meetings with the boy’s f­amily, Antonio Casado had reproached Agustín’s b­ rother for not recognizing the Arabic name of the angel “Xebril” (Ar. Jibrīl, Jibrāʾīl), and for forgetting their past. “How would they know what questions to ask the angel,” he castigated, “if they did not know about Islam?”81 In his defense, Agustín’s b­ rother claimed that Gabriel had told them that the boy’s grace would not be complete u­ ntil he reached the age of thirty, and so they did not see the need to ask anything, since he did not have full grace yet. Casado charged that “even if that ­were so, the ­people of that land [Castile] w ­ ill not get far b­ ecause they have forsaken their past.”82 It was indeed well known that the Moriscos of La Mancha had forgotten their old religion and Arabic language. The Moriscos of Old Castile, in contrast, still held on to their traditions, so much so that a Morisco had told young Agustín that in Valladolid all the Moriscos of the neighborhood of Santa María w ­ ere Muslims just as before the conversions, and they had l­ittle fear of the Inquisition.83 In fact, many Moriscos from Arévalo, Ávila, and Valladolid used to go to Cuesta de San Cristóbal in Valladolid to a chapel that used to be a holy shrine in Muslim times, where they would go to perform the ṣalāt (prayer). Their visits to the old shrine w ­ ere signs of Muslim piety in the eyes of the community.84 Not only did the Moriscos of the region go to the chapel to pray, they also had created a brotherhood (cofradía) exclusively for Moriscos, one that banned all Old Christians from joining. The Moriscos went to ­great lengths to perform their ritual prayers at the holy site: one night some Moriscos of the brotherhood had to restrain the minder of the chapel in order to go into the shrine to pray.85 In Arévalo, Moriscos of all ages came to Casado’s ­house to see Agustín and to test him on

80. ​Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila, 61. 81. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 75v. 82. ​Ibid. 83. ​Ibid., f. 49v. On July 20, 1501 (in Granada), and February 12, 1502 (in Seville), Ferdinand and Isabella promulgated a royal decree or pragmatic ordering the expulsion of Muslims from the Kingdom of Castile. While the pragmatic did not deal directly with the m ­ atter of conversion of the Muslim populations, the conditions laid out in the decree made it nearly impossible for the Muslims of Castile and Leon to leave the Peninsula, leaving them no option but to convert. For the decree, see Novísima recopilación de las leyes de España, vol. 5, bk. 12 (Madrid, 1805), 311–12; Francisco Fernández González, Estado social y político de los Mudéjares de Castilla, 432–34. 84. ​Ibid., f. 26v. 85. ​Ibid., f. 50r.

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his knowledge of Islam. They would ask him w ­ hether he knew any verses from the Qurʾān, to which the youth confessed his ignorance of the ­things of the Muslim faith.86 It was impor­tant for young Agustín to be properly taught by the most knowledgeable men in the town, and thus they would sit with him to recount stories about the Prophet Muḥammad, all of which Agustín listened to attentively and was able to retell in detail to the inquisitors six or seven years ­after he had first heard them.87

From Christian Visionary to Muslim Saint The testimonies given by Agustín and some of his followers to the inquisitors reveal that the youth’s contact with the p­ eople of Arévalo and Toledo changed the way in which the boy’s f­ amily, the community at large, and Agustín himself made sense of his visionary experiences. Agustín’s transformation from a visionary who alleged to be able to see and speak to angels into a full-­fledged saint (walī) was a socially generated pro­cess. The physical and spiritual manifestations of the boy’s holiness w ­ ere interpreted by the Moriscos with whom he came in contact according to the community’s shared experiences and their faith. More impor­tant, the perception of Agustín’s holiness mirrored the social values and concerns of many of his fellow Moriscos. This pro­cess, in turn, affected how Agustín presented himself to the community, adapting his per­for­mances to the expectations of his audience. Therefore, it can be argued that interaction with the Moriscos of Old Castile resulted in the Islamization of Agustín’s revelations. Transformed into a Muslim saint, Agustín came to embody and fulfill the expectations of many Moriscos who continued to believe in and practice Islam, albeit in secret, a­ fter the forced conversions. If, as Pierre Delooze has stated, “to be a saint is to be a saint for o ­ thers,” at least for a while, Agustín did just that.88 In what ways could Agustín be considered a Muslim saint by his community? Since t­here are no extant Morisco writings on sainthood, we can only attempt to reconstruct how the Castilian Moriscos conceptualized sanctity by paying attention both to the descriptions that Agustín’s followers gave of the boy’s visions in their confessions before the inquisitors and to the ways in which the believers in Agustín’s gift treated him, what they asked, and what they expected from him. Islamic, and particularly North African, concepts of sainthood and holiness w ­ ill help contextualize Agustín’s image as a saint.

86. ​Ibid., f. 7r. 87. ​See, for example, the story about the Prophet Muḥammad and the ambassador to a king. AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 2r. 88. ​Cited by Cornell, Realm of the Saint, xxxi.



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The phenomenon of sainthood in Islam has often been associated with, though not ­limited to, Sufism. ­Because of a lack of sources and ­limited knowledge available about Sufism among the Moriscos, any attempt to make such a connection in the case of Agustín’s sanctity would be speculative.89 Yet ­there are staple features of holiness and sanctity among Sufis that can be identified in Agustín’s encounters with the divine. Like our young visionary, the walī Allāh (pl. awliyāʾ Allāh) or “friend of God” reaches proximity to God through divine grace.90 In this par­tic­ul­ar case, Agustín’s God-­sent gift, which is rendered in the Inquisition sources as gracia (grace), might have been understood by his followers as baraka, the emanation of blessing implanted by God into His prophets and saints.91 Chosen by God, the awliyāʾ possess the gift of clairvoyance (firāsa), which they receive from divine inspiration (ilhām). They can work miracles (karāmāt), which God grants to saints in order to honor them and confirm their piety.92 In fact, the most impor­tant criterion of ­whether a person merits the status of sainthood is the manifestation of miracles, which are the ultimate proof of divine f­avor.93 The awliyāʾ, therefore, serve as intermediaries between ­humans and the divinity. One of the first gestures of re­spect displayed by t­hose who recognized Agustín as a saint was kissing the young boy’s hand. Note that the same gesture was used in the case of the young prophetess of Córdoba. This would occur both in the visionary séances and in more informal encounters with the young seer. Agustín confessed to the inquisitors that p­ eople used to kiss his hand “­because they believed that he was a saint (santo)” and b­ ecause they believed that “­doing so was good for their soul (que hacían cosa buena para sus animas).”94 Among the most valued miracles performed by Agustín ­were 89. ​Scholars like Luce López-­Baralt and María Teresa Narváez have argued that, ­because of a lack of sources, we cannot positively establish that the Moriscos had knowledge of or engaged in mystical practices. The few extant Aljamiado manuscripts on the subject date to the fifteenth ­century. See Luce López-­ Baralt and María Teresa Narváez, “Estudio sobre la espiritualidad popu­lar en la literatura aljamiado-­morisca del siglo XVI,” Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares 36 (1981): 17–51; María Teresa Narváez, “¿Qué sabían los moriscos sobre misticismo y temas esotéricos?,” in El sol a medianoche—­La experiencia mística: tradición y actualidad, eds. Luce López-­Baralt and Lorenzo Piera (Madrid: Trotta, 1996), 163–80. 90. ​B. Radtke, P. Lory, Th., Zarcone, D. DeWeese, M. Gaborieau, F. M. Denny, F. Aubin, J. O. Hunwick, and N. McHugh, “Walī,” EI2, 11:109–25. 91.  ​In an enigmatic passage of his Tafsira, Mancebo de Arévalo briefly discusses the issue of grace, stating that “­there are three assūdeš [from the Arabic sudd, meaning “wall or barrier”] which are walls of invisible darkness. . . . ​­There is another assūd that is called the assūd of grace (assūd de la grarasiyya). This assūd is upward or ascending (subeniyente), which the wise men ascend with the virtue of certain wings of our honored Alqurʾān, and Jibrīl used this assūd to aid the wise and just men in their tribulations.” Mancebo de Arévalo, Tafsira, ff. 12r–12v, in Narváez, Tratado [Tafsira], 184. 92. ​L. Gardet, “Karāma,” EI2, 4:615–16. 93. ​Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 112. 94. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, ff. 3r and 9v.

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t­ hose of a prognosticative kind, revealing his knowledge about f­ uture t­ hings. Both Morisca ­women and men of all ages sought out the young saint in search for answers to all kinds of personal questions. For example, a Morisco smith from Arévalo named Palacios begged Agustín to go to his ­house to see his wife, who was pregnant. The young man predicted that the w ­ oman would have a 95 girl, news that saddened the expecting m ­ other. Securing a partner seems to have also been of great ­ concern to Agustín’s followers, for several women ­ inquired about their husband’s true feelings, while o­ thers, both men and w ­ omen, wanted to find out w ­ hether or not they would marry.96 Other Moriscos solicited the young saint for his gifts of clairvoyance, for it was common 97 knowledge in the community that Agustín “could see invisible things.” ­ Some consulted the saint before undertaking a trip, like a man who went to visit Agustín at Antonio Casado’s ­house to ask him about the outcome of his upcoming trip to Valencia.98 Another Morisco who was g­ oing to Seville on a business venture also wanted to know the outcome of his trip. Both men w ­ ere pleased to find out that the trip would go well.99 One Morisca of Arévalo inquired about her niece’s husband who had gone to the “Indias, in the New World.” She wanted to know ­whether he would return. Agustín replied “that he would indeed come back a very rich man.”100 As intermediary between them and the divine, the Moriscos confided in Agustín a constant concern: their loved ones’ fate before the Inquisition. Several men requested that Agustín ask the angel Gabriel about the outcome of their f­ amily members’ cases (negocios) and who their accusers ­were.101

95. ​Ibid., f. 4r. 96. ​Ibid., ff. 3r and 5r. Moriscas ­were recognized as experts in “love magic” by their coreligionists and Old Christians alike. The topic of love magic is widely treated in Aljamiado manuals of magic. See, for example, the magical treatise edited by Ana Labarta, Libro de dichos maravillosos: Misceláneo morisco de magia y adivinación (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1993). 97. ​Ibid., f. 11r. 98. ​Ibid., f. 3v. 99. ​Ibid., f. 4v. 100.  ​Ibid., f. 33r. The emigration of New Christians of Muslim and Jewish descent to the Ameri­cas ­ was prohibited. Nonetheless, as this example shows, Moriscos (as well as Conversos) made their way to the New World, oftentimes fleeing inquisitorial persecution or slavery and other times, like their Old Christian counter parts, ­ in search of wealth. Studies on the subject include Louis Cardaillac, “Le problème morisque en Amérique,” Mélanges de la Casa Velázquez 12 (1976): 283–303; Jaime Cáceres Enríquez, “La mujer morisca o esclava blanca en el Perú del siglo XVI,” Sharq al-­Andalus 12 (1995): 565–74; Rukhsana Qamber, “Inquisition Proceeding against Muslims in 16th-­Century Latin Amer­i­ca,” Islamic Studies 45, no. 1 (2006): 21–58; Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila, 328–31. For the most recent treatment of the subject, see Karoline P. Cook, Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish Ameri­ca ­ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). 101. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, ff. 18r and 122r.



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Other questions for the young visionary ­were more esoteric in nature, like the Morisca who begged to see Agustín, asking ­whether her dead ­brother was in aljana (al-­janna, paradise), to which the boy responded that her ­brother was not, but rather was in penance (estaba en pena), waiting to go to paradise. The use of the Arabic term aljana suggests that the inquirer assumed that she shared a tradition with the young saint. Agustín’s reply reveals the ambiguity of the nature of his visionary and saintly persona: the dead b­ rother’s condition of pena could certainly be interpreted that his soul was in purgatory, yet ­there is an Islamic concept that, while not the equivalent of purgatory, could also explain the b­ rother’s status. The physical space called barzakh is where souls go to wait u ­ ntil Qiyāma, or Judgment Day, when all sins ­will be tallied.102 As with other Muslim saints, Agustín’s followers believed that he could perform miraculous healings. P ­ eople would visit him to get their gall or kidney stones cured or begged him to see patients with severe stomach aches. ­Others believed they could be healed by having Agustín lay his hands on them.103 For example, one day a Morisca came to Casado’s house ­ with a two-year­ old ­ child in her arms who was sick with a fever. She mentioned that she had ­earlier taken the boy to the h­ ouse of another Morisco so that he would say Muslim prayers over the boy, but they did not work, and she knew Agustín could cure her child by placing his hand on the boy’s head.104 Agustín also displayed his healing powers in more public gatherings. Around the year 1537, while living in Toledo, the boy gathered a group of his followers at the home of his cousin Juan de Sosa. When his audience was ready, Agustín said that the angel Gabriel had come, whereupon Juan begged him to ask Gabriel if t­ here was any cure for his ( Juan’s) sick d­ aughter. The boy answered affirmatively and asked to be brought a pitcher of w ­ ater. Once the pitcher had been brought, Agustín said that the angel had laid his hands on the w ­ ater and had told the seer that it was good for curing any illness, and that Juan’s d­ aughter would be cured by it. All t­hose pre­sent pleaded with Agustín to give them some of the ­water, but he replied that they did not have the angel’s approval, and that the w ­ ater should remain at his cousin’s h­ ouse. When news about the miracle reached the town of Arévalo, Agustín began 105 to receive letters begging him “for a single drop of the healing waters.” ­ This was not the first time Agustín had received letters with healing requests from distant places. He had once gotten a letter from a Morisca from Valladolid

102. ​Ibid., f. 6r. See Bernard Carra de Vaux, “Barzakh,” EI2, 1:1071, col. 2. 103. ​On stones, see Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 7r. On stomachaches, see f. 5r. 104. ​Ibid., ff. 3r–3v. 105. ​Ibid., f. 15r.

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who asked him to send her some medicine or to visit her ­because she was sick with an obstruction. She had been given some rustic magical r­ ecipe (conjuro rustico) but complained that the medicine had “fried” her liver.106 Agustín’s followers also believed that he could cure illnesses of the soul. The f­ amily of a man in Arévalo came to see him, begging him to cure their relative who was possessed (que tenía espíritus), but on that occasion Casado did not allow him to go.107 Casado’s refusal to let Agustín perform his miracle suggests that he exerted some control over the ­career of the young saint. Tensions over who would mediate the boy’s visionary path are present ­ in Agustín’s and his ­brother Luis’s confessions to the Inquisition. His ­brother put questions to the boy’s visions while he was in Ajofrín. Juan de Sosa, for his part, hosted most of the visionary séances while in Toledo and was entrusted with the physical proofs of the boy’s sanctity (miraculous ­water and heavenly stone). Fi­nally, Antonio Casado presented the young saint to the community in Arévalo and determined who could receive the boy’s blessings. One last proof of Agustín’s claims of divine predilection was his ability to communicate with birds and other creatures. His cousin Juan had discovered this quality in Agustín one day as they ­were walking to an apiary. That after­noon as they w ­ ere strolling, Juan heard some birds singing, and Agustín told him that he could understand the language of birds that ­were saying, “Look at how the angels are ­going about among the creatures and among men.”108 Mastery of the language of birds, a mystical and primordial language, was reserved for few. Through God’s grace, Solomon had been granted the ability to understand the language of birds.109 Knowledge of the language of birds came to be associated with certain Sufi mystics in the M ­ iddle Ages. But the ability to understand this Adamic language was mostly invoked by prophets.110 Given Agustín’s claims to divine access, his angelic and revelatory visions, and his ability to perform miracles, it is likely that Agustín was considered a saint (in the Islamic sense of the term) by his followers. But his access to the primordial language of birds raises the question of w ­ hether Agustín was presenting himself as a saint or a prophet. 106. ​Ibid., f. 7v. 107. ​Ibid., f. 5r. 108. ​Ibid., f. 136r. 109. ​See the Qurʾān, Sūra 27 (The Ants):16: “Solomon was David’s heir. He said, ‘O mankind, we have been taught the speech of birds, and we have been given [some] of every­thing. This is clear preference.’ ” 110. ​For instance, Maribel Fierro discusses the case of the head of the Masarri group of Pechina (Almería), Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-­Ruʿaynī, who held that prophecy could be acquired despite Muḥammad’s seal of prophethood, and claimed that he knew the language of birds and could predict f­uture events. Maribel Fierro, “The Polemic about the ‘karāmāt al-­awliyā’ and the Development of Ṣūfism in al-­Andalus (Fourth/Tenth–­Fifth/Eleventh Centuries),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 55, no. 2 (1992): 246.



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Saint or Prophet? The inquisitors of Toledo did not seem to understand Agustín’s claims ­either. A ­ fter all, the youth had been denounced for claiming to be a “prophet,” not for being a “saint.” The difference between the two is what the inquisitors seemed to be attempting to clarify when they interrogated the youth on October 24, 1541. The exchange between Agustín and the inquisitors sheds light on the expectations of holiness among Agustín’s followers, and thus it is worth a detailed description. Concerned and intrigued by the many followers the boy had attracted, the inquisitors of Toledo interrogated Agustín about why ­people solicited him with questions about their f­uture and begged him to place his hands upon them. Agustín replied that ­these ­people believed that he knew ­things to come, and that if he laid his hands upon them, they could be cured. Not satisfied with the young man’s answer, the inquisitors pressed further, asking how he knew that his followers believed that, and what their cause was for believing this, especially since he was still very young (de muy poca edad). Agustín responded that ­people believed t­hese t­hings b­ ecause they had heard about the miracles that he performed. He also mentioned that his followers “believed it out of love, encouragement and goodwill,” and this he knew b­ ecause they had communicated it to him.111 The interrogators asked Agustín once again why ­people came to ask him ­things, and Agustín confessed that ­people believed that the angel Gabriel revealed ­things to him, and they regarded him as a saint (santo) who knew the ­things to come. He also asserted that p­ eople believed he was Allāh’s envoy (enviado de Alá).112 The inquisitors probed still further into why ­people believed that. ­Because of the ­things he said, the youth responded. Then the inquisitors ordered him to declare for which ­things he was God’s envoy, to which Agustín said that they believed that he had been sent by God to reveal ­things to come. Impatient with Agustín’s laconic answers, the interrogators inquired w ­ hether the Moriscos believed he was a prophet “­because t­ hose who say t­ hings about the f­ uture are called prophets.”113 He replied that he did not know if they thought of him as such. To conclude, the inquisitors asked what they seemed to have been a­ fter all along: w ­ hether or not ­people thought he was Muḥammad. Agustín categorically denied it.114 Agustín’s responses to the inquisitors reveal several fundamental ambiguities about his holy persona. At the heart of the inquisitors’ questions was the

111. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 5v. 112. ​Ibid., f. 3v. 113. ​Ibid. 114. ​Ibid.

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boy’s professed prophethood, and the implications that this could have for the religious beliefs of his followers. Yet throughout the interrogation, the boy revealed that in fact his followers held him as a saint and as God’s envoy. For the inquisitors, trying to make sense of this statement must have been as difficult as it is for modern readers. Agustín’s first denouncer had accused him of being considered a prophet (profeta) by his community. Following up on this lead, and pressing Agustín to confess, the inquisitors expressed a popu­lar early modern idea of what constituted a prophet: the fact that the young man revealed messages about the f­uture. Yet in the Islamic context of Agustín’s followers, receiving divine revelation alone did not determine prophethood, and neither did manifested spiritual virtues, such as miracle-­working. The limits of prophethood and sainthood have been at the center of theological debates in the Islamic world since the M ­ iddle Ages. Could saints perform miracles and receive revelations, or w ­ ere t­hese attributes reserved exclusively for prophets? If saints could perform miracles, how could they be distinguished from prophets? On one side of the controversy w ­ ere t­hose who denied the real­ity of karāmāt (miracles by saints) while on the other ­were ­those who believed in the authenticity of karāmāt yet affirmed that miracles were ­ granted to saints by God to honor them and confirm their piety. The latter believed that miracles of prophets (muʿjizāt) w ­ ere proofs of their mission and served as challenges to unbelievers. Muʿjizāt depended not on the moral perfection of the prophet but rather on the w ­ ill of God. Moreover, saints had to endeavor to conceal their miracles, whereas the miracles of prophets must be as widely known as pos­si­ble.115 The issue of who was a worthy receiver of divine revelation was equally contentious. According to the famous theologian and mystic al-­Ghazālī (d. AH 505/1111 CE), it was a question of inspiration. One of the differences between the inspiration (ilhām) brought by an angel to a mystic or saint and the revelation given to a prophet (waḥy) is the prophet’s ability to actually see the angel.116 This virtue characterized young Agustín’s visionary experience. In his trances Agustín could clearly see the angel Gabriel, whom he described as a very tall man with white feathers, and he had also seen and communicated with the angel Michael.117 Following this interpretation then, Agustín was to be considered a prophet. Was ­there a conflict between how Agustín was presenting himself and the way his crypto-­Muslim followers interpreted his holy persona? What are we to make of his claims to sanctity? On the basis of Agustín’s confessions, and

115. ​Fierro, “Polemic,” 240. In the case of Agustín the angel had first announced that his mission must be kept secret. It was only with God’s permission that his gifts could be revealed. 116. ​Daniel A. Madigan, “Revelation and Inspiration,” EQ, 4:437–48. 117. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 62v.



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­those of his followers, it seems that as the boy progressively cultivated his God-­ given visionary talents, his mission gained communal significance. What had begun as a domestic visionary experience developed into a local cult in which Agustín was venerated as a Muslim saint. The culmination of Agustín’s spiritual authority was prophesied by Gabriel: at the age of thirty God would make Agustín a prophet, and He would choose thirty additional prophets from among the group who would preach the word of Islam throughout the earth. The announcement of Agustín’s impending prophethood (and the promise of thirty additional prophets) must have posed serious contradictions and concerns for a Morisco community that was trying to preserve its old religion. Pressed by the inquisitors, Agustín had denied his interrogators’ innuendo that he might be claiming to be Muḥammad, yet he affirmed that Gabriel had announced that he would become a prophet. In what ways could Agustín be God’s apostle when Islamic dogma states that Muḥammad is Khātam al-­Nabiyyīn, the Seal of the Prophets, the last of God’s apostles?118 This would not be the first time that a Muslim proclaimed himself to be a prophet. But what kind of prophetic mission could God have reserved for Agustín? Which category of prophethood was Agustín destined to be: a nabī, a messenger, or a rasūl, a prophet who brings a law? Agustín did not claim to be the Prophet Muḥammad. He did, however, insist that p­ eople saw him as God’s envoy, as an intercessor between God and his community whose mission was to transmit God’s messages to the Moriscos. Could “envoy of God” (enviado de Alá) then be read as “God’s messenger,” therefore making Agustín a rasūl? Or was he rather continuing the prophecy inaugurated by Muḥammad, which would make him a nabī?­Were the Moriscos of Castile aware of such distinctions? Agustín’s message was God’s promise to humanity that at the End Times Islam would be restored in all corners of the earth, yet, as w ­ ill become clear, the Islam that Agustín was sent to restore was a dif­fer­ent version of God’s perfect religion.

A Community of Prophets: Popu­lar Religiosity or Po­liti­cal Movement? Muḥammad Announces Agustín’s Birth Agustín’s arrival had been foretold by none other than the Prophet Muḥammad, according to his cousin Juan de Sosa. On one occasion a Morisca questioned

118. ​See Yohanan Friedmann, “Finality of Prophethood in Sunni Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 7 (1986): 199–215.

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Juan, wanting to know on what grounds ­people based their belief in Agustín’s prophethood. As justification Juan recalled that he had heard about a prophetic ḥadīth that circulated in Muslim lands that stated that one day Muḥammad was sitting with his companions when he began to weep. Dismayed, his companions asked the reason for his sorrow, to which the Prophet responded that “­there would come a time when ­those of his generation would take the lands of the Christians, but then the Christians would take the land from the Muslims u ­ ntil only Granada was left. Granada would fi­nally be conquered by the Christians and those ­ of the generation of Muḥammad would be forced to convert to Chris­tian­ity. They would be persecuted and harassed to the point of being burned at the stake. God would have mercy on them by sending a child who would be born ‘in a flowery island’ (isla florida) whose father ­ would be deaf and mother ­ blue-­eyed, and the boy’s brother ­ would be born circumcised.”119 Recognizing the signs of such apocalyptic prognostications became an impor t­ant task for the community. Juan insisted that all t­hose signs ­were fulfilled by Agustín: his ­father was deaf, his ­mother was blue-­eyed, and indeed his ­brother Luis had been born circumcised. This prophecy brings to mind other apocalyptic ḥadīths that circulated in the Iberian Peninsula among the Moriscos u­ ntil the moment of their expulsion.120 T ­ hese oracles examine the state of the Morisco community in the pre­sent, and often foretell the coming of a messianic figure, the Mahdī, a savior who w ­ ill restore order and justice, thus inaugurating the End Times. Was Juan suggesting, then, that Agustín was the expected Mahdī ? The Prophet Muḥammad’s announcement that “God would have mercy on them,” a message so frequently stated in other Morisco prophecies, suggests that this God-­sent boy would come to restore Islam in the Peninsula, but this does not necessarily imply that the boy would be the one to fight the apocalyptic ­battle. That role would be reserved for another member of Agustín’s­family.

Prophethood and the Triumph of Islam Agustín’s ­f uture as a prophet was also announced by the angel Gabriel, whose revelations about his prophetic mission became more detailed and elab­ orate a­ fter the f­amily moved from the village of Ajofrín. Soon a­ fter arriving in Toledo in 1535, the boy announced that he was about to deliver a message and that many p­ eople would listen to him.121 Surprised and curious, Juan de 119. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, ff. 136r–136v. 120. ​See, for example, the prophecy contained in BnF Ms. 774, f. 429v. 121. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 133r.



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Sosa asked his young cousin what message would be revealed, to which the young seer responded that he would preach what­ever God and His angel commanded. Just as he had announced, Agustín then began to relay the revelations that Gabriel was transmitting through him to his community. First the boy predicted that that t­ here would come a time “when all the laws w ­ ill become one, and on that day, all statues and images w ­ ill fall to the ground by God’s ­will, all paintings and altarpieces ­will be destroyed, and only the law of the Moors [Muslims] w ­ ill be proclaimed.”122 He reminded his audience that at the age of thirty he would preach at the cathedral of Toledo (la iglesia mayor) and that, upon reaching the pulpit, “he would pronounce the words lā ilāha illā Allāh Muḥammad rasūl Allāh (­there is no god but God and Muḥammad is the Prophet of God).”123 This was the same cathedral in which Cardinal Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros had ordered the construction of the Mozarabic chapel, where the Mozarabic or Visigothic rite would be officiated, and where he commissioned frescoes to be painted on its walls representing the campaign in Oran (1509), the messianic conquest headed by the cardinal himself, whose ultimate aim was the conquest of Jerusalem. Cisneros inaugurated two commemorative feasts in the cathedral, which ­were to be observed annually in the Mozarabic chapel: one celebrated the conquest of Oran and the other the conversion of the Muslims of Granada. Cisneros seems to have been making an impor­tant statement: Toledo, the Visigothic capital between the sixth and the eighth centuries and primal episcopal see of Spain, which had been the site of so many prophecies that presaged the “loss of Hispania,” would be the place where pre-Muslim­ conquest ­ Iberian Christian ­ ity ­ would be recovered.124 Agustín’s identification of Toledo as the capital of universal renewal thus may not have been exclusively directed to the crypto-­Muslim community, but rather one that would easily be recognized by all. In Agustín’s eschatological schema t­ hose Christian symbols of providential predilection (like the frescoes of the conquest of Oran) would be destroyed, and Islam would be revived in the Peninsula. Agustín’s apocalyptic mission, then, came to eclipse the cardinal’s messianic claims of a Christian victory over Islam. After ­ revealing his eschatological message, Agustín warned his listeners that t­ hose who did not believe in his words would fall dead, but whoever believed would be saved. Then, as if inspired to deliver a new legislation to his

122. ​Ibid. 123. ​Ibid., f. 78r. 124. ​The archbishopric of Toledo had primacy over the rest of the episcopal sees of Spain (Primacía de España), and its archbishop was considered primate of Spain (Primado de España) and was elevated by the pope to the rank of cardinal.

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community, Agustín asserted that they should all trust in Muḥammad and in God, and that they should not marry more than one woman ­ “because ­ the 125 earth w ­ ill turn into confusion and lechery.” From that day forward, the young prophet announced, God would repair the earth and would give His grace to thirty other men who would become prophets.126 When the prophets ­were revealed, God would take them, along with their wives, to a secluded desert where they would be sustained by God’s grace.127 According to the boy, Gabriel said that the thirty prophets would be wearing tiaras on their heads, and he explained that whenever the Lord chose a prophet, a star was born in the sky. Now that the Lord had chosen the thirty prophets and the angel had put his hand over their heads, Agustín told his listeners, they each had a special light over their heads, and thirty new stars would appear lined up in the sky.128 ­After ­these announcements, Agustín began to name t­ hose among the members of the group who would become prophets. The motif of the thirty prophets is unpre­ce­dented in Morisco lit­er­at­ure. How then should we interpret it? Was it a figment of Agustín’s active imagination? While the source of Agustín’s ideas is unknown, it is curious to see that the same theme appears in another apocalyptic work from Istanbul. The image of thirty perfected beings that would precede the Mahdī can also be found in a text by the Ottoman Sufi writer Mevlānā ʿĪsā (b. 1474/75). Although it is not pos­si­ble to reconstruct the direct transmission of works like Mevlānā ʿĪsā’s in the Iberian Peninsula, as ­will be made clear in the following chapters, news and information by and about the Ottomans circulated widely and swiftly across the Mediterranean. Thus, it is not farfetched to conceive that a text like this, whose main objective was to cast the Ottoman sultan in a messianic light, would be known to Moriscos. ­Because Agustín’s description of the final stage of his spiritual c­ areer mirrors Mevlānā ʿĪsā’s account so closely, it is worth discussing further. In his Cāmiʿü’l-­meknūnāt (Compendium of Hidden T ­ hings), Mevlānā ʿĪsā presented an account of the End Times where the Ottomans, in par­tic­u­lar Süleymān the Lawgiver (r. 1520–66), played a central role in the unfolding of the apocalypse. In the work, historical events are presented alongside mystical themes. For example, ­after presenting a history of creation, Mevlānā ʿĪsā elaborates on the nature and story of the Prophet Muḥammad. Like Agustín who told of prophets endowed with prophetic light, Mevlānā ʿĪsā described the nūr-­i Aḥmed (nūr Muḥammadiyya, light of Muḥammad) of

125. ​Ibid. 126. ​Ibid. 127. ​Ibid., f. 121r. 128. ​Ibid.



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the prophets. This description is followed by a detailed nativity horoscope of the Prophet Muḥammad, and a discussion of the beings that would precede the Mahdī or Messiah. Like Agustín’s thirty prophets, Mevlānā ʿĪsā gave an account of thirty perfected beings (aḳṭāb, poles who head the saintly hierarchy), in this case thirty saints, whom he referred to by name.129 The value thirty was especially significant to Mevlānā ʿĪsā, for he stressed that “the word of the Qurʾān amounts to thirty,” and “it was revealed according to this order.”130 Once again, like in Agustín’s prophetic hierarchy, according to Mevlānā ʿĪsā t­ hese thirty perfected beings would precede the Mahdī, “the sovereign of all the polities (mülk).” Mevlānā ʿĪsā described the Mahdī as a “­g reat man of his time,” whose wisdom would come from his sainthood (vilāyet). Moreover, many miracles would manifest themselves in him, and “whoever does not obey him will ­ be an infidel.” Mevlānā ʿĪsā was referring specifically to Süleymān, the sultan of the time, as the Mahdi whose command would “reach from East to West.”131 But in Agustín’s divine scenario, who would be the expected Mahdī to come ­after the thirty prophets?

A ­Family of Prophets and the Promise of a Messianic Savior God’s grace was being spread generously among the Moriscos of Castile, but the greatest benefits would be reserved for Agustín’s f­ amily. Through the angel Gabriel, Agustín announced that his f­ ather would live long enough to become one of the thirty prophets, and that God had promised many trea­sures that would be revealed to the Moriscos when his ­brother Luis—­whose prophethood had also been announced—­turned thirty-­six.132 The angel had revealed to Agustín that Luis’s wife, Francisca Serrana, would give birth to a son who would be born uttering the words lā ilāha illā Allāh, upon which a g­ reat light would appear in their ­house. ­After the birth of his child, Luis would have the same grace as Agustín: he would be able to see the same almalaques (angels) 129. ​It is likely that what is rendered in the Inquisition sources as thirty “prophets” was in fact thirty saints. 130. ​Mevlānā ʿĪsā, Cāmiʿü’l-­meknūnāt. Istanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, Ms. T. 3263, f. 32b. The number thirty ­here refers to the thirty sections (juzʾ) of the Qurʾān. I would like to thank Evrim Binbaş for making this manuscript available to me, and for his crucial help in reading it. For a discussion of the text see Barbara Flemming, “Public Opinion u­ nder Sultan Süleymān,” in Süleymān the Second [i.e. the First] and His Time, eds. Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993), 49–57. See also Barbara Flemming, “The Cāmiʿül-­meknūnāt: A Source of ʿĀlī from the Time of Sultan Süleymān,” trans. by John O’Kane, in Essays on Turkish Lit­er­a­ture and History (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 169–82. 131. ​Mevlānā ʿĪsā, Cāmiʿü’l-­meknūnāt, f. 52a. 132. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 50v.

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that had appeared to his younger b­ rother.133 Gabriel had also declared that another son would be born to an Old Christian f­amily si­mul­ta­neously. The two ­children would fight among themselves, each praising his own law: while the son of the Old Christian would fight praising the law of Jesus, Luis’s son would fight proclaiming the words lā ilāha illā Allāh wa Muḥammad rasūl Allāh. In this apocalyptic b­ attle, the one fighting for the law of Muḥammad would emerge victorious, and all Christians would believe in the words lā ilāha illā Allāh. With t­hese births, the angel concluded, all the laws would become one.134 Luis’s unborn child would thus become the awaited messianic figure of Islamic eschatology: the Mahdī, the restorer of religion and justice who w ­ ill 135 rule before the End Times.

Prophetic Light: Nūr al-­Muḥammadiyya The repre­sen­ta­tion of prophethood through the image of light is commonly associated with Muḥammad’s mission, and it is a motif in several legendary narratives associated with the biography of the Prophet, particularly t­ hose about his birth.136 The theme of Muḥammad’s primordial light, Nūr Muḥammad, came down to the Moriscos in several Aljamiado versions of the story of the birth of the Prophet. Particularly popu­lar was the Egyptian scholar Abū al-­Ḥasan al-­Bakrī’s Kitāb al-­anwār (Book of Lights). This work appears to have been well known to Moriscos, and its title is rendered in the Aljamiado 133. ​Ibid., f. 134r. 134. ​Ibid., f. 80v. 135. ​­There have been numerous figures throughout Islamic history who have claimed to be the Mahdī. In the sixteenth century ­ there ­ were ­ competing claimants, from Shah Ismāʿīl, who soon a­ fter assuming power in 1501 emerged as a figure with an eschatological aura surrounding him, to Sultan Süleymān, who, as Cornell Fleischer has demonstrated, was seen as the mujaddid (renewer of religion) of his era, and the one who would establish a universal empire u ­ nder a universal religion before the End Times. See Cornell Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân,” in Soliman le magnifique et son temps, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1992), 159–77; Cornell Fleischer, “Shadows of Shadows: Prophecy and Politics in 1530s Istanbul,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (2007): 51–62; Fleischer, “Mediterranean Apocalypse.” Also, Mercedes García-A ­ renal deals with how Mahdī claims feature in nearly every ­ facet of Western Islamic politi ­ cal ­ and religious life, particularly in the early modern period, in Messianism and Puritanical Reform. See also A. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 136. ​For an excellent treatment of this subject, see Uri Rubin, “Pre-­Existence and Light: Aspects of the Concept of Nūr Muḥammad,” Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975): 62–119. Light also became an impor­tant motif among the Spanish alumbrados, who believed a new light would illuminate the Catholic Church. ­There ­were many prophecies during the first de­cades of the sixteenth ­century that made reference to this new light. For more on the concept of light among the alumbrados, see Pastore, Una herejía española.



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version as Libro de las luces.137 The work develops a doctrine of illumination in which the advent of Muḥammad was announced at the beginning of creation, manifested through a light that appeared on Adam’s forehead, which was passed on to his descendants down to Muḥammad.138 This same schema was adapted in a Morisco version of the prophetic light story written in verse by the Aragonese Muḥammad Rabadán, titled Discurso de la luz (Discourse of Light).139 One of the most in­ter­est­ing features of the use of light within the context of prophethood is that light serves as a symbol of the prospective expansion of the Islamic faith.140 The thirty new prophets would receive this prophetic nūr, and they would preach the word of Islam throughout the earth in preparation, we can assume, for the imminent End Times.

“Lost in the Law of the Christians” In a more immediate sense, the announcement of the promise of thirty new prophets was a way to gain more followers. Even the most unconvinced person could be brought back to the Muslim fold, Agustín’s ­father announced to a Morisca, Francisca Contreras, as he revealed that both her son and ­daughter had been chosen by God to be two of the promised prophets. Francisca had asked how that was pos­si­ble, since both of her c­ hildren w ­ ere “lost in the law of the Christians,” to which Agustín the elder replied, “Even the most abandoned soul could become the greatest of saints.”141 Furthermore, having a prophet in one’s f­amily was also a way of attracting other f­amily members and friends to the privileged circle. That is precisely what had happened with Agustín’s cousin Francisco Ruiz, whom Agustín’s ­father had described as “the most lost soul in all his lineage,” but who, upon hearing Agustín preaching and a­ fter being admonished by the youth not to believe in any other law except for “that of the Moors,” “did not move a foot” without first asking Agustín.142 With thirty new prophets based in Toledo, the eschatological center where the restoration of humanity would take place, Castilian Islam could be defended against the increasing threat of its extinction. This is a message that 137. ​According to Anwar Chejne, this is one of the very few works of which we have more than one manuscript; it is preserved in Biblioteca National de España (BNE) 4955; BRAH T18; and Real Biblioteca del Palacio Real (BPR) 9 and 3225. For a summary of the text, see Anwar G. Chejne, Islam and the West: The Moriscos (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 98–101. 138. ​Chejne, 98. 139.  ​This poem was translated into English ­ by H.  E.  J. Stanley, “The Poetry of Mohamed Rabadan,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4, no. 1 (1870): 138–77. 140. ​Rubin, “Pre-­Existence,” 64. 141. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 81v. 142. ​Ibid.

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many Morisco “believers” would welcome with relief: the “lost souls” of their neighbors, friends, and relatives would be saved at the End Times.

A New Tanzīl? The Return of the Stolen Castilian Qurʾān Was Agustín’s mission to bring a new law, a new religion? The confessions of the young prophet and his followers reveal a tension between the imperative of preserving their old religion, Islam, and their condition as Castilian New Christians. The Moriscos ­were well aware that the religion and culture of their forefathers was eroding. Agustín’s divine messages confirmed it, and they ­were intended to bring the newly converted Christians back to Islam; but for that, they needed guidance. Agustín had admitted to the inquisitors that during their gatherings some p­ eople prayed in Arabic while o­ thers did so in Castilian.143 One can sense the tension between traditional Islam, which had to be preserved in its original Arabic, and the alleged degeneration of the tradition, as reflected by t­hose praying in Castilian. That latent conflict surfaced on one occasion in 1535, when Agustín’s cousin Juan de Sosa raised the thorny issue: “Ask the Angel,” he said to Agustín, “what language is more con­ve­nient for our prayers, Arabic or Castilian.”144 We could expect that Agustín, who was considered by his followers as the keeper of tradition, would have defended Arabic and attacked the Castilian corruption of Islam, in the same way many traditionalist Moriscos did. However, according to the “holy boy,” the angel Gabriel had told him to pray not in Arabic but rather in Castilian, arguing that they could not have devotion in what they recited by praying in Arabic. Since they did not understand that language, Gabriel announced, “their thoughts would drift onto other ­things.”145 Agustín had thus been sent to the ­people of Castile to instruct them on how to perform their religious duties. A ­ fter all, had not God proclaimed, “We never sent any messenger except with the tongue of his ­people, for him to make [the message] clear to them.”146 Agustín had been entrusted by God to teach Islam to his p­ eople, albeit a par­tic­u­lar brand of Castilian Islam. Through him God also promised his greatest miracle for the Morisco community: Gabriel was to bring them a book of the Qurʾān in Castilian (un libro del alcoran romanzado). This par­tic­u­lar copy of the Qurʾān was hidden in a chest in the city of Toledo by a Christian knight

143. ​Ibid., f. 56r. 144. ​Ibid. 145. ​Ibid. 146. ​Qurʾān, Sūra 14 (Abraham):4.



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who had allegedly stolen it from a Moor in Navarre. The angel would remove the book from the chest without being noticed and would deliver it to Agustín when God willed it, so that he could pre­sent it to his community. Upon hearing about this g­ reat miracle, Agustín’s followers waited impatiently for the arrival of the Castilian Qurʾān, but Agustín instructed them that in the meantime they should read certain writings that contained t­ hings about the law of the Muslims that are unknown, and to ponder on the miracles performed by Agustín.147 He was referring to “the very long prayer (una oración muy grande)” that Gabriel had instructed them to write down, which Agustín had recited while Juan de Sosa put it in writing.148 The image of the sealed ark containing a divine message is common in the Arabo-­ Islamic tradition of eschatological legends.149 In the Qiṣaṣ al-­anbiyāʾ (Stories of Prophets) of al-­Kisāʾī, God instructs Adam to open a secret coffer containing a white cloth on which all the names of the pha­raohs and prophets w ­ ere written down, ending with the Revelation, which was Muḥammad.150 In other legends the sealed coffer contains a prophecy, normally about the arrival of the Muslims, as is the case in the famous legend of the conquest of Iberia by the Muslims. According to this legend, the Visigothic king Don Rodrigo found a coffer in Toledo that contained a parchment that prophesied the arrival of the Muslims and the king’s imminent defeat.151 For the Moriscos of Castile the content of the ark was God’s promised revelation in the Castilian language. The sacred book had been stolen from the Muslims, but God had promised to return it to the community, just as Islam had been stolen from the Castilian Muslims but God had promised to restore it through the intervention of Gabriel and his messenger Agustín. This restoration would be Agustín’s final miracle. Could the promise of the Castilian Qurʾān be construed as the delivery of a new tanzīl (revelation) for the Castilian Moriscos? Although Agustín and his followers presented the arrival of the Castilian Qurʾān with a miraculous aura, vernacular Qurʾāns w ­ ere not a new phenomenon for the Morisco community. Renditions of the Qurʾān in Castilian had been circulating in the Iberian Peninsula at least since 1456, with the first known trilingual translation (in

147. ​Juan de Piña, AHN Inq. Leg. 196/21. 148.  ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 20r. Unfortunately the prayer is not recorded in the Inquisition sources. 149. ​Mercedes García-­Arenal, “De la autoría morisca a la antigüedad sagrada de Granada, rescatada al Islam,” in Los plomos del sacromonte: Invención y tesoro, eds. Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Mercedes García-­Arenal (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2006), 563. 150. ​Ibid. 151. ​Ibid.

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Arabic, Castilian, and Latin) made by the respected faqīh of Toledo, ʿĪsā ibn Jābir, at the commission the priest Juan de Segovia.152 T ­ hese translations of the Qurʾān, however, w ­ ere a source of conflict within the Morisco community. A ­ fter all, even though translations of the Qurʾān had circulated in the Islamic world in vernacular languages since the M ­ iddle Ages, the wording of the Qurʾān was a miracle (muʿjiza), and therefore incapable of imitation by man.153 The Moriscos continued to strugg­ le with this dilemma up u­ ntil a few years before their final expulsion; this is evident from the numerous renditions of the holy text that have survived. For example, in the introduction to one of such works, a Morisco copyist lamented having to translate the sacred book and begged “that on account of being in ­those letters it not be belittled, but rather respected; ­because, being set down in this way, it can better be seen by t­ hose Muslims who know how to read Christian, but not Muslim, letters. For it is true that the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) said that the best language was the one that could be understood.”154 The Castilian Moriscos’ desire to have a vernacular version of the Qurʾān that would give them access to the religion of their forefathers was the result of the gradual pro­cess of assimilation that had occurred as a result of centuries of living u ­ nder Christian rule. This desire can also be understood within the religious and spiritual transformation occurring in Eu­rope at the time. The translation of sacred texts was not unknown in Agustín’s Spain. According to Marcel Bataillon, vernacular Bibles had circulated in the Peninsula since the ­Middle Ages. Agustín was living precisely at the moment when, through Erasmian inspiration, Spain had witnessed a current that favored the translation of the Bible. Yet ­after the expulsion of the Jewish community, Bataillon explains, t­ hose Bibles w ­ ere banned, due to fears that some Conversos would use them to teach their c­ hildren the law of Moses.155 While in Eu­rope this was the moment 152. ​Consuelo López-­Morillas, The Qurʾān in Sixteenth-­Century Spain (London: Tamesis Books, 1982), 13. The first translation of the Qurʾān into Latin was commissioned by the abbot Peter the Venerable a­ fter visiting Iberian soil in 1141. In the thirteenth c­ entury t­ here was a second translation into Latin by Mark of Toledo, followed by o­ thers in the f­ourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See also Chejne, Islam and the West, 52. 153.  ​A.  T. Welch, R. Paret, and J.  D. Pearson, “al-Ḳurʾān,” ­ EI2, 5:400–432. For a study of the Qurʾān in Persian vernacular, see Travis Zadeh, The Vernacular Qurʾan: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 154. ​López-­Morillas, Qurʾān in Sixteenth-­Century Spain, 13. See also Muhamad ben Ibrahim, Alcorán en letra de cristianos, Mss. T235, Biblioteca Castilla La Mancha. Edited version: Alcorán: Traducción castellana de un morisco anónimo del año 1606, transcription by Ll. Roqué Figuls, introduction by J. Vernet (Barcelona, Reial Academia de Bones Lletres-­UNED, 2001). 155. ​Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y España, 2nd. ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1966), 555. The Catholic Monarchs had passed a pragmatic that prohibited ­under severe penalties any translation of the Scriptures or the possession of such text. See ibid., 550.



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when vernacular Bibles flourished, in Spain t­here was a general prohibition of all vernacular translations of the Scriptures.156 It is clear that the angel Gabriel had appeared to Agustín to proclaim that God sanctioned the translation of the holy text, thus effectively solving the prob­lem of the Castilian Moriscos’ lack of knowledge of the sacred language. In fact, Gabriel encouraged t­hese Moriscos to pray in the language they felt most comfortable in and sent prayers for the community in a language with which they could communicate with God.

Agustín’s Po­liti­cal Prognostications Agustín’s eschatological po­liti­cal messages began around the year 1537. One eve­ning, as the group was gathered at Juan de Sosa’s ­house, Agustín announced that Gabriel was bringing a message: “In the year 1540 t­ here would be many frightening signs in the sky.”157 In that same year, the boy warned, t­ here would be many wars between Moors (Muslims) and Christians, and a g­ reat deluge. The angel also cautioned that in the following year of 1541 “many ­cattle would die, as well as a ­great number of pigs, ­until ­there ­were hardly any left.”158 Upon hearing this, Juan asked where the wars and floods would take place. The war would be in Hungary, Gabriel said, and the flood in Castile. Agustín’s ­uncle, who was pre­sent at the time, asked if the emperor, Charles V, would be pre­sent at the war in Hungary, to which Agustín replied that he would not.159 Gabriel’s po­liti­cal messages continued right up to the time Agustín was arrested. On the eve­ning of June 22, 1539, Agustín announced that the angel would appear to him, and that every­one should come to listen to the divine message. The usual audience—­which consisted of Agustín’s b­ rother Luis, Agustín the elder, along with his cousin Juan and his u­ ncle Diego Ruiz—­ gathered at Ruiz’s house. ­ This time they were ­ accompanied by two other Moriscos, Juan de Loayza and Antonio Velez, both from Talavera de la Reina. The message that Gabriel brought was of ­great interest to the Castilian Moriscos: the Ottomans ­were in Negroponte (Euboea) rounding up a ­g reat armada to come against the Christians.160 T ­ hose who w ­ ere pre­sent rejoiced about this message and prayed to God for an Ottoman victory. Agustín also relayed the message that “the Turk” would win in Venice, and that “he would take over 156. ​See Jesús Enciso Viana, “Prohibiciones españolas de las versiones bíblicas en romance antes del Tridentino,” Estudios Bíblicos 3 (1944): 523–60. 157. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, ff. 14r and 115r. 158. ​Ibid., f. 115r. 159. ​Ibid., f. 14r. 160. ​Ibid., f. 13r.

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that city and name himself her emperor.”161 Agustín’s ­uncle speculated that if that city w ­ ere conquered, “then all Italy would be lost,” that is, the w ­ hole of 162 the Italian Peninsula would be conquered by the Ottomans. This was not the first time that an Ottoman victory had come up in conversation with Agustín. His ­brother Luis recounted to the Inquisition that the first time Agustín went to Arévalo, sometime between 1535 or 1536; they had held a séance at Antonio Casado’s h­ ouse, where Agustín was answering personal questions to t­ hose who approached him. One of the Moriscos pre­sent asked publicly if the Ottomans ­were ­going to take over the Iberian Peninsula, and, if they w ­ ere, when it would take place.163 Around the same time another Morisco of Arévalo wanted to know w ­ hether the news circulating was true about the war between the Ottomans and the Safavids (el Sofi). Agustín refused to answer e­ ither question.164 T ­ hese w ­ ere times of conflict in Eu­rope and the Mediterranean, and the Moriscos w ­ ere well aware of it. In 1526 the Ottoman army, led by Sultan Süleymān and his g­ rand vizier Ibrāhīm Pasha, had invaded Hungary, emerging victorious in the B­ attle of Mohács and capturing Buda. Yet in 1532, the situation in Hungary remained unclear. On the Ottomans’ eastern front, they launched the famous Campaign of the Two Iraqs against the Safavids, taking Tabriz and Baghdad in 1534–35. Ottoman advances on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean also continued, and by 1537, when Agustín was already receiving his prophetic messages, Süleymān brought his army to Valona, in Albania, and besieged Venetian ports in the area.165 U ­ nder the command of the admiral Barbarossa, who had entered the Ottoman ser­vice in 1533, a crusader fleet led by Andrea Doria was defeated at Préveza in 1538. The Moriscos kept abreast of both Ottoman and Habsburg advances in Eu­rope and the Mediterranean, and like many contemporaries they read current events in a providential and apocalyptic light. Would the Ottomans emerge victorious? If so, then the prognostications that they had heard and commented on for some time would fi­nally be confirmed, and the Ottomans would come to rescue their suffering brethren. The divine messages that Agustín brought to his community ­were intended to bring solace to an anxious community. A central message in his prophecies, as in other prognostications in textual form, was that the Ottomans would de161. ​Ibid. 162. ​Ibid., f. 115r. 163. ​Ibid., f. 76r. 164. ​Ibid., f. 7r. 165. ​Halil İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 35–38.



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feat the Christians, Islam would spread throughout the world, justice would be restored, and the true religion would be manifested on earth in one universal po­liti­cal order. In Agustín’s prognostications, however, the Castilian Moriscos would play a central role in the events at the End Times. In fact, with the aid of the Ottomans, the promise of reform that Agustín was selected to carry out would be achievable.

A Tragic Fate In 1543 the inquisitor general, Juan Pardo de Tavera, ordered a special edict of grace that was exclusive to the Moriscos involved in what the inquisitors of Toledo thought was a “complicity.” While granting ­pardon to all ­those who spontaneously came to confess their offenses, the Inquisition could obtain information about the religious conduct of ­people who ­were suspicious of heresy and apostasy. T ­ here would be no confiscation of Moriscos’ property, but in return they had to promise not to become relapsos, that is, to commit the same offense, which in this case was to return to their old religion. It seems, however, that the Inquisition did confiscate Morisco property nevertheless. By 1544, fifty-­one Moriscos of the towns of Arévalo, Ávila, Valladolid, and Medina del Campo had submitted a petition to the tribunal of Toledo, pleading for moderation in their pecuniary sentences.166 As if not satisfied with the information extracted from the accused in Agustín’s case, in July 1548, the Inquisition of Toledo passed another edict of grace that included all the New Christians of the aforementioned towns.167 The fate of the young prophet is unknown to us, yet judging by the charges that w ­ ere brought against his followers, it is likely that he suffered the harshest of punishments. Agustín’s cousin, Juan de Sosa, was, the prosecuting officer argued, “a dogmatizer and teacher of the pernicious and condemned sect of Muḥammad (dogmatizador y enseñador de la dañada y reprobada secta de Mahoma).”168 On July 12, 1545, he was condemned to greater excommunication (excomunión mayor) and his property was confiscated. He was to be turned over (relajado, lit. “relaxed”) to the secular arm and executed in person. In addition, “his descendants w ­ ere banned from holding all public offices (su descendencia ser privada e inhabilitada para todos oficios los públicos).”169 One of

166. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 4603/1. 167. ​Tapia, La comunidad morisca de Ávila, 234–37. 168. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 197/16, f. 138r. 169. ​Ibid.

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Agustín’s followers in Toledo named Juan de Piña was also sentenced to greater excommunication and had his property confiscated. Since the accused had passed away at the time of his sentencing, the Inquisition ordered “that his body and bones be dug up from any church, monastery or sacred place where they may be buried (que su cuerpo y huesos sean desenterrados de cualquier iglesia, monasterio o lugar sagrado donde estuviesen sepultados),” so that they could be publicly burned.170

Creating a Castilian Morisco Muslim Identity Agustín de Ribera’s highly personal, idiosyncratic visions, which at first glance seem to mirror con­temporary experiences of divine encounters (e.g., the case of the Converso prophetess), have been revealed h­ ere to be an expression of Castilian Morisco identity of the first half of the sixteenth c­ entury (the period ­after the forced conversions). Sometimes fitting perfectly within con­temporary Christian visionary experiences and at other times understood only within the context of Muslim expressions of holiness, Agustín’s revelations responded to the partic ­ u­ lar ­ situation and experiences of the Moriscos. This is a common characteristic of the revelatory experience itself: the revelation is responsive to the situation in which p­ eople find themselves, which is experienced as a living voice that intervenes to resolve disputes, to clarify issues, to call to faith, and to command action.171 The movement that was created around the young Morisco visionary, saint, and prophet embodied the postconversion tensions that had arisen between the real­ity of the Castilian Morisco experience (with the progressive assimilation and acculturation that came with it) and the desires of a group of Moriscos, particularly urban artisans, who claimed the need to halt the assimilation pro­cess by staying steadfast in the Muslim faith. Agustín’s visions began as a personal experience that affected only his immediate f­amily, but as the circle began to widen a strug­gle ensued between Agustín’s older b­ rother Luis and the Moriscos of Arévalo and Toledo for the control of the young visionary. While the monopolizing attempts by t­ hese crypto-­Muslims to Islamize the young visionary’s message profoundly transformed Agustín, as well as the nature of the group, the boy did not remain without agency, and this is where the real interest in this case lies. Out of that tension, a concept of holiness par­tic­ul­ar to Agustín’s followers surfaced that ultimately led to a po­liti­cal claim: the promise of a po­liti­cal movement in which the periphery of Islam, the Castilian Moriscos with all their variations, would 170. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 196/21, f. 54v. 171.  Madigan, “Revelation and Inspiration.”



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become the vanguard. Just as God’s messages to Agustín through the angel Gabriel w ­ ere becoming more universal—­that is, as the promise of a restoration of po­liti­cal and spiritual order became more apparent—­the articulation of that universal ideal was becoming more particularized and bound to the Morisco community. God had sent His message to the Castilian Morisco community to wait u ­ ntil the time when their “generation” would be restored. In the meantime they had to prepare themselves for the po­liti­cal moment when Agustín turned thirty, when he would become the prophet who would preach Islam to the entire world. The promise seems to have been the establishment of a new brand of Islam, an Islam that accommodated a community that had lost its knowledge of the Arabic language. This would place the Moriscos at the vanguard of universal reformation. The first phase of the preparatory pro­ cess had come with the revelation of the prayers in Castilian that Gabriel had brought to the group. The ­g reat miracle would follow with the arrival of the revelation for that part­ic­ul­ar community: the Castilian Qurʾān that Gabriel was entrusted to bring to them. What might have been the po­liti­cal potential of this movement had it been allowed to develop without the intervention of the Inquisition? Agustín’s revelations augured a victorious outcome for Islam in the Iberian Peninsula, which would be achieved with the aid of the Ottomans. The Ottoman ele­ment thus gave verisimilitude to Agustín’s prophecies: the Ottoman campaigns in Eu­rope and Islamic lands grounded the sacred history of the Moriscos in that par­tic­ u­lar historical moment, converting their own community into protagonists. The Moriscos w ­ ere assuming the history of the Ottoman feats as their own, and the Ottoman victories seemed to make Agustín’s prophecies po­liti­cally feasible. As we know now, though, it is unlikely that the apocalyptic expectations of these ­ Moriscos could have been fulfilled in the context of mid-sixteenth­ ­ century Castile. The idea of an Ottoman army reaching the center of the Iberian Peninsula sounds absurd to us, and it was prob­ably quite unrealistic. However, the failure of Agustín’s followers to act on the promises of the boy’s prophecies with the intention of precipitating the advent of the End Times through a movement led by the prophet and supported by the Ottomans does not negate the po­liti­cal potentiality e­ ither of that group or, more generally, of Morisco prophecies. The second half of the sixteenth c­ entury witnessed the continued frustration of the Morisco hopes for an Ottoman arrival in the Peninsula. Yet, as we ­will see in chapter 2, in the context of the Morisco community in Granada, one so dif­fer­ent from that of Castile, the po­liti­cal potential of prophecies quite similar to t­hose announced by Agustín did in fact materialize, moving the Morisco population into armed rebellion only a few de­cades­later.

Ch a p te r 2

The Return of Muslim Granada Prophecy and Martyrdom in the Alpujarras Revolt (1568–1570)

On December 25, 1568, a handful of Morisco rebels burst into the Granada neighborhood of the Albaicín, calling their brethren in faith to defend the religion of their ancestors and announcing that their time of freedom had fi­nally arrived. What was supposed to be a concerted effort by rural and urban Moriscos was met with cold caution by the city dwellers. The Moriscos of the Albaicín, aware that the Christian authorities suspected a pos­si­ble insurrection, opted to remain still, and not take up arms. With lack of support from their fellow Moriscos, the rebels ­were forced to take their fighting to the mountains of the Alpujarras, where o­ thers soon joined them.1 A two-­year bloody conflict ensued, requiring g­ reat effort on the part of the Christian authorities to contain. The rebellion had determinative consequences not only for the Moriscos of the Kingdom of Granada, but also for the rest of Spain’s New Christians. By 1571 almost eighty thousand Moriscos had been expelled from Granada and dispersed throughout the Spanish kingdoms. The ­causes of the uprising had as much to do with internal policies directed t­ oward the Moriscos as with the international situation, particularly as the Ottomans strove to gain more control in the western Mediterranean in the 1. ​See Valeriano Sánchez Ramos, “La guerra dentro de la guerra: Los bandos moriscos en el alzamiento de las Alpujarras,” VII Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo: Teruel, 19–21 de septiembre de 1996 (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, Centro de Estudios Mudéjares, 1999), 507–22. 64

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years preceding the rebellion. The cohabitation of Old and New Christians in Granada had been difficult since the conquest of the city by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. But the accession of Philip II to the throne in 1556 saw significant changes in the treatment of the New Christian minority inside Spain. With this shift came new policies aimed at extirpating all Morisco difference. The acculturating measures ­ that had been proposed ever since the conversion of the Granadan Muslim population in 1501, but had never been fully implemented, would increasingly be applied during the 1560s. By the mid-­sixteenth c­ entury the New Christian population of Granada was experiencing severe economic and social hardship: crisis in the silk industry (the foundation of the Morisco economy), the expropriation of Morisco real estate by Christian authorities, and continuous socioreligious repression, which culminated in the 1567 Pragmatic that codified a radical condemnation of each and e­ very one of the ethnoreligious expressions of the Morisco community (e.g., language, dress, customs).2 For the Morisco rebels of 1568, what was ultimately at stake, what they w ­ ere fighting for, was a new social order, or at least the restoration of an idealized past in which their existence as a community had been guaranteed. In his seminal work on the Moriscos of Granada, Julio Caro Baroja argued that the Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras mountains (1568–70) is among the most significant events in the history of the Morisco community of Spain, along with their forced conversion (1501–21) and their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula (1609–14).3 While more recent scholarship has focused on the po­liti­cal, economic, and social conditions that led a sector of Granada’s Morisco community to rebel, less attention has been paid to the po­liti­cal rhe­ toric deployed by the Morisco rebels to attract followers to their cause.4 This 2. ​The 1567 Pragmatic was in fact a disposition that had been presented to Charles V by the Granadan religious authorities in 1526 ­after a thorough investigation of Morisco life and practices. This disposition prohibited the Moriscos from using the Arabic language, their dress, the use of baths, their private cele­brations, weddings and funerary rites, and their musical gatherings, and required that they lock the doors to their ­houses on Fridays and Saturdays. It also banned head coverings for New Christian ­women and the use of henna, and forbade New Christians from using their Arabic last names. In addition, according to the pragmatic, the Inquisition of Jaén was to be moved to Granada. For a synthesis and analy­ sis of the dif­fer­ent stages of the conflict, see Julio Caro Baroja, Los moriscos del Reino de Granada: Ensayo de historia social (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2003; originally published in 1957); Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vincent, Historia de los moriscos: Vida y tragedia de una minoría (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1978); Valeriano Sánchez Ramos, “La guerra de las Alpujarras (1568–1570),” Historia del Reino de Granada (Granada: Universidad de Granada and El Legado Andalusí, 2000), 2:507–42; Manuel Barrios Aguilera, Granada morisca, la convivencia negada: Historia y textos (Granada: Editorial Comares, 2002). 3. ​Caro Baroja, Los moriscos, 39. 4. ​Among works that discuss the presence of prophecies in the rebellion are Mercedes García-­ Arenal, “ ‘Un reconfort pour ceux qui sont dans l’attente’: Prophétie et millénarisme dans la péninsule Iberique et au Maghreb (XVIe–­XVII siècles),” Revue de l’histoire des religions 220, no. 4 (2003): 445–86; García-­Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform. See also José Antonio González Alcantud, “El profe-

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chapter looks at the cultural resources that the Morisco rebels relied on to construct that rhe­toric and discourse of mobilization, with a par­tic­ul­ar focus on the cultural idioms with which the Moriscos who participated in the rebellion expressed their grievances—­the apocalyptic prognostications known as jofores. The jofores that circulated during the rebellion w ­ ere aimed at creating affective associations that would reinforce the Muslim identity of the Morisco rebels and their potential supporters. While chapter 1 focused on the centrality of prophecy and the saintly/prophetic figure of young Agustín in pro­cesses of identity formation and communal self-­definition, this chapter analyzes the significance of apocalyptic prophecy in mobilizing the Morisco population for collective action. More specifically, it demonstrates that the rebellion of the Moriscos in the Alpujarras mountains, which involved an act of imagination (envisioning a ­future restoration of Islamic rule in Granada) and an act of faith (trusting that God’s w ­ ill would be fulfilled), was encouraged by a discourse of martyrdom that was articulated in an apocalyptic key, an ele­ment that has hitherto been overlooked in the historiography of the Alpujarras revolt. Thus, this novel approach narrows in on the perspective of the actors, and so adds a new layer to existing analyses that solely consider the events of the uprising as propelled by external economic or institutional forces. Moreover, in attempting to gain a deeper understanding of the meanings the Moriscos of Granada gave to their own actions, we should steer away from exclusive interpretations of them ­either as collaborators, ­those who chose not to engage in fighting but mediated between Christian authorities and the rebels, or as participants, t­ hose supposedly “authen ­ tic” ­ or “true” Moriscos who were ­ defending their culture 5 and faith. At the heart of this discussion lies the question of Morisco identity, an identity that tends to be understood as fixed, stable, and uniform. The rebellion of the Alpujarras, however, was ultimately an attempt by a group of Granadan Moriscos to define and unify the Morisco community, and the very need to do so implies that it was neither stable nor uniform. In this pro­cess of self-­definition, prophecy became an expression of a par­tic­ul­ar Muslim identity that the rebels intended to create.6 Apocalyptic discourse was thus the cornerstone of a Morisco tismo y la imposibilidad del milenarismo en la rebelión morisca de 1568,” Anales de la Fundación Joaquín Costa 14 (1997): 201–16; and Iversen, “Prophecy and Politics.” This chapter contributes to the discussion by providing a contextual and sociocultural analy­sis of the apocalyptic phenomenon at the time of the Morisco rebellion. 5. ​Valeriano Sánchez Ramos, “Los moriscos que ganaron la Guerra,” Mélanges Louis Cardaillac (Zaghouan: Fondation Temimi por la Recherche Scientifique et l’Information, 1995), 613–27; Javier Fernández Castillo, “El sacerdote morisco Francisco de Torrijos: Un testigo de excepción en la rebelión de las Alpujarras,” Chronica Nova 23 (1996): 465–92. 6.  ​This chapter has been inspired by the theories of communal identity and collective action proposed by Alessandro Pizzorno. See his “Politics Unbound”; and Izquierdo Martín, El rostro de la

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Christoph Weiditz, Trachtenbuch [1530/1540], Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Ms. 22474, ff. 107–108 [Moriscos of Granada dancing].

po­liti­cal theology that sought to resist and transform the Christian sociocultural and po­liti­cal system that Moriscos deemed oppressive but that they also construed as divine punishment for deviating from the right path.7

Defending the Community: Old Mechanisms, New Results? Defining what it meant to be a Granadan of Muslim descent was a contested proc­ ess that began even before the fall of the city in 1492. Any definition would have been bound by the politics of the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada and the results of the colonization pro­cess itself. While many Muslim

comunidad. Both authors suggest that a subject’s identity is not guaranteed u­ nless he or she participates in the formation and preservation of a group that recognizes and acknowledges that individual’s identity. Furthermore, when the subject is prey to the uncertainties of his or her own constitution, he or she is compelled to construct or give shape (within a group) to an identity in an operation that is, above all, social. In that sense, the subject’s identity does not precede action but is inferred from it. This chapter further explores this idea, suggesting that one can locate Moriscos’ identity not only in their collective actions but also in the meanings they gave to their actions. 7. ​See Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion a­ fter September 11, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 33–50.

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intellectuals took the route of exile into the Dār al-­Islām (House of Islam), as was their religious duty, the remaining urban Muslims w ­ ere displaced to the city’s outskirts, where they lived as Mudéjares, Muslims ­under Christian rule.8 In contrast, some of the Muslim notables, who during the Christian conquest had voluntarily converted to Chris­tian­ity, received privileges and entered the ranks of the new Granadan elite. This pro­cess of identity formation was both internal and external to the New Christian community. From within, tensions began to surface about the degree of integration and assimilation into Spanish-­ Christian culture that former Muslims w ­ ere willing to allow. Externally, the Moriscos had to contend with differing ideas among the Old Christians about how to understand and treat that community. The rebellion in the Alpujarras was the defining moment that forced the Granadan Moriscos to face both external pressures and internal rifts.

Recourse to a Morisco Strategy: Francisco Núñez Muley’s Appeal to the Chancery In late 1566, when rumors spread that a pragmatic banning the use of the Arabic language, Morisco dress, and other ele­ments of Morisco culture would be proclaimed in the public squares of Granada by the New Year, the immediate response of the New Christians was to resort to their customary defense strategy: to select representatives from among the elite Granadan Morisco families to take up the issue with the authorities.9 Thus we encounter Francisco Núñez Muley, a prominent Morisco elder of royal lineage, who in his famous appeal to the president of the Royal Chancery of Granada, Pedro de Deza, expressed the repudiation of the decree by the Granadan New Christians.10

8. ​On the obligation of Mudéjares to emigrate, see Kathryn A. Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate to Islamic Territory,” Islamic Law and Society 7, no. 2 (2000): 256–88; Kathryn  A. Miller, Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities of Late Medieval Spain (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Miller argues that the discussions, at both the theoretical and the practical level, of dwelling in infidel territory w ­ ere intense. In North Africa l­egal scholars argued that Islamic law forbade Muslims to live ­under non-­Muslim rule. 9. ​Since their forced conversion, the Moriscos of the Spanish kingdoms had been able to delay any official decrees that eradicated their cultural practices by paying substantial sums of gold to the royal trea­sury. This money was collected in the aljamas and given to a representative to pay on behalf of the ­whole community. One of the ­things that the 1567 Pragmatic made clear was that the Moriscos no longer had negotiating power, at least in Granada. 10. ​Francisco Núñez Muley was of double royal lineage. He was descendant of the Marīnid kings of Morocco as well as the Naṣrid kings of Granada. From his appeal we learn that he had served the Christian authorities from an early age. In 1502 he served as page to the archbishop of Granada Hernando de Talavera during his three-­year visit to the Alpujarras. He also represented the Moriscos before King Ferdinand and before Charles V. See K. Garrad, “The Original Memorial of Don Francisco Núñez Muley,” At-

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Although Núñez Muley’s appeal is well known to scholars, a brief discussion of it ­here ­will shed light on the complexities of the constitution of Granadan Morisco society and help establish who some of the potential recipients of the apocalyptic messages might have been. The first m ­ atter that Núñez Muley put forth in response to the Pragmatic of 1567 before the president of the Chancery was the question of conversion to Catholicism, and its implications for the cultural life of the newly converted Moriscos. Núñez Muley contended that, contrary to what the Pragmatic stipulated, the New Christians had never agreed to change their style of dress or fully assimilate upon converting, since the conversions had actually been carried out by force and against the Capitulations of 1491, which stated that no Muslim man or w ­ oman could be forced to take up the Christian faith.11 With ­these opening remarks Núñez Muley brought up two contested issues for the Moriscos of the Peninsula: that their baptisms w ­ ere not valid—­that is, they w ­ ere still Muslims—­and that the Christian rulers had broken the surrender agreements and had not kept their promises. The issue of conversion was alive in the minds of all Moriscos of the Spanish kingdoms, not just the Granadans. That very same year (1567), as the bishop of Tortosa was getting ready to preach in Vall de Uxó (Valencia), he was met with re­sis­tance from a crowd of Moriscos. Speaking on behalf of all the aljamas (Morisco communities) of the Kingdom of Valencia, several Moriscos stated that their conversions had been carried out by force and that the bishop “should go tell his Majesty [Philip II] that his ­father, the Emperor [Charles V], had not kept his word about protecting their fueros (laws of the kingdom) and privileges.”12 lante 2, no. 4 (1954): 168–226. An abbreviated version of the memorial was published by the chronicler Mármol Carvajal in his Historia. Núñez Muley’s memorandum is on pp. 123–30. For an En­glish translation of this memorandum, see Francisco Núñez Muley, A Memorandum for the President of the Royal Audiencia and Chancery Court of the City and Kingdom of Granada, ed. Vincent Barletta (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). For a study of the Núñez Muley and the Muley Fez ­family, see Bernard Vincent, “Et quelques voix de plus: De Francisco Núñez Muley à Fatima Ratal,” Sharq al-­Andalus: Estudios Mudéjares y Moriscos 12 (1995): 131–45; María Jesús Rubiera Mata, “La familia morisca de los Muley-­Fez, príncipes meriníes e infantes de Granada,” Sharq al-­Andalus: Estudios Mudéjares y Moriscos 13 (1996): 159–67. 11. ​Núñez Muley, Memorandum, 56. The thirty-­second capitulation stated “es asentado e concordado que a ningund moro ni mora non fagan fuerza a que se torne cristiano nin cristiana [It is settled and agreed that no male or female Muslim ­will be forced to convert to Chris­tian­ity]” (my translation). The capitulations w ­ ere edited and published by Francisco Fernández González, Estado social y politico de los mudéjares de Castilla (Madrid, 1866), 427. 12. ​Tulio Halperín Donghi, Un conflicto nacional: Moriscos y cristianos viejos en Valencia (Valencia: Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 1980), 168; see also Magín Arroyas Serrano and Vicent Gil Vicent, Revuelta y represión en los moriscos castellonenses: El proceso inquisitorial de Pedro Amán, morisco vecino de Onda (Onda: Ajuntament d’Onda, 1995). A large part of the Muslim population in Valencia was forcibly baptized between 1519 and 1520 during the popu­lar revolt of Valencia’s artisan guilds known as the Germanías or Brotherhoods. T ­ hese baptisms w ­ ere l­ater declared as valid by the Emperor Charles

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The question of laws and privileges was an impor­tant one for Moriscos, one that they would continue to invoke right up to their expulsion in 1609 (which I discuss at length in chapter 6). Furthermore, this question points to the dif­fer­ent Morisco perspectives about their place in Spanish Catholic society. Núñez Muley argued that the Granadan Moriscos had always been loyal subjects of the king, and they w ­ ere being harshly treated by secular and religious authorities alike. He assured King Philip II (r. 1556–1598) via the president of the Chancery that ­were the Moriscos to be given liberties, they would never betray the Crown, as they had demonstrated on previous occasions. Moreover, he stated that if at any point since the conquest of Granada in 1492 the Moriscos had revolted, such as the uprising in the Albaicín in 1499, it had not been to rebel against their king but rather to show their support for the Capitulations so that the royal agreements would be upheld and protected.13 For Núñez Muley and the Moriscos of Granada, the terms of Philip II’s 1567 decree were ­ a direct affront to their liberties and privileges, and a dramatic deviation from earlier ­ custom. Núñez Muley reminded the Catholic authorities that previous legislation of Morisco culture, such as the 1526 decree of Charles V, had never been implemented. In addition, he argued that t­hose ele­ments that Old Christians construed as signs of Muslim belief and practice among the New Christians, such as Morisco dress and the use of the Arabic language and baths (all external distinguishing signs of the community), w ­ ere in fact local customs that had nothing to do with religion. Núñez Muley’s argument can be understood as part of a larger debate that was taking place during the sixteenth c­ entury: what constituted religion and culture.14 Was conversion strictly a religious pro­cess, or did it require “civilization”; that is, must it be accompanied by assimilation? And how could one distinguish religious from cultural signs? Ultimately what Núñez Muley wanted to prove was that these ­ external “Moorish” signs were ­ not incompatible with the Catholic faith. Núñez Muley’s astute defense was meant to reassure Philip II that the Moriscos would not naturally take up arms—­something feared as much by the authorities as by the Morisco notables of Granada. He charged that the Morisco

V in his decree of April 4, 1525. Charles V had pledged protections for the Muslim populations of the kingdom, as his grand­father Ferdinand had done during the Cortes of Monzón in 1510. Thus, not only ­were the forced conversions during the Germanías viewed as invalid by the former Muslims, but the king’s very word was called into question. For the conversion of Muslims see Isabelle Poutrin, Convertir les musulmans. Espagne, 1491–1609 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2012). 13. ​Donghi, Un conflicto nacional, 213. 14. ​This was particularly true with regard to the evangelization of natives in the Amer­ic­ as, the Philippines, and East Asia.

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nation should not be judged by the actions of a few, namely, the monfíes, or bandits. He argued that t­hese w ­ ere desperate p­ eople who had committed crimes ­because they used to be able to take refuge in seignorial lands, churches, or monasteries, but now were ­ being squeezed, not finding any place to go. “What are they to do,” Núñez Muley asked, “but to get together and risk losing their lives, seeing no remedy?”15 He concluded that the Pragmatic sought only the destruction of the Kingdom of Granada and its natives. Despite Núñez Muley’s resourceful and elaborate defense, however, the Pragmatic was enforced on New Year’s Day. Núñez Muley’s appeal sheds light on the complexities of Granadan Morisco identity. On the one hand, he claimed that the conversions to Chris­tian­ity had not been valid, which meant that the newly converted community had continued to be Muslim for more than half a ­century. On the other hand, he aimed to get the message across that the signs of identity that Christians identified with Islam ­were in fact part of local Granadan culture, and that ­those features, such as dress, language, baths, and other t­ hings, w ­ ere not incompatible with the Christian faith. This reveals a deep rift within the Granadan Morisco society—­that Moriscos did not all share a single identity. Some identified themselves as Muslims, and during the Alpujarras revolt they attempted to re- ­ create that identity through recourse to discourses that privileged their religious community, such as through prophetic prognostications that guaranteed the superiority of their community over the rest.16 ­Others, like Núñez Muley and other prominent Granadan Moriscos, presented themselves (and possibly conceived of themselves) as both Arabs and Christians. ­These latter Moriscos argued that the two identities w ­ ere not incompatible. In a complex strategy to define identity that separated culture from religious belief, this group attempted to distance itself from the Muslim religion while still preserving their cultural distinctiveness, defending the idea that it was pos­si­ble to be a good Christian while still carry­ing themselves in a distinct “Arab” way.17 Still other Moriscos remained ambivalent about their identity. T ­ hese differing notions of Morisco identity w ­ ere not necessarily determined by class, space (­ urban vs. rural), or gender. Thus, we find that during the rebellion Moriscos of noble lineage as well as merchants and peasants sympathized with the rebels 15. ​Ibid., 224. 16. ​See García-­Arenal, “ ‘Un reconfort,’ ” and Messianism and Puritanical Reform. 17. ​On the Arabo-­Islamic culture of some Moriscos, see Mercedes García-­Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, “Médico, traductor, inventor: Miguel de Luna, cristiano arábigo de Granada,” Chronica Nova 32 (2006): 187–231; and more recently, Mercedes García-­Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, The Orient in Spain: Converted Muslims, the Forged Lead Books of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

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and joined their ranks, while other Moriscos of similar life circumstances abstained from participating in the conflict. What the Pragmatic of 1567 had managed to do was to force ­those dif­fer­ent Morisco ele­ments to define themselves and to decide how much of the hegemonic culture they ­were willing to absorb.

Failed Negotiations and a Prophesied Uprising When the path to negotiations failed, a minority group that had advocated for direct confrontation, composed mainly of urban Moriscos, began to gain followers within Granada and the Alpujarras and beyond, as far north as the Kingdom of Valencia.18 The most import­ant and best studied accounts of the Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras have come down to us in two Christian chronicles: Historia del rebelión y castigo de los moriscos de Granada (History of the Rebellion and Punishment of the Moriscos of Granada) by the soldier and chronicler Luis del Mármol Carvajal, published in Málaga in 1600, and the chronicle Guerra de Granada (War of Granada) by the humanist poet, diplomat, and historian Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, published posthumously in Madrid in 1610.19 Both Mármol Carvajal and Hurtado de Mendoza emphasized the significance of apocalyptic prognostications in the development of the rebellion. Yet while ­there is no doubt about the contentious nature of ­these Christian sources (both sought to discredit the rebel community, and citing prophecies was one way to do so), the narratives, particularly the parts that highlight the significance of the prophecies, can be corroborated when read against additional sources, such as Morisco Aljamiado and Arabic lit­er­at­ure and other archival material. Let us focus, for example, on the planning of the revolt and the election of the new king, Hernando de Córdoba y Válor, who came to be known as Aben Humeya. Mármol Carvajal recounted that the Moriscos of the Albaicín resolved to stage the rebellion on the first day of the new year, January 1, 1568, the very day that the Christians had conquered the city in 1492, and when all Morisco prognostications foretold that the Muslims would regain

18. ​Rafael García Cárcel, “Granada para los moriscos valencianos: ¿Mito abstracto o modelo operativo?,” in Actas del I Congreso de Historia de Andalucía (Córdoba: Publicaciones del Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Córdoba, 1976), 1:397–400; Jorge Antonio Catalá Sanz and Sergio Urzainqui Sánchez, La conjura morisca de 1570: La tentativa de alzamiento en Valencia (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 2009). I extend my sincere thanks to Prof. Catalá Sanz for his generosity in making this book available to me. 19. ​A contemporaneous and equally impor­tant account of the rebellion was Ginés Pérez de Hita’s Guerras civiles de Granada (Madrid, 1610).

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Morisco shield taken by Don Juan de Austria during the Alpujarras Revolt (1568–1570), h ­ oused at the Armory Museum in Madrid, Spain. Image from the Biblioteca Nacional de España [ca. 1868], Sign. 17/8/35.

the kingdom.20 Drawing further attention to the significance of apocalyptic prognostications in the organization ­ of the revolt, Mármol Carvajal wrote: “The Moriscos of Granada had certain jofores, or better yet, fictions that some Arab grammarians [those ­ who understood the Arabic language, 20. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 4, ch. 1.

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that is, the alfaquís] fabricated in order to console their audience when our Christians had just finished conquering that Kingdom [1492]. With them they gave the ignorant rustics some kind of hope, making them believe that what was written in t­hose prophecies would be infallible.”21 Further, he characterized the instrumentalization of jofores by the leaders of the rebellion in the following manner: “Stirring ­these jofores, which they venerated as something sacred, and seeking in them some comfort, the Qurʾānic sectarians [i.e., religious leaders of the community] who composed them used to interpret them [to the p­ eople], twisting and turning them for their own purpose, which was to lead the kingdom to revolt. Farax Abenfarax (or ibn Farax) and Daud and o­ thers w ­ ere the ones who began to move the ignorant plebes, telling them that their time of liberty, announced in the jofores, had come, since the poison of the Christians, who w ­ ere their real enemies, had never been so ignited in their hearts as it was now.”22 Before delving into the meanings of t­hese passages, let us examine what Diego Hurtado de Mendoza has to say about the organ­ization of the revolt. He described a secret meeting in which Fernando el Zaguer, a Morisco nobleman and ­uncle of the would-be Morisco king Aben Humeya, recounted prophecies attributed to Muḥammad predicting that after ­ an uprising (which el Zaguer recognized as the Moriscos’ pre­sent strug­gles), the Muslims would regain Granada. The colorful language employed by Hurtado de Mendoza illustrates the urgency with which Morisco leaders like el Zaguer appealed to their audience. More importantly, it confirms the idea held by the Christian chroniclers that an ideological f­actor helped bring together t­hose who sympathized with armed re­sis­tance. According to Hurtado de Mendoza: He [Fernando el Zaguer] presented prodigies and appearances of extraordinary people ­ armed in the skies above the Sierra Nevada, unusual birds in Granada, births of monstrous animals in Baza, and troubles ­ of the sun with the eclipse of the past years, which showed 21. ​Ibid., bk. 3, ch. 3, 141–56. All translations are mine u ­ nless other­wise noted. The original text reads: “Tenían los Moriscos de Granada ciertos jofores ó por mejor decir unas ficciones, que debieron hacer algunos gramaticos Arabes para consuelo de los espectantes, quando nuestros Christianos hubieron acabado de conquistar aquel reyno, en los quales ponian alguna manera de confianza á los rusticos ignorantes, haciendoles creer los que les leían, que seria infalible lo que alli se contenia.” 22. ​Ibid., my translation. The original text reads: “Revolviendo pues estos jofores, que veneraban como cosa sagrada, y buscando entre ellos algun consuelo, los sectarios alcoranistas que por ventura los habian compuesto se los glosaban, trayéndolos por los cabellos al propósito de su pretensión, que era levantar el reino. Farax Abenfarax y Daud y otros fueron los que comenzaron a mover al ignorante vulgo, diciendo que ya era llegada la hora de su libertad que los jofores decian; porque la ponzoña de los cristianos, sus verdaderos enemigos, jamás habia estado tan encendida en sus corazones como al presente estaban.”

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misfortunes for the Christians, to whom they attribute the f­ avor or disfavor of this planet, and also the moon. Such w ­ ere the words of Don Fernando el Zaguer, with which they were ­ stirred up, outraged and unanimously resolved to rebel at once, and in par­tic­ul­ar, in selecting a king among their nation.23 In ­these passages the Christian chroniclers of the revolt reveal a ­g reat deal about their understanding of the meanings that Moriscos gave to apocalyptic messages, the ways in which prophecies circulated, and especially their own prejudices about the function of prophecies among Moriscos, a subject that I ­will address ­later in this chapter. However, by contrasting ­these accounts with archival and literary material, and by reading “through” t­ hese contentious sources, one can get closer to the ways that prophecies circulated in the Alpujarras context and the meanings that Moriscos gave to t­hese hortatory messages. ­There are several impor­tant details about the centrality of prophecy for the revolt: the role of the alfaquís, or religious leaders of the crypto-­Muslim community, in the dissemination of apocalyptic messages; the idea that only ­after listening to prophecies being recited to them did the Moriscos resolve to rebel; and the fact that prophecies ­were directed ­toward the “rustics,” to convince them to engage in armed re­sis­tance. Both Mármol Carvajal and Hurtado de Mendoza stressed the idea that apocalyptic prophecies w ­ ere manipulated or “stirred” by the alfaquís to console the uneducated plebes, giving Moriscos hope of a ­future redemption. The centrality of the alfaquís is echoed in several sources that are worth discussing h­ ere in detail. On the importance of t­ hese spiritual authorities, a Morisco Jesuit priest named Ignacio de las Casas denounced in 1604 that the Moriscos “have teachers everywhere, who teach them and preserve their old customs. . . . ​ And they make sure that the Moriscos do not mix with Old Christians, in expectation of the Time, which they believe is not too far, when they w ­ ill return to being lords of Spain.”24 Further, the testimony of another Morisca, Brianda Pérez, sheds light on the early stages of the uprising and on the role of the alfaquís and Morisco notables in its organ­ization. Pérez’s testimony is particularly crucial, since she was the wife of Hernando de Córdoba y Válor, the would-be king of the Moriscos.25 23. ​Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Guerra de Granada (ca. 1571–77), ed. B. Blanco-­González (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1970), 122. 24. ​Youssef El Alaoui, Jésuites, Morisques et Indiens. Étude comparative des méthodes d’évangelisation de la Compagnie de Jésus d’après les traités de José de Acosta (1588) et d’Ignacio de las Casas (1605–1607) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006), 539. 25. ​Brianda Pérez’s testimony strikingly concurs with Hurtado de Mendoza’s description of the election of Córdoba y Válor as king. Given the closeness of the accounts, it is pos­si­ble that Hurtado

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On March 23, 1571, days before the rebellion was fi­nally contained by King Philip II’s half-­brother, Don John of Austria, Brianda Pérez testified before a local judge about the meetings in which her now-­deceased husband was elected king of the Moriscos.26 Brianda recounted to the Christian authorities that during the secret meeting held in the Morisco quarters of the city at the ­house of a wax maker named Adelet, some Moriscos resolved that the rebellion should take place on New Year’s Day. According to Brianda, the date was of partic ­ u­ lar ­ significance, since some prophetic prognostications (jofores) they had read stated that the Muslims would regain the Kingdom of Granada on the very day that the Christians had seized it. This is the exact explanation that Mármol Carvajal gave for the significance of this date. They determined to inform the Moriscos in the Alpujarras only at the last minute, “since the notables feared that, being rustic ­people as they ­were, they would not be able to keep the secret.” Once again, both Mármol Carvajal and Hurtado de Mendoza drew attention to the fact that the rebellion was planned by the notables and discussed with the rest of the population only ­later. Brianda further explained that on the day her husband was proclaimed king, forty men and sixteen w ­ omen gathered at the h­ ouse of a Morisco named Elcarçi to receive their new king with colored banners, each kissing his arm as they entered the ­house, ­after which they read from books that contained “Moorish t­ hings.” According to Brianda, t­ hose pre­sent at the gathering w ­ ere men and w ­ omen from the most prominent Morisco families of Granada. A similar proclamation took place in the village of Beznar, in the Lecrín Valley. On this occasion, Fernando el Zaguer, Córdoba y Válor’s ­uncle, began recounting a prophecy that foretold all the calamities that the community would endure, stating that t­ here would be an uprising a­ fter which the Muslims would regain the land. An alfaquí began to read a prophetic prognostication, purportedly written at the time of Muslim rule in Granada, which talked about their liberation “at the hands of a young man of royal lineage, who would be baptized, but would remain a heretic in his law, b­ ecause in public he would profess [the religion] of the Christians.”27 The alfaquí explained to the crowd that this description corresponded to Hernando de Córdoba y Válor and so it was the auspicious moment to take up arms. In this way, Don Hernando was de Mendoza had access to documents produced by the local authorities. That the chroniclers could have had such access to documents produced by the secular and inquisitorial authorities is no surprise; after ­ all, Mármol Carvajal was able to include Morisco apocalyptic prognostications in his chronicle ­because he had access to the texts, which had been impounded by the Granadan Inquisition and translated from Arabic into Spanish by his friend, the Morisco Alonso del Castillo. 26. ​AGS, Cámara de Castilla, legajo 2157. Published in the Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 65 (1914): 385–94. 27. ​Ibid.

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proclaimed king of Granada and the Alpujarras, with the name Muley Muḥammad Aben Humeya (ibn Umayya). But what did it mean for Córdoba y Valor to be proclaimed King Aben Humeya? By choosing a member of the community of royal lineage, and by reviving the title of the Umayyad caliphs of al-­Andalus, the Moriscos would be able to recognize themselves in the history of the Islamic community and imagine the results of their actions. Within the providentialist apocalyptic frame that the prognostications provided, a schema of loss and restoration, the Moriscos could see themselves once again as masters of the land. In this instance, prophecies provided the temporal framework, the memory of the identity that they wanted to re-­create, which was intimately tied to their Islamic religio-­political past. But to bring the past into their pre­sent and to manifest it in their f­uture, they first needed to engage in the final apocalyptic ­battle. The manner in which the apocalyptic prophecies ­were disseminated in the context of the rebellion can further be verified though examining the rec­ords of several Castilian inquisitorial tribunals in the years following the uprising. This invaluable material, which has only been scantly considered in the historiography of the Alpujarras revolt, reveals not only the extent to which ­these texts circulated but also how that circulation was achieved. For example, in 1572 Lucía Cania, a twenty-­nine-­year-­old Granadan Morisca, was accused by a neighbor of stating that during the uprising she used to get together with other Moriscos in the mountains of the Alpujarras to perform the zala (prayers) and the guadoc (ablutions) and to fast. They would also “read from an ancient book written in Arabic that stated that the Alpujarras would be lost, but that afterward the Moors would win it, and then Andalusia and the Kingdom of Valencia.”28 Lucía’s statements about the fall of Granada are reminiscent of a jofor that circulated among the rebels (and was included by Mármol Carvajal in his chronicle) assuring the ex­pec­tant audience that “the prophecy of the prophet Daniel ­will be fulfilled, which said that [Granada] would be freed ­after its fall to a tyrant king, and [­after] we have seen his exit.”29 Another example extracted from the inquisitorial material is the case of a Morisco named Zacharias Monda, who confessed during the Inquisition’s visit to the city of Málaga (in 1568–69) that the Moriscos of the Kingdom of Granada believed what was written in their books, which was “that this land [Granada] would be lost, and that it would not take long for that to happen, ­because Bugía [Béjaïa, Algeria] would be taken first, and the Moors already had it, and then they would take Oran and would reach Cebta [Ceuta], and would find it depopulated.” The 28. ​AHN, Inquisición. Lib. 1856/1, f. 130. 29. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 3, ch. 3.

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Morisco described a wire bridge in the Strait of Gibraltar from which “the Moors [North Africans] would take the ­whole of Spain as far as Galicia.”30 ­These testimonies cast light on the practice of dissemination of prophecy. Read in conjunction with con­temporary descriptions, such as the testimony offered by the Morisca Brianda Pérez, that dissemination emerges as one that was predominantly textual in nature. Taken together, t­hese testimonies underscore the significance of the written text (in this case the sayings, albeit spurious, of the Prophet Muḥammad himself as narrated by his companions) as a b­ earer of expected news. Further, t­hese testimonies reveal a pro­cess of “ritualization” of the apocalyptic phenomenon. The reading of prophecies was incorporated into the ritual religious practices of the Morisco rebels, occupying a prominent place in their daily lives during the rebellion. Since the beginning of the uprising, communal prayer became a symbol of the freedom that was being fought for. Mármol Carvajal described that when the rebellion spread through the Alpujarras, the Moriscos “rejoiced publicly, stating out loud that the time of innocence had come, and that in seeking liberty in their faith they would go straight to heaven.”31 According to testimonies in the abovementioned inquisitorial material, the Moriscos used to gather as an umma (community of believers) to pray and listen to sermons that incorporated apocalyptic prognostications that w ­ ere read out of books, which encouraged the audience to continue the strug­gle. The intended effect of t­hese ritual readings was the creation of ties among the members of a community that was being s­haped and solidified at that moment through those ­ very ritual practices that made them identify with one another’s plight. The par­tic­ul­ar prophecies that circulated during the rebellion continued to have prominence as late as the first de­ cade of the seventeenth ­century. Writing in 1604, the Jesuit priest Ignacio de las Casas claimed that the Moriscos used to buy copies of Mármol Carvajal’s book as soon as they ­were printed “­because it contained the prognostications, as well as books written by the Morisco Miguel de Luna, which narrated stories of the Muslims of al-­Andalus and attributed to them victories and other ­favors.”32 Apocalyptic prognostications ­were therefore at the heart of the revolt; they ­were the filter through which many Moriscos of Granada interpreted their cur-

30. ​AHN, Inq. Leg 2603/1. 31. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 4, ch. 8. 32. ​El Alaoui, Jésuites, Morisques et Indiens, 545. T ­ here is additional evidence that the prophecies published by Mármol Carvajal circulated among Moriscos outside the Kingdom of Granada. In 1589 a Morisco from Valencia was arrested by the Inquisition. Among papers seized by the inquisitors ­were several prophecies, one of them a longer version in Arabic of one of the jofores published by Mármol Caravajal. For a transcription of the Arabic text and a Spanish translation, see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos Moriscos, 312–17.

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rent strug­gles and made sense of their world. In this way, prophecy was not merely a rhetorical tool employed by the notables, the wealthy, and the religious and community leaders to lure the rest into taking up arms; it was the ideological framework according to which the Moriscos w ­ ere to make decisions. That said, an impor­tant m ­ atter regarding the nature of the Christian chronicles is yet to be discussed: Regardless of the well-­established centrality of prophecy to the insurrection, why did the Christian chroniclers Mármol Carvajal and Hurtado de Mendoza make it so central to their narrative? It has previously been suggested that by attributing the rebellion to fraudulent predictions, the Christians could denounce its character as trivial, in this way exculpating themselves of having committed any injustices against the New Christian community that would justify the Moriscos’ frustrations.33 But absolution was not the only motive for making prophecy central to the development of the narrative. Prophecies, as we w ­ ill see in the coming chapters, became a central feature of Christian repre­sen­ta­tions of “the other,” especially when that other was being cast as an ­enemy or a heretic. Apocalyptic and messianic beliefs ­were widespread throughout the sixteenth ­century in Spain, but they ­were not always readily accepted, and ­were often viewed with suspicion. The presence of numerous prophets, both religious and lay, in the Spanish kingdoms during the second half of the sixteenth ­century compelled Juan de Orozco y Covarrubias to write his Tratado de la verdadera y falsa profecía (Treatise of True and False Prophecy), published in 1588 with the goal of aiding good Christians in discerning true from false prophets.34 Orozco y Covarrubias believed that heretics always took advantage of false prophecy and knowingly tried to deceive, to the detriment of ordinary p­ eople. According to the polemicist, among ­these heretics was “accursed Luther, who titled himself new prophet, and Servetus, who used to boast that he was the only prophet in the world, when he was not yet twenty-­five years old, and Thomas Müntzer used a genre of prophecy through dreams, and he managed to mobilize forty thousand men with him.”35 Accusations of spreading false prophecies could thus be used to attack or discredit those ­ who were ­ considered enemies, and this was the case with the Moriscos. According to Orozco y Covarrubias, false prophecy (­whether a deception by the devil or the prophets’ 33. ​Iversen, “Prophecy and Politics,” 186. 34. ​For the presence of prophets in early modern Spain, see Kagan, Lucrecia’s Dreams; Arroyo, Soñar la historia; Política y cultura en la época moderna (Cambios dinásticos: Milenarismos, mesianismos y utopías), eds., Alfredo Alvar Esquerra, Jaime Contreras Contreras, and José Ignacio Ruiz Rodríguez (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá, 2004); Ronald Cueto, Quimeras y sueños: Los profetas y la monarquía católica de Felipe IV (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1994), among ­others. For a discussion on discernment, see chap. 1. 35. ​Juan de Orozco y Covarrubias, Tratado de la verdadera y falsa profecía (Segovia, 1588), ch. 10.

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own invention) was dangerous and needed to be controlled. Not only could it result in “­g reat public punishment from God’s hand,” but it could also compromise the peace and security of the kingdoms. In the hands of enemies, then, prophecy was necessarily false. Whether ­ it was the devil trying to deceive “the other” or heretics trying to mislead the p­ eople, prophecy was potentially dangerous when invoked by an e­ nemy. Thus, in the Christians’ repre­sen­ta­tion of “the other,” particularly during times of upheaval, prophecy could be manipulated for “wicked purposes,” for example, to mobilize the­people.

Prophecies on the Battleground The idea that apocalyptic prognostications fueled armed re­sis­tance suggests two levels of interpretation operating in t­hese texts. First, they work on an ideological or theological (or discursive) level, presenting an eschatology that urged Moriscos to take up arms b­ ecause the End Times was nigh and assuring the audience that their enterprise—­g ranting Muslims domination of the Peninsula at the End Times—­was divinely supported. The texts also operate on an affective level; that is, ­these narratives also elicited affective associations that created a sense of identity that allowed Moriscos to recognize themselves in the community presented in the texts (a Muslim community), which provided support to them in making sense of their current situation. On both levels the aim was to reinforce an Islamic character in Morisco society, in this way (re-)creating the umma. T ­ hese apocalyptic prognostications evoked feelings of hope and fear, and, more importantly, they elevated suffering, making it the most impor­tant moral characteristic of the community and its highest goal.36 Some of the prognostications circulating during the uprising w ­ ere translated from Arabic into Castilian by the Morisco royal interpreter Alonso del Castillo and published by Luis del Mármol Carvajal in his chronicle. According to Mármol Carvajal, two jofores w ­ ere found in a book in the custody of the Granadan Inquisition, and a third was found by a soldier in a cave in Cástaras, Granada, during the rebellion. Although it might be tempting to argue that Mármol Carvajal and his Morisco helper del Castillo may have purpose36. ​For lit­er­at­ ure on emotions, see Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early M ­ iddle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006); John Corrigan, Religion and Emotion: Approaches and Interpretations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Joanna Bourke, “Fear and Anxiety: Writing about Emotion in Modern History,” History Workshop Journal 55 (2003): 111–31; Language and the Politics of Emotion, eds., Catherine  A. Lutz and Lila Abu-Lughod ­ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

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fully included false prophecies, attributing them to the Morisco rebels in order to cast doubt on their strug­gles and so presenting them as treacherous subjects of the king, t­ here is other textual evidence that t­ hese prophecies did indeed circulate among the Moriscos almost up u ­ ntil the moment of their expulsion. In a recent article, Carmen Barceló and Ana Labarta edited and published an Arabic version of one of the prophecies (with a Spanish translation).37 What is most fascinating about this par­tic­ul­ar text is that the scholars discovered not one but two Arabic versions of the prophecy. One is h­ oused at the Archivo Provincial in Málaga, and was copied by a certain Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-­Anṣārī, imam of the mosque of Cuétar, Málaga, right before the Christian conquest of Granada in 1492, the “tyrannized and accursed year (al-­ʿām al-­ majshūm al-­madjūm),” according to the source. This leaves ­little room for doubt that the prophecies circulating during the rebellion w ­ ere actually composed and presumably circulated during the fall of the city, and this should come as no surprise, since we know that the Moriscos drew inspiration for their prophecies from medieval apocalyptic narratives. Granada was already lost; it had been lost when the Catholic Monarchs conquered the kingdom in 1492, putting an end to Islamic rule in the Peninsula. The story of loss and restoration of Islamic rule in the Peninsula narrated in the jofores deployed during the uprising was what Muḥammad had predicted in numerous prophetic ḥadīths circulating in al-­Andalus since the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031, whose diffusion intensified during the thirteenth and fourteenth ­ centuries.38 Highlighting the excellences (faḍāʾil) of al-­Andalus, Muḥammad declared in one such ḥadīth, “­After my death an island shall ­ be conquered, which is called al-­Andalus; it w ­ ill be the last place where Islam is propagated and the first place where it ­will dis­appear. It ­will constitute the westernmost limit of Islam, and one of the gates of paradise.”39 The promise of restoration would come at the hands of the “protectors of the faith [murābiṭūn] in their own ­houses and martyrs in their resting place,” who, aided by a messianic figure, would fight to regain al-­Andalus for God and his Prophet. As noted above, Barceló and Labarta also found a second Arabic version of this jofor appended to an Inquisition rec­ord of a Valencian Morisco named

37. ​Carmen Barceló and Ana Labarta have edited and published an Arabic version of one of the prophecies (with a Spanish translation), in “ ‘Ṭawq al-­Ḥamāma’, un muwaššaḥ apocalíptico,” in Traducir el mundo árabe: Homenaje a Leonor Martínez Martín, ed. Mònica Rius, Èlia Romo, Ana M. Bejarano, and Erica Consoli (Barcelona: Publicaciones i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2014), 99–131. 38. ​For an excellent study on apocalyptic traditions in al-­Andalus, see Maribel Fierro, “Doctrinas y movimientos.” 39. ​Maribel Fierro y Saadia Faghia, “Un nuevo texto de tradiciones escatológicas sobre al-­Andalus,” Sharq al-­Andalus 7 (1990):106–7.

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Pedro Barbar, tried in 1581.40 Thus, we know that ­these prophecies continued to be copied and read outside the Kingdom of Granada ­after the uprising was contained. I have found a version of another jofor included in Mármol Carvajal’s chronicle, which was translated from the Arabic and has reached us in a Castilian version. The manuscript states that the original was found among some papers in Arabic that the inquisitors gave the copyist, likely the Jesuit Morisco priest Ignacio de las Casas, in 1602.41 The jofores that circulated during the rebellion claim to be ḥadīths—­sayings, actions, or tacit approvals of the Prophet Muḥammad—­and they are intended to effect a radical and all-­encompassing change in Morisco society. The main message in most Morisco apocalyptic texts is that the Moriscos’ state of unrest was predicted by their Prophet and that hope existed in the ­future redemption of the community. In this way, the aim of the texts is to show the community the “Signs of the Hour” (ashrāt al-­sāʿa) and to make them recognize that the End Times is at hand. But the hortatory message in t­ hese prognostications also calls for the Granadan Morisco community to wake from their negligence and to convert to Islam. As one prognostication warns, “May the dignities of your memory not forget death, for your life is ending and your faults are graver than mountains. Convert to God and do not sleep, for you w ­ ill wake up buried u ­ nder rubble. Stop counting rich gardens, and buildings and crowned and adorned maidens, and recall the greatness of the agitations of the Day of Judgment and the fury of hell, with its fires.”42 According to t­hese texts, the Morisco community had reached their current state of fitna, or civil unrest, b­ ecause they had neglected the law of their Prophet. Their be­hav­ior thus earned them divine retribution. Punishment, and the vio­lence that accompanies it, is central to the prophetic message. The idea of suffering contained in the apocalyptic ḥadīth is theologically consistent with a Qurʾānic conception of suffering. As John Bowker has pointed out in his work on this concept in the Qurʾān, suffering is created by God, but since God is the Merciful and the Compassionate (al-­raḥmān, al-­raḥīm), suffering necessitates a purpose. The purpose of suffering is twofold: it is a punishment for sins, and it can be understood as a trial or a test.43 Reflecting on the idea of suffering as punishment, a weeping Muḥammad explains to his companions in one of the Granadan apocalyptic ḥadīths, “Greed has not appeared among p­ eople without God sending upon them death, nor

40. ​Archivo de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Valencia (ABUV), var. 27/7. 41. ​BNE, Mss. 17890, ff. 379r–380v. 42. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 3, ch. 3. 43. ​John Bowker, “The Prob­lem of Suffering in the Qur’an,” Religious Studies 4, no. 2 (1969): 183–202.

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has usury appeared in buying and selling, or false oaths, ambition or arrogance that God almighty has not punished with wretched illnesses. Never did t­ here appear in a ­family such terrible and public deaths without God delivering and subjecting them to the hands of their enemies.”44 In the text, upon pronouncing t­hese words, the Prophet’s eyes swelled with tears and he wept bitterly, and his companions all accompanied him in his pain. Then the Prophet announced, “When ­these evils appear in this generation, God Almighty ­will subject them to p­ eople who are more evil than they are, who w ­ ill make them 45 endure the cruelest torments.” As t­ hese narratives express, b­ ecause of the sins of the community, Christians have become instruments of God’s disciplinary plan. According to God’s design, Muslims ­will lose po­liti­cal control to the Christians, who ­will take their lands, force them to take up their law, and make them suffer to the point of death. The temporal framework in Morisco eschatology as represented in t­ hese texts is grounded in the paradigm of loss and restoration, which Alain Milhou identified as a characteristic feature of medieval Iberian eschatology.46 ­After the Moriscos have endured the cruelest tortures at the hand of the infidels, God w ­ ill have mercy on the Muslim community, and Islam w ­ ill be restored in the Peninsula. But in this progression, salvation can be pos­si­ble only through external intervention. T ­ hese apocalyptic ḥadīths all agree that God’s mercy ­will be manifest in the arrival of the “Turks” (Ottomans) and the North Africans, who w ­ ill liberate the Moriscos from the Christian yoke and help them regain their power. Order ­will then be restored, and the law of the Prophet w ­ ill rule again in Andalusia. As one prognostication announces, In the year 96 it [Andalusia] w ­ ill be conquered in its entirety, and all its cities w ­ ill be populated, and in them a prince w ­ ill rise, and before this begins, with the agreement of the p­ eople, all citizens w ­ ill populate the countryside, and they w ­ ill sow the earth, and the moment w ­ ill be when a comet appears announcing righ­teousness and liberty. Commotions w ­ ill be appeased, and the ones from Mecca w ­ ill emerge, and the ­enemy of the cruel ­will come from the lands of Ḥijāz, which are in the east in the Kingdoms of Yemen, and he will ­ conquer the lands of Ceuta, Alcázar, and Tangiers, and the land of the Blacks. And with ­g reat armies of Turks he w ­ ill descend in the West, and he w ­ ill conquer its 44. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 3, ch. 3. 45. ​Ibid. 46.  ​Alain Milhou, “Esquisse d’un Panorama ­ de la prophétie messianique en Espagne (1482– 1614),” in La prophétie comme arme de guerre des pouvoirs (XVe–­XVIIe siècles), ed. Augustin Redondo (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2000), 11–29.

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inhabitants, unjust and infidel lords who adore many gods. And the w ­ hole kingdom [of Granada] w ­ ill return to the control of the Messenger of God, and the law w ­ ill be exalted, and the generation of t­hose who adore only one God ­will possess Gibraltar, which was theirs in origin and point of entry, and to them it ­shall return.47 In the apocalyptic narratives that circulated among the rebels during the rebellion, vio­lence and compassion are mediated by God. It is God who has to punish the sinners by sending their enemies to torture and kill them, and He alone decides when the prayers of the community will be heard by sending them a savior.

Mahdism and Millenarianism in the Revolt In an article about millenarianism and the Alpujarras revolt, José Antonio González Alcantud explains that the figure of the Messiah is supposed to unify the prophet and the po­liti­cal leader in one person. However, as González Alcantud rightly explains, in Sunni Islam prophecy is sealed with Muḥammad, and therefore the cycle ends with him. Thus, he argues that ­because the Granadan Moriscos were ­ Sunni, they could not await the arrival of a messianic leader or savior who would hold religious and po­liti­cal power, and who would liberate the community. According to González Alcantud, not only was ­there no possibility for messianism among the Moriscos, but apocalypticism was not a determining f­actor during the uprising of the Alpujarras.48 He explains that even though Hernando de Córdoba y Válor was elected “by way of prophecy,” the religious leadership of the community remained acephalous, since Córdoba y Válor was not considered a religious leader, and he did not pre­sent himself as such. Thus, according to González Alcantud, the Morisco rebellion lacked the figure of the Mahdī (messianic deliverer in Islam). What González Alcantud does not explore is the possibility that the Moriscos could have sought the redemptive figure outside of their community. This is puzzling when we consider the prominence of the Ottomans in ­these apocalyptic prognostications. For example, one ḥadīth states, A big comet w ­ ill appear in the m ­ iddle of the sky, which w ­ ill be very bright, and afterward, the king of the Turks w ­ ill take a city with its ­people and king, and soon ­after he ­will possess the big island of Rhodes, which, possessed by the Moors [Muslims] perpetually, the Christians 47. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 3, ch. 3. 48. ​González Alcantud, “El profetismo y la imposibilidad del milenarismo,” 207.

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­will never be victorious, which is one of the ­g reat signs of this. And the armies of the Christians w ­ ill come to Andalusia and they w ­ ill think of putting an end to its inhabitants, but out of fright many w ­ ill turn to their law [convert to Christianity]. But a­ fter this a friend of truth w ­ ill rise among them, who w ­ ill advise them to rebel with the law of God, and then the crescent of the Turks will ­ come upon the Christians in every ­ city, village and fortress. And there ­ will ­ be three uprisings: the first one w ­ ill be out of fear and loss, the second [on account] of deceit and lies, ­until they bring them to the point of death and defeat, and the third w ­ ill be out of honor and grace, and it w ­ ill be the gateway to take over all cities and kingdoms. From the sea of Daylan [Caspian Sea] to the sea of Marcad, ­until nothing ­else remains or no memory of them or their weeping be heard, and in this way, this Island will ­ be lost and its people ­ will ­ be conquered, and it [the conquest] will ­ pour and descend like rain from the clouds, and any master w ­ ill be slave. May God the Almighty let us see this succession, He who is the greatest Giver [of all].49 This description of the End Times lays out a scenario that helped Moriscos to make sense of their pre­sent and have hope for the f­uture. The prognostication signals three uprisings: the wars that preceded the conquest of Granada between 1482 and 1492; the Mudéjar rebellion in the Albaicín and the Alpujarras in 1499–1500; and the 1568 rebellion in the Alpujarras, which the Moriscos identify as the final apocalyptic b­ attle, and one that with be fought with Ottoman aid. The presence of “the Turks” in this passage is common to many Morisco predictive writings. In this apocalyptic schema of loss and restoration, the Ottomans become a key player, and without them God’s plan on earth cannot be achieved. In this sense, it becomes clear that during the Alpujarras revolt the Granadan Moriscos saw in the figure of the Ottoman sultan the awaited redeemer, a Mahdī figure, who would inaugurate an era of peace in which Islam would reign as the one and true law.50 In the conflict that was being fought in the mountains of the Alpujarras, the Morisco rebels w ­ ere faced with having to rely on logistic and military aid from their Muslim brethren in Ottoman North Africa in order to carry out their po­liti­cal objectives. All con­temporary sources agree that the rebels made the necessary arrangements to ensure that this vital aid would come. To obtain Ottoman and North African aid, the rebels collected money in the dif­fer­ent

49. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 3, ch. 3, my translation. 50. ​Cornell Fleischer has demonstrated that the Ottoman sultan Suleymān was portrayed as the Mahdi. See Fleischer, “Lawgiver as Messiah,” 159–77; Fleischer, “Shadows of Shadows,” 51–62.

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towns of the region to cover expenses of manpower, arms, and ammunitions. They sent letters to the North Africans and the Ottoman sultan requesting aid, and dispatched embassies to speed up the pro­cess. As Luis del Mármol Carvajal explains, the Moriscos sent “pre­sents to the alcaides and alfaquís of Sharīf ʿAbdallāh [the ruler of Morocco] and Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha [governor of Algiers and f­ uture g­ rand admiral of the Ottoman Imperial Navy] so that they could keep them content and persuade them.” According to Mármol, Hernando el Habaquí, a Morisco leader of the revolt, “appointed some morabitos [marabouts, or holy men] as intercessors, so that they would stir him [Ḳılıç ʿAlī] [to aid them] by way of religion; he announced that all Turks and Moors who wanted to go help the Andalusians could do so freely.” The Christian authorities also expected aid to come from Ottoman lands. When the outcome of the rebellion was still uncertain, the king expressed his concern to the ecclesiastical authorities about the possibility of an Ottoman incursion during the summer of 1570, whose target would most likely be La Goleta. Significantly, however, he feared the incursion would be sent “to succor and encourage the rebellious Moriscos of Granada.”51 Philip II suggested that the best course of action to deal with the impending Ottoman threat was “the true remedy of prayer.” He asked the priests to encourage their parishioners to hold continuous prayer sessions, to stage pro­cessions, to do penitence and to fast, all as offerings for a good outcome.52 Around the same time that the king encouraged religious devotions for obtaining divine f­avor, his Morisco translator, Alonso del Castillo, was summoned by Pedro de Deza, president of the Royal Chancery of Granada, to write an anonymous letter to the Morisco rebels in order to sabotage the uprising by dissuading them from continuing to fight.53 In his compilation of all the documents that he was asked to translate as royal interpreter, which he completed in 1575, del Castillo explains that the reason he was asked to write the letter was on account of Deza’s concern for “the g­ reat number of Turks and African Moors that had begun to enter [to aid] the Moorish rebels, to turn them against each other and to break the love they had for each other.”54 Del Castillo composed an anonymous letter purportedly written by an alfaquí or a marabout, with instructions to the community. In his letter, he warned the Morisco rebels not to trust the Ottomans: 51. ​Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona (ACA), CR reg. 4.353, f. 123, cited in Joan Reglà, Estudios sobre los moriscos, 3rd ed. (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1974), 206. 52. ​Ibid. 53. ​He was also responsible for translating the three prophecies published by Mármol Carvajal in his chronicle. 54. ​Castillo, Sumario é recopilacion, 3:1.

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If we keep building our hopes on faint reasons, invalid forces, and vain promises, then we w ­ ill surely be lost, b­ ecause we await the aid of the Turks, and we are sure of it, but we all see clearly that they deceive us and make fun of us and of our ruin; b­ ecause they only wish to take over our property and wealth, and even our w ­ omen, as we have seen them do with our own eyes. And when they have become rich they ­will go to their lands and w ­ ill leave us a­ fter having done much harm and humiliation to us, with the tyranny and evil that is customary among them, and that for a long time it is in their nature and condition. They ­will laugh at us, just as they do ­every day in other places.55 The letter makes reference to the prognostications as the fuel that has kept the fire of the uprising alive. It states that “the other c­ auses that moved us to continue our conquest w ­ ere the promises that the prognostications [i.e., jofores] about this war profess . . . ​which are, in my opinion, neither true nor plenty.”56 One can infer that both del Castillo and his intended audience knew exactly which prognostications the letter was referring to. Therefore, the letter is an attempt to persuade the Moriscos not to believe in prognostications. It does so by invoking Islamic narratives and stating that neither the sunna nor the Qurʾān contain such prognostications. The letter attempts to dissuade its audience on theological grounds, arguing that ­because the Prophet is the “Seal of Prophets,” and that the texts circulating among the Moriscos are not part of the canonical hadīths attributed to the Prophet, the prognostications must be forgeries, and therefore must not be believed in or trusted.57 This episode reveals the contested nature of prophetic and apocalyptic prognostications among the Moriscos, and at the same time sheds light on the crucial nature of this type of discourse in the development of the uprising.

War and Martyrdom in the Alpujarras Fī sabīl Allāh: Martyrdom in Morisco Apocalyptic Discourse Apocalyptic prognostications helped some Moriscos to render their feelings of despair and powerlessness as meaningful, understandable, and explainable. This feature of apocalyptic lit­er­at­ ure is also pre­sent in literary narrations of 55. ​Ibid., 3:3. 56. ​Ibid., 3:7. 57. ​Ibid., 3:10.

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martyrdom experiences, which generate meaning and hope, and furnish consoling support. In fact, a connection can be traced between ideas of martyrdom and apocalyptic prophecies in the context of the rebellion in the Alpujarras. Over the course of the war, both Christians and Moriscos claimed their own martyrs. Yet while the Christian martyrs of the Alpujarras are a well-­known phenomenon, the invocation of martyrdom by the Moriscos during the revolt has been completely overlooked in the historiography. As we s­ hall see, the ideology of martyrdom would become a power­ful motivating force for involvement in the armed conflict. The apocalyptic texts that circulated during the rebellion express the martyrdom mentality deployed by some leaders of the uprising. For example, in a letter sent by the Morisco leader Aben Daud to the heads of the towns of the Alpujarras before the rebellion, he invoked a martyriological discourse to rally his coreligionists to take up arms. Attempting to elicit an emotional response of the Moriscos, he affirmed, “It w ­ ill be better to defend your sons and b­ rothers, and to lift the yoke of servitude from our Kingdom, and to conquer the e­ nemy, and to die in the ser­vice of God, than to go to North Africa, leaving your b­ rothers defenseless; for he who does this and dies, w ­ ill die without reward, and he who lives and kills any Muslim, w ­ ill be judged by God on the day of judgment, and he who dies fighting against the heretics w ­ ill die as a martyr, and he who lives, w ­ ill live honorably.”58 When rumors began to spread about the possibility of a rebellion, many Moriscos de­cided to emigrate from the Iberian Peninsula to North Africa.59 The leaders of the revolt w ­ ere confronted with the possibility of not having enough manpower to face the Christian forces. Martyrdom thus helped articulate the ­imperative to stay and fight, and if necessary to die an honorable death. Additional evidence suggests a close interrelatedness between ideas of martyrdom and Morisco eschatology, and this is further detected in Aljamiado lit­er­at­ ure. John P. Hawkins has identified a coherent theme r­ unning through an Aljamiado manuscript produced in the second half of the sixteenth ­century in Aragon: what he calls a “Morisco philosophy of suffering.”60 Suffering, as Hawkins points out, brings certain benefits, b­ ecause the sufferer receives rewards from God. Building on this idea, it can be inferred that through the suffering of martyrdom that comes with waging holy war against Christians, 58. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, 88, my translation and emphasis. 59.  ​Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Valeriano Sánchez Ramos, Martirios y mentalidad martirial (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2001), 42. See also Joaquín Gil San Juan, “Fugas de moriscos andaluces a Berbería,” Congreso Hispanoafricano de Culturas Mediterráneas, Melilla (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1984), 333–38. 60. ​J. P. Hawkins, “A Morisco Philosophy of Suffering: An Anthropological Analy­sis of an Aljamiado Text,” Maghreb Review 4–5 (1988): 200.

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the Moriscos w ­ ere promised both God’s blessings in the hereafter and military salvation on earth. As we ­will see in the following chapters, the notion of martyrdom was a power­f ul image that s­ haped the Morisco m ­ ental universe. Evidence of this includes the numerous references to martyrdom pre­sent in the Aljamiado apocalyptic prognostications and other texts produced in Aragon in the second half of the sixteenth ­century. In one ḥadīth that mixes Castilian and Arabic phrases, the Prophet reminds the faithful, “On the Day of Judgment, a man of my al-­umma [community of believers] w ­ ill rise in the island of Andalusia from among t­ hose who are waging al-­jihād fī sabīl Allāh.”61 Discussing the concept of martyrdom in Islam, Etan Kohlberg has pointed out that the term martyr (shahīd) refers specifically to those ­ who are killed fī sabīl Allāh (“in God’s path,” i.e., for God or for God’s cause).62 Many Aljamiado prognostications express the idea that Muslims fighting against their Christian enemies do so fī sabīl Allāh, and should therefore be considered martyrs. This is reminiscent of Aben Daud’s appeal to the Moriscos that anyone waging jihād for God would be considered a martyr on the Day of Judgment. In an Aljamiado ḥadīth from Aragon, the Prophet recalls that the angel Gabriel revealed to him in a dream that an island called Andalusia would be conquered, and that “blessed would be the living ones, for the deceased ­will be martyrs.” Note how in ­these narratives the Morisco community as a w ­ hole is identified as “the martyrs of the End of Times.”63 The Prophet goes on to state that guarding the frontier for one night in the wars of the Muslims is dearer to him than the night of Laylat al-­Qadr, the anniversary of the night when the Qurʾān was revealed and the night when, according to Muslim belief, the fate of the believers was de­cided. In the same ḥadīth, the Prophet is having a conversation with ʿUmar ibn al-­Khaṭṭāb, second rashīdūn or “rightly guided caliph,” of the early Islamic community, who asks him about the martyrs of the End Times. The Prophet explains that they will ­ be “those ­ who are the algaribos [Arabic gharīb, pl. ghurabāʾ, “strangers” or “foreigners”) of my umma, who are the inhabitants of the confines of the earth” (i.e., the Moriscos). In this ḥadīth, the term algaribos is a clear reference to the Moriscos. The presence of t­ hese ghurabāʾ or “strangers” in Islamic narratives has as its source a famous ḥadīth of the Prophet that states, “Islam began as a stranger and shall ­ return to being a stranger just as it began. Thus, blessed be the 61. ​The apocalyptic ḥadīths discussed in this section are contained in BnF, Ms. 774. For this section, the original manuscripts have been consulted. They have been transliterated and edited in Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774. 62. ​Etan Kohlberg, Medieval Muslim Views on Martyrdom (Amsterdam: Noord-­Hollansche, 1997). 63. ​For the presence of jihād in Aljamiado lit­er­at­ ure, see Soha Abboud Haggar, “Al-­Gihad según el manuscrito aljamiado de al-­Tafifc de Ibn Ghallab,” Sharq al-­Andalus 12 (1995): 325–38.

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strangers! (badaʾa al-islām gharīban wa sayaʿūdu gharīban kamā badaʾa fa-­ṭūbā li-­l-­ghurabāʾi).”64 Maribel Fierro has argued that to consider oneself a stranger among strangers (­those who shared one’s own dissatisfaction with the present) ­ was a way of expressing the opposition of a minority against the beliefs and ideas of the majority, and of ensuring legitimacy for the transformation of minoritarian views into t­hose of a new majority.65 Fierro’s interpretation of the use of the ḥadīth in medieval al-­Andalus is also revealing for the Mudéjar and Morisco periods. It seems that in their adaptation of the ḥadīth of the ghurabāʾ, the Moriscos w ­ ere aware of the implications of using this term to express dissent. By adapting the famous ḥadīth, the Moriscos could not only express dissatisfaction; they could do so from the perspective of Islamic discourse and through a conventional medium of opposition. In the context of the abovementioned prophetic narrative, the community of believers sees itself not only as ­those original members of the umma but also as the martyrs of the End Times. These ­ messages were ­ meant to encourage the community to resist, for blessings would await them at the End Times. An idea of martyrdom that denotes forbearance (ṣabr) also transpires in ­these texts.66 In the ḥadīths, this type of “passive martyrdom” is tied in Morisco narratives to the notion of guarding the frontier (guardar frontera), of defending the territory both by remaining in the Peninsula and by enduring the suffering of ­those who are forced to live ­under Christian rule.67 The Prophet Muḥammad stresses in ­these texts that “guarding the frontier in Andalusia for only one day and one night is better than twelve completed alhajjes (pilgrimages),” and that “guarding the frontier in Andalusia one night is more advantageous than a martyr rubbing himself with his own blood fī sabīl Allāh.”68 In

64.  ​Cited by Maribel Fierro, “Spiritual Alienation and Politi ­ cal ­ Activism: The Ġurabā’ of al- ­ Andalus during the Sixth/Twelfth C ­ entury,” Arabica 46 (2000): 233. Fierro points out that this ḥadīth is part of the canonical collections of Muslim (d. AH 261/875 CE), al-­Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), and Ibn Māja (d. AH 273/887 CE), and that numerous medieval scholars dealt with this ḥadīth. 65. ​Ibid., 232. 66. ​For more on martyrdom and forbearance, see Asma Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 67. ​Guarding the frontier (guardar la frontera) can have both an active and a passive meaning, and in this par­tic­u­lar text seems to be related to the term ribāṭ, which during the ­Middle Ages acquired the meaning of dwelling on the frontier for the purpose of protecting Muslim lands against the infidel. According to J. Chabbi and N. Rabbat, from this meaning we get “those ­ who aspired to make ribāṭ (the murābiṭūn, to be understood in the new sense would be “­those who dwell on the frontier”).” The latter, according to J. Chabbi and N. Rabbat “would have professed a new type of activism.” ­Later, ­those who dwell on the frontier came to be seen as saints, ṣāliḥūn. J. Chabbi and Nasser Rabbat, “Ribāṭ” EI2, vol. 8 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995): 493–506. 68. ​BnF, Ms. 774, my translation.

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this sense, the status of the Moriscos who decided ­ to stay and endure the hardships of living in conquered land is raised above that of a martyr who fights and dies for God’s cause. Moreover, the rewards of martyrdom are reserved only for ­those who have suffered both physically and morally (like the Moriscos). In the prognostications the Moriscos are able to see themselves as God’s chosen p­ eople, who have been selected to be the ones to receive the promises of paradise at the End Times.69 T ­ oward the end of one of the jofores, the Prophet asks, “How w ­ ill you partake in their rewards [the rewards of the martyrs, i.e., the Moriscos], if you have not endured their strug­gles and horrors?”70 This message was not only pre­sent in the Moriscos’ prognostications; they could refer to the sacred text and recognize themselves in it: T ­ here is a declaration for the p­ eople and a guidance and an admonition for t­hose who fear God. Do not be faint and do not grieve, for you w ­ ill have the upper hand if you are believers. If a wound touches you, a similar wound has already touched the p­ eople [who oppose you]. T ­ hese are the turns of fortune that We deal out in turn amongst the ­people. [We do this] that God may know t­hose who believe and that He may take witnesses from among you—­God does not love the wrong-­doers—­and that God may prove the believers and blot out the unbelievers. Or did you reckon that you would enter the Garden, when God did not yet know which of you strive and not yet know which are steadfast?71 The plight of the Moriscos and the hardships they ­were made to endure ­were God’s blessings for his chosen ­people. Their collective destiny, a destiny of suffering for God’s cause, would bring about the rewards of paradise, but t­ hese would be reserved only for ­those who stayed steadfast in God’s path. This was the message of the prophetic prognostications, a message that had to be transmitted to each and e­ very Morisco of Granada.

Christian Martyrs of the Alpujarras While it is not evident from the sources that during the conflict Christians w ­ ere aware of the Morisco martyrological discourse, it is clear that they interpreted any and all Morisco acts of vio­lence in martyrological terms. As a 69. ​On the motif of God’s chosen ­people as a staple in Muslim, Jewish, and Christian apocalyptic lit­er­a­ture, see García-­Arenal, “Un reconfort.’ ” 70. ​BnF, Ms. 774, my translation. 71. ​Qurʾān, Sūra 3 (The Family ­ of ʿImrān):138–43. Here ­ the term used is shuhadāʾ (witnesses), which also means “martyrs.”

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polemical rhetorical tool, the chroniclers of the rebellion offer detailed and at times gory descriptions of the Moriscos’ vio­lence committed against their Christian opponents. Churches w ­ ere burnt, Christian images destroyed, and clergy members tortured, undressed, and paraded through the streets. Also, b­ ecause churches served as places of refuge for Christians, according to the chroniclers Morisco violence ­ was often directed against those ­ who sought refuge in ­these places, like ­women and ­children. But in most instances vio­lence was expressed in symbolic acts against whom they considered to be the real oppressors, through parodies of the church and its officials. For example, according to the chronicles, during the uprising the rebels would sometimes dress in priestly gowns and celebrate mock masses. With t­ hese acts of ritual vio­lence the rebels avenged what they considered to be offenses perpetrated against them. The images of purported vio­lence against Christian w ­ omen and c­ hildren recorded in the chronicles not only served to vilify the rebels but also provided the necessary evidence on which the martyr myth was based. Especially illustrative of this is the story recorded of a ten-year­ old ­ Christian boy who, watching his ­father die at the hands of the rebels, got on his knees and began to pray, asking God “to give strength to all ­those who wanted die for His holy Catholic faith.” The boy then turned to his m ­ other to say, “May you be constant in the faith of Jesus Christ and die for it, as my f­ather has done.” A ­ fter seeing the child’s stubbornness, the rebels allegedly threatened to kill him if he did not invoke the Prophet Muḥammad. Refusing to do so, as he was being taken to be killed, the boy turned to his m ­ other and said, “Know that all the Christians who die t­ oday are martyrs who have suffered for Jesus Christ and ­will take joy in Him.”72 T ­ here w ­ ere also stories of parents who offered their c­ hildren in sacrifice for God’s cause. In the town of Andarax, for example, a fourteen-­year-­old boy was being dragged away to his death by two Morisco rebels. When the boy asked his m ­ other where they w ­ ere taking him, his m ­ other replied: “Son, to become a martyr! Die for Jesus Christ; blessed are you who ­will soon rejoice, place your faith in Him and do not fear ­dying for such a good man.” Similarly, the chronicler Diego Hurtado de Mendoza reflected on the killings of Christians in the following manner: It was such a g­ reat testimony of our faith, which can be compared to the time of the apostles, who in such g­ reat numbers died at the hands 72. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 4, ch. 16.

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of infidels, and t­here was none (even a­ fter having been prompted and persuaded with security, authority, and riches, and threatening them and carry­ing out threats), who wanted to apostatize; rather, with humility and Christian patience m ­ others comforted their c­ hildren, and c­ hildren [comforted] their mothers, ­ and the priests [comforted] the people, ­ and there ­ were ­ those ­ who offered themselves up more willingly to martyrdom.73 These ­ examples show that Christians most likely invoked the myth of martyrdom during the rebellion. Identification with Christian martyrs soon after ­ the rebellion was contained also suggests that the myth was created early on. Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Valeriano Sánchez Ramos have analyzed the pro­cess of creation of the “martyrs of the Alpujarras” and the implications of this Tridentine-­inspired propaganda for the repopulation of the area that followed the Moriscos’ expulsion from the Kingdom of Granada in 1570.74 The authors show that to be a descendant of a “martyr” became a distinctive marker in the postwar society of the Alpujarras, which was displayed as an instrument for social advancement. During the process ­ of repopulating the Alpujarras that occurred a­ fter the expulsion, the descendants of t­ hese Christian “martyrs” petitioned to the king for aid and alms to compensate for their destroyed property. They did so by appealing to the images of torture and vio­lence that their f­amily members endured when the rebels stripped them of their possessions. During the Alpujarras revolt, Christians and Moriscos alike appealed to martyrdom in an effort to shape and define their own community vis-­à-­vis “the other.” Both camps raised their martyrs and exalted the virtues of martyrdom in a polemical move to prove that God was on their side. In this sense, the “martyrial myth” and the “identity myth” of apocalyptic prophecies fulfill similar functions and are intimately linked. But martyrdom also played a fundamental role in the internal dynamics of both communities; while the Granadan Christians invoked their martyrs to stake their claims against other Christian newcomers during the pro­cess of repopulation, in the Morisco case martyrdom was a call to action to all t­ hose who w ­ ere wavering between the safety of exile and the strug­gles of fighting what appeared to be—­and ultimately was—­a lost war.

73. ​Hurtado de Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, 142. 74. ​Barrios Aguilera and Sánchez Ramos, Martirios y mentalidad martirial, 63–83.

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Prophecy and Commitment: The Prob­lem of Morisco Identity Scholarship on the Alpujarras revolt has tended to describe the Moriscos of Granada as falling into two categories: “participants” and “collaborators.” In this way, ­those who participated in the conflict behaved as au­then­tic crypto-­ Muslims: they expressed their open contempt for Christians. ­Those who abstained from participating in the rebellion, or who “collaborated” with Christian authorities (whether ­ actively or passively), have been charged as “traitors” in the historiography.75 In this reading, a Morisco identity is taken for granted. Moreover, in this schema Morisco identity is defined, above all, by religion. Many scholars have assumed that most Moriscos belonged to the first group, the crypto-Muslims, ­ and thus the politi ­ cal, ­ social, and literary history of the Moriscos has tended to be viewed within a narrative of doctrinal polemic (to use the language of one scholar) and even as a clash of civilizations.76 A closer look at the attitudes of the Moriscos during the rebellion and the discourses they deployed, however, reveals a more complex society. Moreover, this moment of conflict exposes a process ­ through which the Morisco rebels w ­ ere attempting to define themselves not only against their Christian counter­parts but also within the Morisco community. The prophecies that circulated during the war ­were meant not only to define the identity of the rebels fundamentally as Muslim but also to appeal to dif­ferent ­ ele­ ments within Granada’s Morisco society, including t­hose unconvinced about joining the rebellion, with a language that they all understood and shared. In this way, through the discourse of prophecy, the leaders of the Morisco rebellion sought to create what they felt was a fragmented Muslim community anew. By using a language that was intelligible to all, the rebels attempted to reach out to t­ hose Morisco ele­ments that had not identified with them. This language became so entrenched in the Moriscos’ understanding of the conflict that nearly seventy years a­ fter the rebellion, in 1637, a Morisco refugee writing in Tunis named Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Ghānim referred to the event in his book Kitāb al-­ʿIzz wa al-­manāfiʿ li-­l-­mujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-­ālāt al-­ḥurūb wa al-madāfiʿ (Book of Strength and Benefits for the Holy Warriors Fighting in the Cause of God with the Tools of War and Cannons) as the moment

75. ​See Sánchez Ramos, “Los moriscos que ganaron la Guerra”; and Javier Fernández Castillo, “El sacerdote morisco Francisco de Torrijos.” 76. ​See Cardaillac, Morisques et Chrétiens; Fernand Braudel, “Conflits et refus de civilization: Espagnols et morisques au XVIe siècle,” Annales 2 (1947): 397–410.

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of Qīyāma or Judgment Day.77 While it is unlikely that Ibn Ghānim participated in the uprising, it must be noted that the memory of the revolt continued to be understood within an eschatological paradigm, confirming the power of apocalyptic ideology during and ­after the event. When the religious ele­ment was introduced in the Alpujarras revolt, the characteristics of each side, as Julio Caro Baroja acutely pointed out, became exaggerated to the point of being caricaturized. As he bluntly contended, “The Moor became more Moor, and the Christian became more Christian,” at least in the exteriorization of their beliefs.78 In this moment of perceived threat to their collective identity, the members of this newly converted community responded in dif­fer­ent ways. First came identification with the past: the memory of Muslim domination of the Kingdom of Granada and the idea of regaining politi ­ cal ­ power became a powerful ­ image. But the conquest of Granada, a foundational moment for the Morisco community, had a special eschatological significance not only for the Granadan Moriscos but also for the Moriscos of the other Spanish kingdoms. The idea of loss and restoration was the framework within which many Moriscos w ­ ere able to understand their experience of loss of po­liti­cal power and religious practice, and ultimately the loss of their identity. The memory of having had sovereignty over the territory that they ­were desperately trying to defend found its language of expression through that eschatological schema. The introduction of religious symbols—­discourses of martyrdom and the apocalypse, with their promises of final redemption—­became particularly appealing at this juncture. ­Because collective action is pos­si­ble only if ­there is a final end or a promise of redemption, the discourse of martyrdom expressed in apocalyptic prognostications was the ideal medium for this redemptive message.79 The fighting martyr, one who actively seeks death “in the path of God” not only obtains rewards in the afterlife but also, and more importantly, acts out God’s plan for humanity. If God’s promise is one of restoration, then anyone who engages in armed re­sis­tance becomes a witness (shahīd), living proof of God’s redemptive plan. Moreover, by choosing suffering and death for a cause, the martyr becomes an example for the rest of the community. This seems to have been of par­tic­ u­lar importance during the Alpujarras revolt.

77.  Ibn Ghānim, “Kitāb al-­ʿIzz wa al-­manāfiʿ li-­l-­mujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-­l-­madāfiʿ,” in ʿAbd al-­ Majīd al-­Turkī, “Wathāʾiq ʿan al-hijrat ­ al-Āndalusīyah ­ ilā Tūnis,” Ḥawliyāt al-­Jāmiʿa al-­Tūnisīyah 4 (1967): 65. 78. ​Caro Baroja, Los moriscos del Reino de Granada, 148. 79. ​See Pizzorno, “Politics Unbound.”

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It is apparent from the chronicles that not all Granadan Moriscos ­were willing to fight. Many Moriscos of the towns and neighboring villages of the Alpujarras ­were dragged into the war by force; that is, the rebels forced them to engage in acts of vio­lence. ­Others, especially ­those living in seignorial lands, w ­ ere forced to join the rebel camp a­ fter suffering harassment from Christian soldiers.80 Other Moriscos, as Mármol Carvajal relates, threw themselves off cliffs in order not to be killed by Christians.81 T ­ here w ­ ere also t­ hose who de­cided to emigrate to North Africa to escape the war. As we have seen, Aben Daud said that they would die without rewards. The emphasis on bearing witness could have possibly been aimed at t­hose who w ­ ere indecisive about participating. Bearing witness is both active and passive: Muslims should be living testimony for the rest of the community, but shahīds can also be called on to bear testimony against other Muslims at the time of the Day of Judgment. Thus, by appealing to the discourse of martyrdom and setting the example and putting themselves in a position of authority over the rest of the community, the rebels could possibly find new sympathizers for the cause. Also, both the apocalyptic and the martyrdom discourses made a distinction between true believers and the enemies of the community: t­ hose who w ­ ere the objects of vio­lence and t­ hose who w ­ ere worthy of compassion. It seems that in this context martyrdom and apocalypticism became means by which some Moriscos of Granada could articulate an ideological reconstruction of a desirable form of society. But t­ here was yet another group of Moriscos that seems to have been uncompromised by the rebellion or uninvolved in the Islamic cause. ­These ­were the ones who, in the most ideologically charged situations, tended to avoid all confrontation with authority, of what­ever kind, yet they still seem to have played some kind of role during the rebellion. They ­were mainly Moriscos of noble lineage, like Núñez Muley, as well as doctors, translators, and priests. The Moriscos of royal lineage had served as intermediaries between the Christian authorities and the Morisco masses since the beginning of the sixteenth century. ­ They could represent the community if the situation called for it, but they also wanted to protect their privileges as nobles. These ­ Moriscos wanted both to fuse with the majority through various ­ means, like mixed marriages, external forms of religiosity, and entry to military o­ rders, and to preserve what they perceived as the essential aspects of their identity, their 80. ​Ricardo Ruiz Pérez, “El levantamiento morisco en tierras de señorío: El caso del marquesado de Cenete,” Chronica Nova 19 (1991): 316. 81. ​A similar image is depicted in one of the paintings of the expulsion respresenting the uprising of Moriscos in the Muela de Cortes in Valencia in 1609, painted by Vicente Mestre (1613), where Moriscos are seen hurling themselves off cliffs.

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Arab culture. It would seem that the ideology b­ ehind the apocalyptic prognostications, with its message of martyrdom and redemption (which perhaps was directed precisely at ­those “disengaged” Moriscos) did not have its desired effect. In 1588, as the minaret of the old g­ rand mosque of Granada (turned cathedral a­ fter the Christian conquest of the city) was being demolished during renovations, a metal box containing several fragments of bones, a parchment with the Apocalypse of John, and a piece of cloth used by the Virgin Mary to dry her tears during her son’s passion were ­ discovered. By 1595–99 other human ­ remains, along with twenty-­two circular lead tablets had been discovered in some caves in a mountain of Valparaíso, renamed the Sacromonte (the Sacred Mount). Some of the tablets w ­ ere interpreted as a gospel revealed by the Virgin Mary to be divulged in Spain. These ­ findings pointed to the existence of the martyr St. Cecil, a Christian Arab who had accompanied St. James on his way to Spain. The tablets claim to have been inscribed by Arabic-­speaking Christians during the Roman period, and they appear to have been written in Arabic and Latin. Such a discovery could prove that the first Christians of Spain ­were in fact Arabs, and that Arabic was an ancient language of the Iberian Peninsula.82 This discovery stirred not only the p­ eople of Granada, but also the rest of Spain and beyond its borders.83 The bishop of Granada, Pedro de Castro, who was an ardent supporter of the findings, assembled a group of translators to decipher the parchment and the tablets. Among those ­ translators was the Morisco Alonso del Castillo. The authenticity of the discovery was also staunchly supported by some prominent Moriscos who had been allowed to stay in Granada ­after the expulsion of the New Christians from the city in 1570, but it was attacked by many as fabrications. By 1642 the lead tablets ­were sent to Rome, where in 1682 they w ­ ere condemned as forgeries by the Vatican.84 82. ​Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco has argued that the lead books constitute a historical and historiographical phenomenon without prece ­ dent. ­ Scholarship on them is vast, and includes Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, “Mesianismo y milenarismo morisco: Los plomos del Sacromonte en la interpretación del Jesuita Ignacio de las Casas,” in Alvar Ezquerra et al., Política y cultura en la época moderna, 635–44; Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Mercedes García-­Arenal, eds., Los Plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y tesoro (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2006); and ¿La historia inventada? Los libros plúmbeos y el legado sacromontano, eds., Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Mercedes García-­Arenal (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2008). 83. ​For the repercussions of the lead books in Christian Granada, see A. Katie Harris, From Muslim to Christian Granada: Inventing a City’s Past in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). 84. ​For more on forgeries in early modern Spain and Eu­rope, see Katrina B. Olds, Forging the Past: In­ven­ted Histories in Counter-­Reformation Spain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015); and Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ ton University Press, 1990).

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The tablets remained in Rome u ­ ntil the year 2000, when they w ­ ere returned to the abbey of the Sacromonte. Recent scholarship has almost unanimously concluded that the Turpiana parchment, along with the tablets and the rest of the findings, w ­ ere the invention of the Moriscos Alonso del Castillo and Miguel de Luna. Although we cannot dedicate space h­ ere for the analy­sis of the lead tablets or a discussion of the vast scholarship on the subject, it is worth mentioning some interpretations of the religious and po­liti­cal messages, at least of the parchment prophecy.85 In addition to an apocalyptic message, t­here is a Castilian portion of the prophecy that announces that the Protestant Reformation and Islam, Catholic Spain’s two greatest enemies, would be destroyed.86 As van Koningsveld and Wiegers have noted, not all the translators agreed with this interpretation; for example, the Morisco translator Aḥmad al-­Ḥajarī did not accept the anti-­Islamic message of the prophecy. Al-­Ḥajarī interpreted the document from the perspective of Islamic theology as one of the first authen ­ tic ­ Christian testimonies of the truth of the message of Islam.87 But as the authors also note, the prophecy had an impor­tant symbolic message: the Christians of first-­century Granada w ­ ere writing in Arabic as well as Castilian. The forgeries w ­ ere intended to pre­sent a Catholicism that tolerated, and in fact celebrated Spain’s Arab past. It seems, then, that through ­these discoveries the Moriscos would be able to restate the claims brought forth by Núñez Muley to the president of the Royal Chancery of Granada in response to the Pragmatic of 1567: that Christian identity and Arab identity could be compatible.88 Assuming, as most scholars have, that the affair of the lead tablets was a Morisco invention, what would this tell us about this par­tic­u­lar group of Moriscos? How was it that the discourses on prophecies and martyrdom deployed during the Alpujarras revolt had no effect in moving this group, but were ­later taken up and reformulated in an Arabo-­Christian light? The Morisco rebels ­were attempting to defend their cultural expressions, and in that pro­cess their religious identity not only became magnified, it became the medium through which their identity was expressed and re-­created. In the case of the Morisco supporters of the trea­sures of the Sacromonte, the only way to preserve and exalt their Arab identity was by establishing the Arabic language as the primordial medium of expression of the Christian religion (­whether this neces85. ​For a detailed study of the parchment, see P. S. van Koningsveld and G. A. Wiegers, “El Pergamino de la Torre Turpiana: el documento original y sus primeros intérpretes,” in Barrios Aguilera and García-­Arenal, Los Plomos del Sacromonte, 113–40. 86. ​Ibid., 132. 87. ​Ibid., 118. 88. ​For an analy­sis of this question see García-­Arenal and Rodríguez Mediano, Orient in Spain.

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sarily made them true Christians or not is irrelevant). W ­ hether it was to re-­create an Islamic past or to defend an Arab identity that could be accommodated to a Christian environment, discourses of martyrdom and prophecy w ­ ere shared discursive fields between Islam and Chris­tian­ity, and thus w ­ ere spaces through which all Moriscos could navigate comfortably. The Sacromonte findings can also be situated within the context of a rich topic that had been developing in Spain since the mid-­sixteenth ­century: the concern for the origins of Spain.89 A trend of falsification of chronicles, archaeological findings, and genealogies had developed, which served not only to offer proofs of g­ reat ancient pasts, but also to confirm the authenticity of a glorious sacred history. It is within this context of sacred and providential history that the jofores of the Moriscos must be understood. In this sense, the prophetic prognostications that circulated during the Alpujarras rebellion presented a vision of history that drew from the ancient past of al-­Andalus, one that presented the Moriscos with a potentially glorious ­f uture. In conclusion, Morisco identity was a complex web in which religious, linguistic, economic, and perhaps even ethnic elements ­ were ­ entangled with cultural and historical f­actors whose centers of reference w ­ ere at times contradictory, and therefore contested. Thus, this identity should not be defined exclusively through a description of actions: in this case the decision to rebel or not. Rather, Morisco identity must be sought in the meanings that the actors gave to their actions, which implies an analy­sis of culture, ideology, and emotions. The Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras can be seen as an attempt by a group of Granadan Moriscos to reestablish Islam in the Peninsula. It can also be understood as an internal strug­gle of the community between ele­ ments that w ­ ere concerned with Islamization and t­hose who advocated for integration into the dominant Christian culture. As the circulation of jofores during the rebellion and the l­ater forgery of the lead tablets demonstrate, in this pro­cess prophecy was an articulator of a Morisco identity, what­ever that identity might have been, Islamic or Arabo-­Christian.

89. ​Mercedes García-­Arenal, “El entorno de los Plomos: historiografía y linaje,” in Barrios Aguilera and García-­Arenal, Los Plomos del Sacromonte, 54. For a study on the origins of the Spanish language, see Kathryn A. Woolard, “Bernardo de Aldrete and the Morisco Prob­lem: A Study in Early Modern Spanish Language Ideology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 3 (2002): 446–80.

Ch a p te r 3

Ottoman Rome Apocalyptic Prophecies in the Mediterranean (1570–1580)

Martín Mayo was a Morisco, most likely a peasant living in a village called Morés, thirty-­seven miles west of Zaragoza, the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, which was situated close to an impor­tant trade route of the Iberian Peninsula. Martín had been born a Muslim in 1513. When he was thirteen years old, he was forcibly baptized, and a­ fter that he had lived, at least officially, as a Christian. We know very l­ittle about him, except that in 1578, at the age of sixty-­five, he was denounced by some of his neighbors before the Inquisition for secretly practicing Islam. The accusers brought to the Inquisition testimonies that portrayed Mayo not only as an apostate of the Catholic faith but also as a traitor to his king, Philip II. T ­ hese accusations carried much weight in the uneasy aftermath of the devastating Morisco revolt in the Alpujarras mountains of Granada between 1568 and 1570. According to his neighbors, the man had been commenting, in public, on certain strange prophecies that announced that the Ottoman sultan would soon conquer Rome and feed his h­ orse hay and barley at the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.1 The sultan (presumably Murād III, r. 1574–95) would then come to Spain and w ­ ater his h­ orse in a fountain in Calatayud, a town just a few miles up the river from Mayo’s own village of Morés. We cannot be sure about what scared his Christian neighbors more, the image of a fallen Catho1. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 361r. 100

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lic Rome or the idea that the sultan would come to their village mounted on his h­ orse. But what is certain is that t­hese prophecies presented a vision of universal Ottoman rule and the restoration of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula. T ­ hese allusions to Rome and the Ottoman Empire demand an analytical approach that transcends the Iberian Peninsula. Only by placing ­these Morisco voices, which are just faint echoes in the inquisitorial material, in a wider Mediterranean context can we make sense of the significance of apocalyptic prophecies for the Moriscos of the post-­Alpujarras revolt period. As this chapter shows, prophecies and apocalyptic prognostications continued to be central to the articulation of po­liti­cal ideas for t­ hose Moriscos who sought to protect their local rights and privileges at a moment of increasing exercise of inquisitorial authority over the affairs of the Moriscos ­after the rebellion in the Alpujarras. Yet in contrast to ­those scholars for whom inquisitorial sources are fundamentally problematic, such that they call into question the study of Morisco rebellion conspiracies or cast the idea of Moriscos’ seditious activities as nothing more than the product of the Inquisition’s paranoid imagination, a Mediterranean perspective on the study of Morisco prophecies sheds light on the potentiality of prophecy as a medium for social and po­liti­cal cohesion and mobilization. Moreover, a perspective that moves beyond the bound­aries of the Iberian Peninsula illuminates the provenance of prophecies like the one described by Martín Mayo and allows us to trace their journeys across and around the M ­ iddle Sea. Taking the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia as points of departure, and broadening the focus to the Mediterranean, this chapter underscores not only the intense circulation of prophecies and prognostications but also the shared nature of apocalyptic expressions in the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury.2 Drawing from a trove of apocalyptic material from the Iberian Peninsula, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire, the chapter brings attention to the centrality of the Ottomans in early modern Mediterranean prophecies both as chastisers of a corrupt Christendom and, more impor­tant, as restorers of universal peace. In ­these accounts Rome is the epicenter from which universal order ­will be reinstated before the End Times, and the Ottoman sultan is a messianic figure of sorts who ­will bring justice to the world. A comparative and connected approach to prophecies that stems from a Mediterranean focus forces us rethink characterizations of Moriscos as hapless victims of inquisitorial efforts to extract confessions. Rather, as this chapter demonstrates, tracing the provenance of Morisco prophecies in the period a­ fter the Alpujarras revolt draws 2. ​For a similar study of circulation of prophecies in the eastern Mediterranean in the first half of the sixteenth ­century, see Fleischer, “Mediterranean Apocalypse.”

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attention to the role of Moriscos as active agents in the intellectual and po­liti­ cal life of the Mediterranean.

The War of Granada and the Postconflict Climate in Aragon and Valencia The excitement over the Alpujarras revolt reverberated throughout Morisco towns and villages in Valencia and Aragon. According to a letter sent by the inquisitors of Zaragoza, Joan de Llano de Valdés and Diego de Valcárcel, to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition in Madrid on January 29, 1569, as the rebellion raged in the south, “the newly converted [Moriscos] of this kingdom [Aragon] are and have been restless for some time, ­because they trust that the Turk would send an armada to ­these parts and that this land would once again be Muslim.”3 As had their Granadan counter p­ arts, the Aragonese Moriscos had been paying close attention in the previous decades ­ to Ottoman movements in the Mediterranean. According to the inquisitors, they had rejoiced and stored arms and flour ­after the Ottoman navy laid siege to Malta in 1565, which they w ­ ere convinced would be followed by an incursion into the Iberian coasts. For the inquisitors the greatest proof of the Moriscos’ desire to take up arms was that, ­after “seeing the uprising that the Moriscos of the Kingdom of Granada have staged, we believe that they [the Moriscos of Aragon] have sent some [men] to the Kingdoms of Valencia and Granada to find out what is happening, and within this kingdom [Aragon] they send [one another] letters with news about what they know.”4 By January 1570, despite the fact that the fighting in Granada and its nearby mountains had abated, the situation was not yet resolved. As with all t­ hings Ottoman, Venice was the center of rumor and intelligence regarding the sultan’s movements, and in times of such uncertainty the eyes of the Spanish authorities turned toward ­ La Seren ­ is­ sima. ­ On January  17, while it was still unclear ­whether the Ottomans would reach Spanish shores, a man by the name of Julian López informed the Spanish Council of State that the Signoria (the Venetian Senate) had sent one thousand men to Cyprus in preparation for an Ottoman invasion.5 A week later ­ López once again wrote from Venice to inform the council about certain letters sent to Venice from Constantinople that confirmed the chatter about a g­ reat Ottoman armada in support of the 3. ​British Library (BL), Egerton Ms. 1310, f. 139. 4. ​Ibid. 5. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1323, doc. 3.

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Moriscos of Granada (en ­favor de los moros de Granada) and about the meetings of an Ottoman courier (chaus, or Turkish çavuş) in France to secure ports for that enterprise.6 Further proof of the connections between the Alpujarras and Istanbul came on January 30, when Diego Guzmán de Silva, Spanish ambassador to Venice, wrote to the Council of State about two Spanish renegades who ­were coming from Istanbul to Spain via France in order to convey a message to the Moriscos from the Sublime Porte that if they could hold out u­ ntil springtime, the Ottoman navy (l’Armata Turchesca) would come to succor and aid them.7 Fear of a pos­si­ble Ottoman incursion into Spain was still being discussed in May 1570. It was echoed by the Venetian ambassador in Madrid, Leonardo Donà, who wrote to the Senate on May 11, 1570, from Seville stating that ­there was talk everywhere of the Ottoman armada being destined not for Cyprus but rather for Spain. He was unsure about the exact location of the armada, but he stated that even if it went to Algiers only, with the movement of the Morisco rebels in Granada, which would surely be followed by an uprising of the Valencian Moriscos, Spain would find itself in g­ reat trou­ble.8 The idea of a foreign-sponsored ­ domestic insurrection was not an unknown phenomenon in this Mediterranean context, as Spanish authorities w ­ ere well aware.9 For instance, five months a­ fter Donà warned about the possibility of the Ottomans assisting the Moriscos in the Alpujarras, he wrote to the Senate with a most intriguing piece of information. A man called Georgeos 6. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1327, doc. 6. For a recent publication on the role of spies in the Mediterranean, see the essays collected in ¿Si fuera cierto? Espías y agentes en a frontera (siglos XVI–XVII), ­ ed. Gennaro Varriale (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá, 2018), esp. Emrah Safa Gürkan, “Desinformación y rumores en Estambul en el comienzo de la Guerra de Chipre (1569–1570),” 47–62; and Séverine Valiente, “Fronteras y espionaje entre españoles y otomanos en el siglo XVI: El protagonismo de las Islas Egeas,” 63–80. See also Emrah Safa Gürkan, “Espionage in the 16th-­Century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-Betweens ­ and the Ottoman-Habsburg ­ Rivalry” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2012); Emrah Safa Gürkan, “L’idra del Sultano. Lo spionaggio ottomano nel cinquecento,” Mediterranea: Ricerche Storiche 13 (2016): 447–76. 7. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1499, docs. 189 and 190; AGS, Estado, Leg. 1226, doc. 126. 8. ​Dispacci Senato, VII, no. 76, in Dispacci Ambasciatori, 21. 9. ​Braudel had already hinted at t­ hese insurrections in his Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper and Row, 1973). For more on foreign- ­ sponsored rebellions of Greek subjects of the Ottomans, see José Manuel Floristán Imízcoz, “Felipe II y la empresa de Grecia tras Lepanto (1571–78),” Erytheia: Revista de estudios bizantinos y neogriegos 15 (1994): 155–90; and the indispensable work by the same author, Fuentes para la política oriental de los Austrias: la documentación griega del Archivo de Simancas (1571–1621) (León: Universidad de León, 1988). For an overview of t­ hese Greek insurrection attempts on the eve of Lepanto, see Iōannēs K. Chasiōtēs, Oi Ellines stis paramones tēs navmachias tēs Naupaktou: ēkklēsies, epanastatikes kinēseis kai exegerseis stēn Ellēnikē chersonēso apo tis paramones ōs to telos tou Kypriakou polemou (1568–1571) (Thessaloniki: Hetaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn, 1970). I am grateful to Dr. Nikolas Pissis for bringing this impor­tant work in Greek to my attention. For similar enterprises in the Mediterranean, see also Noel Malcolm, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits, and Spies in the Sixteenth–­Century Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

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Meizoteros—­also known as Zorzi Misotaro, Jorge Mizetero, and Zorzi Grilo—­ had arrived at the Spanish court seeking an audience with Philip II.10 He remained in Madrid from mid-June  ­ 1570 until ­ at least May  1571. A Venetian subject in the ser­vice of the Spanish king, the man was born in the former Venetian Peloponnesian seaport town of Nafplio. A ­ fter serving the Spanish monarchy in Flanders, Meizoteros traveled around the Morea to assess an Ottoman armada stationed in the area. He had gone to Genoa, and then, in June 1570, to Sicily, where he reported to the marquis of Pescara and to Gianandrea Doria, who promptly informed the Council of State regarding the Ottomans’ whereabouts in a letter dated June 18, 1570.11 Meizoteros reported having seen more than 150 galleys of the Ottoman armada in Negroponte, as well as the number of Ottoman ships, men, and arms. He claimed to have found all around the Morea a majority of well-­disposed Christians who would be ready to rebel (sollevarsi) in exchange for arms and military leadership. More impor­tant, they would be willing to pay to any Mediterranean power that would help liberate them from that infidel tyranny (da quella tirannia infidele).12 This was not the only plot brewing in the eastern Mediterranean. Right around the same time, in June 1570, an Albanian man named Pedro Chucharo was attempting to negotiate, though a Spanish contact in Milan, aid to the region of Himara or Chimarra in southern Albania.13 He requested the sum of 300 ducats, and, more importantly, 2,000 harquebuses, 2,000 pikes, and 200 veteran Spanish soldiers to command more than 15,000 men on h­ orses who w ­ ere ready to receive o­ rders.14 The man claimed that p­ eople of the region ­were determined to rebel against the Ottomans and take Philip II as king and lord. The reasoning b­ ehind this was that the success of both t­ hese insurrections in Greece and Albania could make Philip II a world monarch (monarca del mundo), while “favoring ­those Christian slaves,” that is, the Christian Ottoman subjects.15 In December the king wrote to Gabriel de la Cueva, duke of

10. ​Leonardo Donà, Corrispondenza da Madrid dell’ambasciatore Leonardo Donà (1570–1573), ed. Mario Brunetti and Eligio Vitale (Venice: Istituto per la Collaborazione Culturale, 1963), 1:132–33. 11. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1399, doc. 55. See also the same account as transmitted by the Spanish ambassador to Genoa, Diego Guzmán de Silva, AGS, Estado, Leg. 1399, doc. 54. 12. ​Donà, Corrispondenza da Madrid, 132. 13. ​AGS, Estado Leg. 1214, docs. 139, 140, 144, 148, 149, 152; Leg. 1231, doc. 10; and Leg. 1232, doc. 15. For a detailed study of contacts between the region of Chimarra with Rome and the Kingdom of Naples between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries, see J. M. Floristán Imizcóz, “Los contactos de la Chimarra con el Reino de Napoles durante el siglo XVI y comienzos del XVII, I,” Erytheia 11–12 (1990–91): 105–39; J. M. Floristán Imizcóz, “Los contactos de la Chimarra con el Reino de Napoles durante el siglo XVI y comienzos del XVII, II,” Erytheia 13 (1992): 53–87. 14. ​AGS, Estado Leg. 1214, doc. 139. ( June 1, 1570). 15. ​AGS, Estado Leg. 1214, doc. 143.

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Albuquerque and governor of the Duchy of Milan, instructing him to give Chucharo the 300 ducats, and to oversee the enterprise, which should be done in the strictest secrecy, and to keep him abreast of any developments.16 Returning to the Greek insurrection plot, on his way from Italy to Spain Meizoteros s­topped in Milan, where not only did he discuss the insurrection plans, but he provided information that shed light on the current mood in the region. He reported a super­natural event in which three suns had appeared in the region of the Morea. This phenomenon, also known as parhelia, was commonly interpreted in the early modern period as “an indication of approaching g­ reat sufferings and the Day of Judgment.”17 It could, however, also be seen as announcing a universal peace, “a kind of millennium, before the return of Christ.”18 This was precisely the meaning Meizoteros gave to the event he had witnessed in his native Morea. According to him, people ­ interpreted this to mean that Philip II would become emperor of Greece and Trabzon, the capital of the Empire of Trebizond in Pontus (northeast Anatolia), whose rulers also considered themselves emperors of Rome. This prognostication could only indicate one t­ hing: that the country would rise against the Ottomans and that they would succeed, making Philip II “emperor of Constantinople.”19 Regarding the preparations, Ambassador Donà wrote to the Venetian Senate again on January 19, 1571, ­after Meizoteros sent a memorandum to Philip II. The dispatch was received by the king’s secretary Antonio Pérez, and was to be reviewed by the Council of State.20 As the ambassador explained to the Signoria, Meizoteros was trying to obtain licenses to go to the Morea to agitate the Christians into rebelling against the Ottomans on behalf of Philip II.21 The plan was to be executed in the following manner: The Spaniards would send 50,000 lightweight lances (cinquanta mille lancie alla leggiera), 50,000 spears (cinquanta mille stocchi), and 50,000 pairs of spurs (cinquanta mille para di speroni) to the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos). The arms would l­ater be transported into the Morea through Porto delle Quagie, or Kaliyon. The inhabitants of the Morea requested permission to loot the properties of Ottomans and Jews following the uprisings, and they promised to pay a hefty price for the much-­needed assistance.22 Philip II was certainly intrigued by

16. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1227, doc. 140. 17. ​Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, The Four Horse­men of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Eu­rope (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 75. 18. ​Ibid., 76. 19. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1214, doc. 143. 20. ​Donà, Corrispondenza da Madrid, 185. 21. ​Ibid. 22. ​Ibid., 186.

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Meizoteros’s proposition, as can be gleaned from the dispatch minutes to his then ambassador to Genoa, Diego Guzmán de Silva.23 Yet despite this enthusiasm, the insurrection plan against the Ottomans on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean never materialized. Closer to home, as the Ottoman threat loomed on the horizon, the Spanish authorities still had a watchful eye on the Moriscos’ hopes for Ottoman assistance. Among crypto-­Muslim Moriscos in Aragon, news of Ottoman movements in the Mediterranean was being interpreted within their normative po­liti­cal paradigm, which was articulated in an apocalyptic key. On September 9, 1570, the Dominican friar Miguel Pinedo wrote to the tribunal of Zaragoza with the warning that the Aragonese Moriscos ­were plotting “treasons against the Gospel, the Faith, and against his Majesty, . . . ​basing their intentions on vain prophecies that circulate among them.”24 Fr. Pinedo’s suspicions coincided with information gathered by the Aragonese inquisitors just two months e­ arlier. On July 6, 1570, a Morisco by the name of Miguel Vela, from the village of Villafeliche, appeared in the auto de fe in Zaragoza, accused of “living as a Moor.” He confessed that, one day, while speaking with other Moriscos about the feats of his coreligionists in Granada, “the Turk [the Ottomans] had gathered his prophets (profetas) and they had discovered in their law [in the religious books] that the Moriscos would all rise on a certain day.” He affirmed that to date, every­thing that was written had already taken place: the Moriscos of Granada had indeed taken up arms. He also stated, “If a certain person ­were alive, the Turks and the Lutherans would have joined to slit the throats of t­hese evil traitors [Old Christian Spaniards] who live in lands that their ancestors borrowed.”25 The identity of this unknown deceased person is not stated in the sources, but the presence of the Ottomans and French Huguenots, as we w ­ ill see in subsequent chapters, was central to the apocalyptic scenarios of t­hese Moriscos. Moreover, the idea that the Aragonese shared the seditious ambitions of their brethren in Granada was confirmed through testimonies of other Moriscos. For example, a Morisco from the Aragonese village of Daroca named Miguel Aquen provided additional proof to the inquisitors that the Moriscos of Aragon w ­ ere acting in connivance with the rebels in Granada. U ­ nder torture, Aquen confessed about letters written by Moriscos of the Aragonese cities of Daroca, Calanda, Huesca, and of the villages of Villafeliche, Sabiñán, and Huesa, which he had been entrusted to

23. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1400, doc. 88. 24. ​Pascual Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión, facs. ed. (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1992), 1:274. 25. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 88v.

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deliver in two mountain towns in the Alpujarras.26 When pressed to reveal what he knew, Aquen stated that he had heard in several Morisco towns of Aragon “that the Turk would come with his artillery, and that since the Moriscos were ­ so afraid of the Inquisition, they wanted to lead the kingdom to rebellion.”27 He added that the Moriscos of Aragon and Castile w ­ ere ready to rise up against King Philip II “and inflict all the harm they can upon Christendom, and to take over the kingdom if the Turk comes with his army.”28 The cases discussed ­here demonstrate that the possibility of the Ottomans and the Spanish meddling in each other’s internal politics was very real. ­These conspiracies ­were manifestations of a much larger po­liti­cal real­ity underpinned by the ongoing imperial competition in the Mediterranean. However, what happened next suggests that the large imperial blocs chose to engage with each other directly instead of fighting through proxies. They did this not in a ­simple microconflict but rather at the ­Battle of Lepanto, where the mighty Ottoman navy faced the Holy League, a co­ali­tion of Christian powers from around the Mediterranean, and suffered g­ reat defeat. As we w ­ ill see, the B ­ attle of Lepanto ­shaped and was ­shaped by Christian and Muslim prophecies concerning the f­ uture of Rome.

The ­Battle of Lepanto in the Mediterranean Apocalyptic Imagination The circulation of prognostications of Ottoman victories in the Mediterranean was not solely a Morisco phenomenon. In fact, prophecies ­were at the center of Ottoman po­liti­cal discourse, as we can glean from a conversation between the Ottoman g­ rand vizier Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha and secretary Jacopo Ragazzoni, which the latter recounted to the Senate on his return to Venice from Istanbul on August 16, 1571, following the Ottoman siege of Famagusta, Cyprus (from September 17, 1570, to August 5, 1571). In their alleged exchange, the g­ rand vizier warned that peace was better for the Signoria than war, since Venice’s forces ­were not sufficient to contend with a force so ­great as that of his emperor (Sultan Selīm II, r. 1566–74), with which he would occupy not only Cyprus, but other parts of his territories (dello stato suo) as well. Moreover, the grand vizier purportedly added that the Serenità (Doge Alvise Mocenigo, r. 1570–77) “would have been so good as make peace,” since according to their prophecies, 26. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 963, f. 452r. 27. ​Ibid., f. 453v. 28. ​Ibid., f. 454r.

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“the Turks would be masters as far as Rome (per le loro profezie, dovevano Turchi esser padroni fino di Roma).”29 The g­ rand vizier had disapproved of the Cyprus campaign, thus losing the battle ­ against the pro-war faction at the Ottoman court, which saw the conquest of Cyprus as a priority. Yet in confronting the Venetian secretary, the g­ rand vizier appealed to an apocalyptic dream that hearkened back to the days of Meḥmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81), the conqueror of New Rome, or Constantinople. A more focused discussion of the significance of Rome in Mediterranean apocalyptic expectations is presented in the coming sections. For now, a deeper exploration of the atmosphere of heightened apocalypticism during the B ­ attle of Lepanto w ­ ill help illuminate the shared nature of apocalyptic anx­ie­ ties in the late sixteenth-­century Mediterranean. In his response to the g­ rand vizier, Ragazzoni stated that he did not worry about such prophecies b­ ecause Venice was ready to defend itself and was equipped to do so through God’s grace, as it had secured the support of many Christian powers that would come to its aid. Indeed, on May 25, 1571, the Papal States, the Spanish monarchy, the Republic of Genoa, the Knights of Malta, the G ­ rand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Savoy, the Duchy of Urbino, and the Duchy of Parma all agreed to form the Holy League to aid Venice against the Ottomans. Yet the sharp-­tongued g­ rand vizier haughtily reminded the secretary of the scarce love ­those “Christian princes” had ­toward the Ser­en­is­sima and the ­little trust that Venice should place in them. Ultimately, though, the ­grand vizier confidently claimed that ­because God was on their side, the Ottomans had nothing to fear from even the greatest co­ali­tion of forces.30 The same confidence in divine sanction was shared by some members of the Holy League, for whom prophecies and messianic ideas informed and articulated their new dominating crusader spirit.31 For Pope Pius V the opportunity had arrived to fulfill the dream of conquering Jerusalem. Philip II, for his part, had the opportunity to position himself as temporal leader of Christendom. Drawing on this apocalyptic ideological and symbolic capital that subsumed the Mediterranean, the Spanish monarch ordered the construction of a royal galley for his b­ rother Don John of Austria, commander in chief of the Spanish navy, whose iconographic program centered on the myth of Jason, the Argonauts, and the Golden Fleece. This myth had been interpreted as a meta­phor of a spiritual crusade, and the Golden Fleece as the promise of a reconquered Jerusalem and the defeat of the Ottomans.32 29. ​Eugenio Albèri, ed., Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (Florence: Società Editrice Fiorentina, 1857) ser. 3, 2:84–85. 30. ​Ibid., 2:85. 31. ​Enrique García Hernán, “Pío V y el mesianismo profético,” Hispania Sacra 45 (1993): 83–102. 32. ​Sylvène Édouard, “Argo, la galera real de Don Juan de Austria en Lepanto,” Reales Sitios: Revista del Patrimonio Nacional 172 (2007): 4–27.

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The victory at Lepanto was received with ecstatic relief in Christian lands. Cities like Venice, Rome, and Madrid exploded in cele­bration. The victory also further fueled apocalyptic expectations that promised the religious unity of Eu­rope and the Mediterranean, the definitive destruction of Islam, and the inauguration of a new dispensation.33 Convinced that the defeat of infidels and heretics would herald the physical and spiritual conquest of Jerusalem, which would follow a takeover of Constantinople, Pius V called on all Catholic states to defend the faith by keeping the Holy League alive. With Old Rome and New Rome recovered, the restoration of a universal Christian empire, with Jerusalem as its capital, could fi­nally be achieved. Pius V thus saw the conquest of Jerusalem as the turning point that would allow this new dispensation to commence u­ nder the auspices of a universal monarchy. To enlist once again the support of the power­ful Spanish monarch for this new enterprise, both Venice and Pius V promised that the return of Cyprus, as well as the recovery of Constantinople and Jerusalem, would secure for the Spanish monarch the title “Emperor of the Orient.”34 As emperor of the Orient Philip II would not only oversee the conversion of the Jews and the u­ nion of the Eastern Church but also solve the Protestant problem. ­ 35 But Philip’s eyes were ­ set elsewhere, closer to home. He aimed to secure Tunis by conquering Algiers and wresting it from Ottoman control.

An Ottoman Victory Sparks New Hope Back in Iberia, the defeat of the Moriscos in Granada did not discourage some crypto-­Muslims of the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, and neither did the Ottoman setback at Lepanto in 1571, at least according to the inquisitors of Zaragoza. The conquests of La Goleta and Tunis between July and 33. ​See, for example, the apocalyptic movement surrounding Benedetto Corazzaro in Venice at the time. For an analy­sis of this movement in En­glish, see John Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Re­nais­sance City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Diplomatic correspondence from Venice to Spain in the years following Lepanto also confirms the apocalyptic excitement that Lepanto produced. Correspondence from 1573 mentions a prophecy by a certain Domenico Tirobosco. According to the missive, F­ ather Triphon Malipiez, prior of the hospital of Saint Lazarus in Venice, had heard Tirobosco predict in 1560 or 1561 that ­there would come a prince without a crown, a general of Christendom who would break the Ottoman armada in Zanta and Zephalonia in 1571, and that he was now sure that the prophecy alluded to Don Juan of Austria. AGS, Estado, Leg. 1509, doc. 253. 34. ​This is evident from a letter sent by the Spanish ambassador to Venice Guzmán de Silva to Philip II on November 20, 1571, AGS, Estado, Leg. 1329, f. 123. The letter was published in García Hernán, “Pío V,” 98–99. 35. ​García Hernán makes this final keen observation in “Pío V,” 96.

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September 1574 by the newly built Ottoman navy in a surprisingly short period of time once again brought the possibility of armed insurrection to the forefront.36 In the Valencian town of Segorbe, the Moriscos had celebrated the Ottoman victory by dragging a statue of Don John of Austria through the streets of their town,37 and some Moriscos of Belchite (Aragon) talked about how “don Juan del Rastro” ( John of Austria) would be dragged (arrastrado), beheaded, and burned, and that all Christians would be slain.38 According to the inquisitors of Zaragoza, news of the Ottoman victories was received with cele­brations by the Moriscos of the towns of Borja and Maleján (in the province of Zaragoza), who performed two Castilian plays, Auto de la destrucción de Troya (Play of the Destruction of Troy) and Comedia pastoril de Torcato (Pastoral Play of Torcuato), “in the time of their Ramadan.”39 At first the per­for­mances had no repercussions, but when news reached the inquisitors, they instructed the familiares (agents of the Inquisition) and commissioners to investigate “whether ­ after ­ the loss of La Goleta, the newly converted rejoiced and ­were happy for a long time.”40 In his report to the Inquisition dated January  26, 1575, the commissioner of Borja, Marcos Valforga, concluded that the plays had been performed to celebrate the fall of La Goleta, which had occurred five months earlier. ­ The Moriscos also celebrated by holding feasts and lighting bonfires.

36. ​Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco offers a succinct description of the fears experienced by the inquisitors of a Morisco insurrection in the years following the rebellion of the Alpujarras from the perspective of the vice-­chancellor of Aragon, Bernardo de Bolea, primarily based on a series of reports presented by Bolea to the king (housed at ACA). See Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, “Don Bernardo de Bolea y los proyectos de deportación de los moriscos valencianos, 1570–1575,” in Felipe II (1598–1998), Europa dividida, la monarquía católica de Felipe II, ed. José Martínez Millán (Madrid: Parteluz, 1998), 3:89–110; Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones: La monarquía católica y los moriscos valencianos (Valencia: Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 2001), esp. ch. 3. 37. ​BHUV, var. 26/5, ff. 1–3. 38. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 4529/1, doc. 2, f. 3v. 39. ​See Francisco Ynduráin, Los moriscos y el teatro de Aragón: “Auto de la destrucción de Troya” y “Comedia pastoril de Torcato” (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1986), 8; Francisco Ynduráin, “Dos comedias inéditas de hacia 1574,” Revista Literaria 7, nos. 13–14 (1955): 181–88. Ynduráin explains that the two theatrical pieces w ­ ere appended to a voluminous inquisitorial dossier of the investigation carried out by the inquisitors of Zaragoza in the Morisco towns of María, Sabiñan, Almonacid de la Sierra, Daroca, Villafeliche, Puebla de Híjar, Vinaceit, Belchite, Burbáguena, Codo, Séstrica, and Grisel. The document used to be h­ oused in the Archivo de la Audiencia Territorial de Zaragoza, Inquisition section, but it remained uncata­logued. The documents of the Archivo de la Audiencia Territorial ­were ­later transferred to the Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza (AHPZ). However, my efforts to locate this impor­tant document in that archive have been unsuccessful. Nonetheless, I thank the staff at the AHPZ who helped me in my search. In the absence of this impor­tant dossier, I reconstruct the inquisitorial inquiries of the Morisco conspiracy of 1574–75 on the basis of documents from AHN and BL. 40. ​Ynduráin, Los moriscos y el teatro de Aragón.

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A ­ fter consulting with Philip II, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition ordered the inquisitors of Valencia and Zaragoza to be vigilant and to try to discover “through all pos­si­ble means, about their plots and every­thing they do.”41 The reports of t­hese cele­brations alarmed the inquisitors, who further discovered that it was public news in the town of Cariñena (in Zaragoza) that the Moriscos rejoiced “­because the Turks had taken a fortress from the king of Spain, and the name of the fortress was La Goleta.”42 The inquisitors gathered additional information that they interpreted as confirmation of the intention of the Moriscos of Aragon to stage an uprising. A testimony offered in March 1575 revealed that certain Moriscos of the town of Brea (in Zaragoza) believed that the victory of La Goleta was a sign of God’s f­avor. One Morisco warned that the inhabitants his town “distrust God’s grace, b­ ecause seeing that the remedy is at hand, they [the Christians] do not want to believe that La Goleta, which was their greatest stronghold, has been destroyed by the Turks, who have not left one stone over another. And now that they [the Christians] have lost La Goleta, the Turk w ­ ill come and w ­ ill disembark in Barcelona . . . ​and the Lutherans w ­ ill come from the other side . . . ​[and] the Christians w ­ ill flee.”43 Altogether, this evidence corroborated the inquisitors’ suspicions that the New Christians w ­ ere plotting something in the hope that the Ottoman victory would encourage the Ottomans to come in their aid. Concurrently, the inquisitors of Valencia received information that some Ottoman Turks (turcos) and North Africans (moros) had arrived with letters for the aljamas of the kingdom. The inquisitors proceeded to inform the viceroy, the marquis of Mondéjar, who wrote to the Council of State requesting provisions for his kingdom. In January 1575, an arms cache was found on the coast of Gandía that had presumably come in some Algerian galleys.44 Yet not ­every piece of information that the inquisitors received could be trusted: in early March 1575 the inquisitors and the viceroy of Aragon learned about a placard that had been affixed to a pole in the public square of Calatayud, announcing that the Moriscos had settled on a date when the uprising would take place and warning that they ­were well armed. The placard also stated that

41. ​Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones, 287. 42. ​Ibid. See also AHN, Inq. Leg. 4529. 43. ​Ibid.: “Que desconfiados estan de la gracia del señor que viendo el remedio en la mano no lo quieren creer que la Goleta que es lo que mas ellos tenían por hinca pie y espaldas aquella le ha derribado el turco que no a dexado piedra sobre piedra y agora que an perdido la Goleta ya se tienen ellos por perdidos vendra el turco y desembarcara en Barcelona . . . ​y los luteranos por otra parte que ay oy mas que nunca y los christianos en desembarcando el turco fueran y todos andeyz a parar a Castilla y los christianos yran huyendo.” 44. ​Ibid.

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the Moriscos had mined the city of Calatayud with many barrels of gun­ powder.45 The news reached the viceroy, who doubted the likelihood of the city being mined, but suggested, “it would be good if the inquisitors arrested some ­people in ­those suspicious places, and subjected them to torture, so that one of them uncovers the plot.”46 The inquisitors w ­ ere also unsure about the veracity of the poster, but they affirmed that, even if it ­were fictitious, “it must not have been forged without a reason.”47 The inquisitors remarked that t­here was no doubt that the Moriscos had “large amounts of gunpowder and a ­great number of arms which they must have for a purpose.”48 Fi­nally, on April 1 a man named Rafael Martínez, a twenty-­eight-­year-­old scribe from Paracuellos (in the province of Cuenca), confessed that he had forged the placard “with the intention of harming the Moriscos.”49 He stated that since news was circulating “that the Turk would charge once again against the Christians in Spain, and since t­here was such peril in Spain b­ ecause t­ here w ­ ere so many Moriscos,” he determined to harm the Moriscos of Calatayud b­ ecause “they are not Christians.”50 The scribe’s action reflected an increasing tendency of suspicion t­ oward the Moriscos on the part of the Old Christian society of late sixteenth-­century Aragon. A ­ fter the rebellion in the Alpujarras the Moriscos w ­ ere viewed—­both by religious authorities and by Old Christian society at large—as a potential fifth ­column of the Ottomans.51 In the early months of 1575 ­there was, however, uncertainty about the Ottoman targets for the coming season. On March 13, Lorenzo Priuli, the Venetian ambassador resident in Madrid, wrote to the Ser­en­is­sima about having received a letter from Sicily warning about the g­ reat preparations that the Ottomans w ­ ere making to come that year with a power­f ul armada, and that on the coast of North Africa a large supply of biscuit was being stocked for a pos­si­ble attack on Malta, Sardinia, or Sicily.52 Around the same time, the alcalde (local judge) of the Aragonese town of Calanda, Andres de Rosales, confirmed to the inquisitors that the Moriscos “are arming many galliots in

45.  ​BRAH, Ms. A49, ff. 315–16. A fragment of this letter was published by Florencio Janer, Condición social de los Moriscos de España: Causas de su expulsión y consecuencias (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1857), 269. 46. ​Ibid. 47. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1834, f. 143r. 48. ​Ibid. 49. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 963, f. 260v. 50. ​Ibid. 51. ​For more on this idea, see Andrew C. Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column in Sixteenth-­Century Spain,” American Historical Review 74, no. 1 (1968): 1–25. 52. ​Julieta Teixeira Márques de Oliveira, Fontes documentais de Veneza referentes a Portugal (Lisbon: Impresa Nacional, Casa da Moeda, 1997), 89.

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Algiers, and on the border with Jaca t­here are Huguenot h­ orse­men.”53 The correspondence between the count of Sástago, viceroy of Aragon, and Bernardo de Bolea, vice-­chancellor of the Crown of Aragon one year e­ arlier, in 1574, reveals that the Spanish authorities had been closely monitoring both the movement of Frenchmen within their borders and the activities of Protestants in the frontier area of Béarn, in southern France. To deal with the threat of a pos­si­ble Morisco insurrection supported by ­either the French or the Ottomans, the count of Sástago proposed disarming the Moriscos and argued for the necessity of keeping a permanent paid army in the kingdom.54 On July  17, 1575, the viceroy of Aragon informed Bernardo de Bolea about the successful disarming of the Moriscos of that kingdom.55 In the 10,827 Morisco houses ­ that were ­ inspected, 5,406 arms were ­ confiscated: 3,053 harquebuses, 961 crossbows, and 1,391 polearms.56 The inquisitors, however, w ­ ere not convinced that the Aragonese Moriscos had given up all their arms or ­were not attempting to secure new ones. In June 1576, three Moriscos of Daroca ­were imprisoned and upon inspecting their ­houses, three shotguns w ­ ere found in just one of the ­houses.57 The vast documentation produced by the Inquisition tribunals of Aragon and Valencia, as well as in the Council of State, reflects a serious concern over the situation of the New Christians of the Crown of Aragon in the period following the Alpujarras revolt. The international situation, particularly regarding the movements of the French Huguenots and the Ottomans, as Fernand Braudel and Joan Reglà have meticulously explained and documented, was understood as a pos­si­ble incentive for the Moriscos of Aragon and Valencia to act. According to the inquisitors of Aragon, the rebellion in Granada had offered impor­tant lessons, and they concluded their report to the king thus: “It is imperative to think about putting remedy to this at once before we see ourselves in greater trou­ble, and that we [the inquisitors] acknowledge once and for all that ­these are mortal enemies who ­will do unto us all the harm that they can, and that we need to learn our lesson, for we must remember what happened in Granada and t­ hose who certified it [the rebellion] just a few days before [the uprising], ­until the Moriscos ­rose on a campaign.”58 ­There is no doubt that the inquisitors saw a potential Morisco threat in ­every piece of information

53. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1834. 54. ​BRAH, Ms. A-49, ff. 320r–321r, 338r–339v. 55. ​Ibid., ff. 355r–356v. 56. ​Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones, 296. 57. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 963, f. 418r. 58. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1834, f. 1r.

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that reached the tribunal. They thus became convinced that it was their mission to investigate ­these potential threats to Christendom. As we ­will soon see, when set against this atmosphere of po­liti­cal instability and shifting balances of power, as well as the threat of social mobilization, the prophecies mentioned at the beginning of this chapter attain their full discursive potentiality. In other words, ­these seemingly improbable narratives begin to gain meaning.

Venetian Prophecies at the Spanish Court While the victory at Lepanto in 1571 was celebrated throughout Christendom, for Christians the Ottoman defeat did not ensure the definitive destruction of this mighty contender. The conquest of Tunis and La Goleta, as well as the final ratification of the Venetian loss of Cyprus a year ­earlier in 1573, exposed the tangible vulnerabilities of Christian powers. Just as ex post facto prophecies auguring a triumphant Christendom multiplied in the immediate aftermath of Lepanto, grim prognostications of chastisement and loss surfaced as the Ottomans rebuilt their forces. Prophecies like one originating in Venice that was copied and sent to the Council of State in Madrid predicted an Ottoman takeover of Rome, the defeat of the Christian kings, the conversion of the Ottomans to Chris­tian­ity, and their God-­sanctioned universal rule u­ ntil the End Times.59 It is not entirely clear from the document, or its placement in the bundle, who copied the prophecy, for what reason, and to whom exactly it was ad59. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 1498, doc. 256. I have hitherto traced six recensions of the prophecy in Italian libraries, in addition to the Simancas prophecy. A Latin version is ­housed at the Biblioteca Laurenziana di Firenze, Ms. 90, supp. 5, ff. 83r–84v. See Giampaolo Tognetti, “Venezia e le profezie sulla conversione dei Turchi,” in Venezia e i Turchi: Scontri e confronti di due civiltà, ed. Anna Della Valle (Milano: Electa, 1985), 86–90. Two additional sixteenth-­century exemplars are written in Italian: Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Ms. Correr 1044, ff. 82–84, with the title “Prophetia fatta dell’anno MCLXXXIIII in la dition seconda per el serenissimo et christianissimo re Guido latino da Lusignano ottavo re di Hierusalem et pacific signor del regno di Cypro ad urben christianissima”; and Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Ms. 2, 2, 203, “Prophetia dell’anno 1118 nel’Inditione nona per il Ser. Re di Gerusalem, Noi Guido Latino da Lusignano.” A fourth manuscript is h­ oused at the Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana in Vicenza, Ms. 614. It contains several prophecies that date to the seventeenth c­ entury; we should therefore assume that the prophecy that concerns us h­ ere was included at the same time. The title of this prophecy is “Prophetia dell’anno 1164 inditione seconda del serenissimo et christianissimo re Guido Latino de Lusignano, ottavo re di Gerusalemme e pascifico signore di Cipro, ad urbem christianam,” ff. 55r–65r. Also, a fifteenth-­century version of this prophecy was published by Pietro Fanfani in Borghini: Studi di filologia e di lettere italiani 1 (1863): 755–57. Unfortunately, Fanfani does not include information regarding the provenance of this text. Fi­nally, a version of this text was also published by Agostino Pertusi. This version differs in that it does not claim to have been transmitted by Guy de Lusignan. Its content, however, is the same as the other recensions’. See Agostino Pertusi, Fine di Bisanzio e Fine del Mondo (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1988), 203–6. For a discussion of this prophecy in the context of other Venetian prognostications concerning the Ottomans, see Tognetti, “Venezia e le profezie sulla conversion dei Turchi.”

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dressed, w ­ hether the Council of State or King Philip II himself. What we do know is that the copyist was a Spanish speaker, and that the person copied it on December 4, 1575. Given the curious nature of the prophetic message and the moment when it was copied, it is worth describing this text in greater detail. In this oracle, in what appears to be a rare moment of inspiration, an unlikely prophet named Guy de Lusignan, or Guido Latino da Lusignano (d. 1194), the famous—or rather, infamous—­k ing of Jerusalem who was defeated by Saladin, or Ṣalāḥ al-­Dīn b. Ayyūb (d. 1193), at the B ­ attle of Ḥaṭṭīn in 1187, begins by describing the events that ­will take place in the 1450s. God’s plan to commence the ruination of the Catholic Church w ­ ill begin when the Ottomans (il Turco) take Constantinople (conquered by Sultan Meḥmed II in 1453). The Ottomans ­will then build a strong army and charge against Hungary. The sultan w ­ ill build a mighty navy and arrive in Rome, whereupon many Christians w ­ ill flee. The pope (presumably Pope Nicholas V, r. 1447–55) w ­ ill try to unite the Christians, but he w ­ ill not be obeyed. Seeing the ruin of Christendom, the pope ­will call upon the emperor (presumably Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, r. 1452–93), but the emperor w ­ ill not heed the pontiff ’s call, to which the pope ­will respond by stripping him from his imperial dignities, which he ­will offer to another Christian ruler. The Venetians ­will then emerge in the Adriatic to resist the Ottoman forces, which, weakened, ­will retreat. But then the sultan ­will consult with his ­people, who ­will concur in the need to build a stronger armada. The emperor ­will demand from the pope the restitution of imperial dignities, but the pope ­will confer all dignities on the Venetians, who ­were responsible for halting the Ottoman advance. Offended, the emperor ­will withdraw his obedience from the pope and align with the Ottomans to facilitate their conquest of Rome. Reinvigorated, the Ottomans ­will obtain victory, crushing the Christian navies, conquering all the lands of the Venetians, and killing the pope. A ­ fter ridding Rome of all its corrupt priests and cardinals, Jesus ­will send a holy man (uno santo homo) from the order of St. Peter to lead the Christian Church as shepherd and to perform miracles. A ­ fter witnessing the g­ reat miracles (grandissimi miracoli) and preaching of the holy man, the Ottoman sultan ­will become a true Christian (vero cristiano), thus receiving the Holy Spirit. He ­will reign and govern over all of Christendom, all Muslims ­will become Christians, Islam ­will be completely annulled (tutte le leggi de Maometo sarano anullate totalmente), and the w ­ hole world w ­ ill accept the Ottoman sultan as universal emperor ruling alongside the holy man, who ­will be the pope, and they s­ hall govern the world in peace. The Ottoman sultan w ­ ill bequeath the Holy Land to Venice, performing the sultan’s duties in his stead, and the w ­ hole world w ­ ill live in peace and perfection. All this, according to the purported Guy de Lusignan, was to take place in the year 1580.

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The presence of Lusignan as a prophet is as surprising as it is unpre­ce­dented. I have not been able to trace any other prophetic narratives, medieval or early modern, that include Lusignan as b­ earer of oracles. Yet the apocalyptic cycle presented in this prophetic text fully conforms to the eschatological framework proposed by a near con­temporary of Lusignan, the renowned apocalyptist Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202). The Calabrian abbot developed a tripartite theory of time according to which the Age of the F­ ather, or of the law (the Old Testament), would be followed by the Age of the Son (the period of the New Testament), culminating in the last age, the Age of the Holy Spirit, which would inaugurate a new dispensation of peace and love. Beginning with a ­great cataclysm, the Age of the Holy Spirit would be followed by the restoration of the Christian faith with the spiritual unity of Latins and Greeks, the conversion of the Jews, and the “renovation of the world” (renovatio mundi).60 The prophecies of Joachim of Fiore ­were reinterpreted and spuriously elaborated for centuries ­after his death. Operating within this schema, and intensifying a long-­standing tradition of reformist apocalypticism, pseudo-­Joachimite authors of the thirteenth century ­ predicted that the followers of the Roman Church would be punished by persecutions from within, as well as from without, through the invasion of infidels.61 In Lusignan’s prophecy, copied in Venice and sent to Spain in 1575, the Joachimite cataclysm begins with the corruption of the Church and the Christian monarchs. The sins of the Church would be met with God’s chastisement delivered at the hand of the Ottomans. In this apocalyptic scenario the Ottomans would become instruments for God’s plan, the ones who would bring at once the destruction of the old order and the inauguration of a period of justice and peace in the world. The restoration of the Christian faith would be followed by the conversion of all Muslims (and presumably all Jews) to Chris­tian­ity, and the elevation of the Ottoman sultan as universal ruler.62 While the identity of the holy man, the angelic pope of Joachim of Fiore’s prophecies, is not clear, the protagonism of Ottomans and Venetians is central to the unfolding of the history of humanity. In this text, Rome and Jerusalem become parallel sacred geographies, with Rome as the center of the awaited renovatio mundi.

60. ​The lit­er­a­ture on Joachim of Fiore is vast. For a classic work, see Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic ­Future (New York: Harper and Row, 1977). See also Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985); Gian Luca Potestà, Il tempo dell’Apocalisse: vita di Gioacchino da Fiore (Roma: Editori Laterza, 2004); Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the ­Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 61. ​Whalen, Dominion of God, 172. 62. ​For Joachite apocalyptic dreams concerning the conversion of infidels during the rise of the Mongols, see Whalen, Dominion of God, esp. ch. 6.

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The fact that this fifteenth-­century prophecy that claims to have been written by Lusignan in the twelfth c­ entury was revived at dif­fer­ent moments during the sixteenth c­ entury makes it not simply a remnant of medieval crusader ideology but a testament to the ambivalence of Eu­ro­pe­ans, and in part­ic­ul­ar, of Venetians, about the possibility of an Ottoman takeover not only of Venetian territories, as was recently experienced with the conquest of Cyprus, but also of Rome itself. What is surprising about this prophecy is the extent to which the Ottoman sultan is portrayed as an instrument of God’s chastisement and as a just ruler, a messianic figure of sorts who as the last world emperor would rule alongside the angelic pope u ­ ntil the End Times. As w ­ ill become apparent in the following section, the apocalyptic image of an Ottoman takeover of Rome was not solely a product of Italian imagination; it had been pre­sent in Ottoman apocalyptic and po­liti­cal discourse at least since the time of Sultan Meḥmed II.

A Prophesied Ottoman Mediterranean? It was well known among Meḥmed II’s contemporaries that a­ fter his conquest of the Byzantine capital, New Rome (or Second Rome), the Ottoman sultan had resolved to conquer Old Rome (or First Rome) and all of Italy. He based his po­liti­cal proj­ect on prophecies and prognostications that augured him victory. The conquest of Constantinople had been pre­sent in the Muslim imagination since the early centuries of Islamic expansion. According to a prophetic prognostication that figured in the early ḥadīth collections, or Ṣaḥīḥ, of Muslim ibn al-­Ḥajjāj (d. 874/75) and al-­Bukhārī (d. 870), the End Times and Final Judgment would not come ­until Muslims reached the lands of the Byzantines (al-­Rūm) and conquered its capital, Constantinople.63 Other prophetic ḥadīths specified the historical events that would take place before End Times. In this eschatological schema the conquest of Constantinople would precede that of Rome.64 A ­ fter conquering Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans would be ready to conquer the Eternal City. Meḥmed II’s role as the conqueror of Rome did not go unnoticed among his contemporaries. Yazıcıoğlu Aḥmed Bīcān (d. ca. 1466), for example, cast sultan Meḥmed II as sultan of the martyrs and king of the ghazis—­those warriors who fight against the Blond Peoples ­ (Benī Aṣfer in Ottoman Turkish and Banū al-­Aṣfar in Arabic), to extend the true

63.  ​See Armand Abel, “Un Ḥadīṯ sur la prise de Rome dans la tradition eschatologique de l’Islam,” Arabica 5 (1959): 1–14. 64. ​Recorded by Nuʿaym bin Ḥammād (d. 843) in his Kitāb al-­Fitan, and quoted in Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 69.

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law throughout the earth before End Times. In the second recension of his ­el-­Müntehā (Epilogue) written in 1465, Aḥmed Bīcān stated that the conqueror of Constantinople would fulfill the second part of the prophecy, thus inaugurating the End Times.65 While the author states that he has written the work as an epilogue or commentary to the works of mystics, or Sufis, and that it includes stories of prophets and delves into questions of piety, he also includes a discussion on eschatology, specifically the role of Meḥmed the Conqueror in the unfolding of the End Times.66 Aḥmed Bīcān interpreted the oracles that cast Meḥmed as a key eschatological figure in the following manner: Now this Sultan Muḥammed Khan, who is the current sovereign (pādishāh), conquered Anatolia and other places, in par­tic­ul­ar Istanbul, by force from the infidels, and in these ­ places he built elegant soup kitchens and mosques, the likes of which do not exist in [the lands of] the Arabs and the Ira­ni­ans. He conquered Galata (Qalāt), Sinop, Samsun, and Trabzon. In the Aegean Sea (Aşağa Deñiz, lit. “Lower Sea”), he conquered Mytilene (Lesbos), Bosnia, Morea, and Albania by the sword, and he gave them to holy warriors (ġāzīler). He is the shah of the holy warriors and the sultan of the martyrs (ġāzīler şāhı ve şehīdler sulṭānı idi), as the most distinguished holy warriors are the ones who oppose the Blond P ­ eoples (Benī el-­Asfer) in the West (Maġrib) and stand against them with their swords. He had the intention of conquering Rome (Rūmiyye), Amorium (ʿAmūriyye), and the Blond ­Peoples ­because the Day of Resurrection is nigh (ḳıyāmet yaḳın) and the majority of the infidels (kāfirin ġalebesi) must be in the West. Thus, Sultan Muḥammed w ­ ill stand against the Blond P ­ eoples and stop them. So, the Ottomans are the most distinguished holy warriors. May God, most exalted, show them compassion and make their princes (şāhzādelerini) everlasting ­until the end of time.67

65. ​Yazıcıoğlu Aḥmed Bīcān, el-­Müntehā, Istanbul Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Ms. Hacı Mahmud Efendi 1657, ff. 3a–3b. I am grateful to Evrim Binbaş for facilitating a copy of the manuscript and for his help interpreting it. For a discussion of this text, see Kaya Şahin, “Constantinople and the End Time: The Ottoman Conquest as a Portent of the Last Hour,” Journal of Early Modern History 14 (2010): 148–49. For an analy­sis of the apocalyptic traditions surrounding the conquest of Constantinople, see Stéphane Yerasimos, Légendes d’empire: La fondation de Constantinople et de Sainte-­Sophie dans les traditions turques (Istanbul: Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes d’Istanbul; Paris: Librarie d’Amérique et d’Orient Jean Maisonneuve, 1990). For a recent study of the life and work of Yazıcıoğlu Aḥmed Bīcān, and of this text in part­ic­ul­ar, see Carlos Granier, “The Yazıcıoğlus and the Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2017). 66.  ​ Şahin, “Constantinople and the End Time,” 349. 67. ​Aḥmed Bīcān, el-­Müntehā, ff. 3a–3b.

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The urgency of the End Times is evident in Aḥmed Bīcān’s discussion of Meḥmed II’s mission.68 While Aḥmed Bīcān does not identify the sultan as Mahdī, the messianic redeemer of the End Times, his central role in the unfolding of the Last Days—­which for Aḥmed Bīcān is at hand—is incontestable.69 A second Alexander, Meḥmed II conquered vast territories that extended from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.70 Following prophetic ḥadīths that discuss the “Signs of the Hour,” one of the signs of the End Times is a nine-­month war between the Blond P­ eoples, whereupon Constantinople would fi­nally be taken.71 A most singular aspect of Meḥmed II’s eschatological role is his portrayal of him as “sultan of the martyrs.” As we saw in chapter 2, according to certain Islamic apocalyptic narratives, ­those who fight against the enemies do so fī sabīl Allāh (in the path of God), and t­hose who die as a result of engaging in holy war are considered martyrs (shuhadāʾ, plural of shahīd). ­Dying in the ser­vice of God would secure blessings both on earth and in the hereafter. Thus, as shah of the holy warriors, Meḥmed II would extend the true religion to the confines of the earth. As sultan of the martyrs, he occupied a privileged position as the one who ensured the salvation not of a select few but of humanity at large. More important ­ for the purposes of the present ­ discussion, Meḥmed II’s desire to conquer Rome as the culmination of a series of conquests that began with Constantinople is to be understood in an apocalyptic key for, as Aḥmed Bīcān underscored, “the Day of Resurrection is nigh (ḳıyāmet yaḳın).” Dreams of an Ottoman conquest of Rome w ­ ere not solely a figment of the Muslim or Ottoman apocalyptic imagination. A ­ fter all, Meḥmed II did launch an attack on the Italian Peninsula t­ oward the end of his life, and an Ottoman advanced expeditionary force under ­ the command of Gedik Aḥmed Pasha occupied Otranto, the southern Italian town in Apulia, for almost thirteen months.72 Thus, the possibility of this dream becoming a real­ ity was apparent also to Meḥmed II’s Christian counter parts, ­ especially t­hose of the newly conquered Ottoman territories. For example, upon his return from Constantinople after ­ witnessing its fall, the Greek humanist 68. ​Aḥmed Bīcān was one of several Ottoman intellectuals who read Meḥmed II’s reign, and the conquest of Constantinople in par­tic­u­lar, in an apocalyptic key. For the most recent discussion of this, see Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Po­liti­cal Thought (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2018), 241–51. See also Fleischer, “Mediterranean Apocalypse,” 48–49. 69. ​For this discussion see esp. Carlos Grenier, “Yazıcıoğlus and the Spiritual Vernacular,” 202–3. Grenier departs from Şahin’s interpretation that emphasizes Meḥmed II’s messianic role after ­ the conquest of Constantinople. 70. ​For Ottoman genealogical claims of descent from Alexander the G ­ reat, see Barbara Flemming, “Po­liti­cal Genealogies in the Sixteenth ­Century,” Journal of Ottoman Studies 7–8 (1988): 123–37. 71. ​Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 190. 72. ​Halil İnalcık, “Meḥemmed II,” EI2, 6:979.

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Niccolò Sagundino warned the Aragonese king Alfonso the Magnanimous (r. 1416–58) that Meḥmed II had been fortified by “prophecies and prognostications that promised the sultan the Kingdom of Italy and the conquest of the city of Rome, and that the see of Constantine was granted to him by the heavens, and that this see appears to be in real­ity Rome, not Constantinople, and thus it is just and well corresponds, that just as the sultan had taken possession of the daughter ­ [Constantinople] by force, the mother ­ would be conquered [Rome].”73 Following this line of thought, and reinterpreting the role of the Ottoman sultan, in his correspondence to Meḥmed II, the humanist Greek writer George of Trebizond (d. 1472–73) shared his vision with the sultan of a unified Chris­tian­ity u­ nder the leadership of one ruler. A ­ fter the conquest of Constantinople, George had gone to the city to meet with the sultan himself. The meeting never tran­spired, but he did write several letters in which he expressed g­ reat admiration for the feats of the Ottoman ruler. His April  1466 letter, titled “On the Eternal Glory of the Autocrat,” exhorted Meḥmed II to become the awaited universal ruler who would unite spiritual and temporal authority by converting to Chris­tian­ity. The sultan’s conversion would be followed by the conquest of Rome and the West, and the establishment of a single Church and a single rule. George’s providentially inspired vision of the sultan’s role in the history of humanity was expressed in the following manner: In your victory, God transferred the kingdom to you in order to gather through you all the races into one faith and one church, and to exalt you as the autocrat of the w ­ hole world and king not merely of t­ hings perishable, but also of the very heavens.  .  .  .  ​­There are many Latin prophecies to the effect that not long a­ fter the storming of Constantinople, the preaching of Mohammedanism w ­ ill cease. The same t­ hing is said to have been written by many Mohammedan prophets. However, what is relevant for us is that he who has gained control of Constantinople ­will also master Rome. If the conqueror strives for the unity of the faith and of the church, and if he demonstrates his zeal by deeds and not merely by words, then through him God w ­ ill destroy Mohammeth’s creed and make the conqueror and his descendants lords of the

73. ​Niccolò Sagundino, “Ad serenissimum principem et invictissumum rege,” in La caduta di Constantinopoli. L’eco nel mondo, ed. Agostino Pertusi (Verona: Mondadori, 1976), 2:133. Also cited by Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1978), 494–95, paraphrasing Sagundino’s oration. For more on the oration, see Jerry H. Bentley, Politics and Culture in Re­nais­sance Naples (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987).

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w ­ hole world. And they w ­ ill be hailed as the kings of heaven. . . . ​­After the conquest of Rome, he ­will eradicate Mohammedanism.74 In George of Trebizond’s apocalyptic worldview, as in Byzantine, Latin, and Islamic narratives, the conquest of Constantinople was one of the steps in God’s eschatological plan for humanity.75 As such, the Ottoman sultan became God’s instrument on earth. More impor­tantly, George presented the sultan with an imperial vision that matched the Ottoman ruler’s own universalist pretensions. But the humanist set one condition, a condition that is expressed in other Christian apocalyptic prophecies, including Guy de Lusignan’s oracle, discussed in the previous section. Unity of Church and faith in the form of a universal empire was reserved for the Ottoman sultan only if he converted to Catholicism. As with many a prophecy, at the End of Times humanity would follow one law, in this case a purified and united Chris­tian­ity, and Judaism, and particularly Islam, would be eradicated. One of the culminating events in the unfolding of h­ uman history would be the Ottoman conquest of Rome, the spiritual capital of the universal empire of the End Times.

Traveling Prophecies: The Circulation of Apocalyptic Ideas around the Mediterranean Let us return to the vignette that opened this chapter. The sixty-­five-­year-­old Morisco Martín Mayo had confessed to reading prophecies that foretold an Ottoman takeover of Rome. According to Mayo, upon reaching the eternal city, the sultan would feed his h­ orse in the baptismal fount of St. Peter’s Basilica and ­water his ­horse in Calatayud, Spain. The sultan would thus take over the Holy See and then proceed to conquer the Iberian Peninsula. When asked by the inquisitors how he knew this information, Mayo stated that he had read it in the prophecies of “Fray Juan Roca” and St. Isidore. Martín Mayo was referring to two popu­lar Christian prophetic texts that circulated widely in medieval Iberia: the prophecies of the fourteenth-century ­ French Franciscan monk John of Rupescissa and ­those attributed to St. Isidore, the seventh-­century archbishop of Seville. Though heavi­ly edited, the extant Aljamiado renditions of

74. ​George of Trebizond, Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Texts, Documents, and Biblio­graphies of George of Trebizond, ed. John Monfasani (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Re­nais­sance Texts and Studies and Re­nais­sance Society of Amer­i­ca, 1984), 495. 75. ​For more on George of Trebizond’s eschatology, see John Monfasani, George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhe­toric and Logic (Leiden: Brill, 1976). See also Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 153–57.

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Prophecy of St. Isidore of Seville, BnF Ms. 774, f. 289v.

­these Christian prophecies survive as a testimony to the Moriscos’ enthusiasm for their messages of destruction for Spain and the Church.76 The prophecy of Rupescissa, composed around 1356 in Latin, reached the Iberian Peninsula relatively early a­ fter its production and was attested to in Castile in the first half of the sixteenth c­ entury.77 The Aljamiado version of 76. ​For an excellent analy­sis and edition of the Aljamiado prophecy of Rupescissa, see Gerard Wiegers, “Jean de Roquetaillade’s Prophecies among the Muslim Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern Christian Spain: An Islamic Version of the Vademecum in Tribulatione,” in Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam, ed. Nicolet Boekhoff-­van der Voort, Kees Versteegh, and Joas Wagemakers (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 229–47. 77. ​For an edition of a Castilian version of Rupescissa’s prophecy (BRAH, Ms. 9-11-1-2.176, ff. 1r–13v), see Guadalajara Medina, Las profecías del anticristo en la Edad Media, 427–41; for a historical contextualization and analy­sis of the text, see 353–75.

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Rupescissa’s prophecy appears to be an abridged and modified version of the monk’s oracle. In both versions, “the Turks” ­will come to persecute the Christian p­ eople and to destroy Italy, Lombardy, Genoa, Hungary, Cologne, and parts of Germany, and to conquer Rhodes. In both versions, Rome w ­ ill be destroyed at the hands of the Turks with great ­ cruelty as vengeance for the Church’s wickedness, which has resulted in God’s ire. Thus, the Ottomans become instruments of God’s chastisement in both the Aljamiado versions and the versions that circulated in medieval Christian Iberia. Yet the Aljamiado text offers glimpses of a Muslim or crypto-­Muslim intervention. For example, the Antichrist, whose name is el Fatimí, “­will do justice and conquer Spain (fará justiçia i konkistará la España).” He w ­ ill be a young man from Denia, “who ­will win over Spain, God willing (ke ganará España, In Shāʾ Allāh).”78 The fascinating conflation of the Christian Antichrist, who in the Aljamiado prophecy is identified as the Fatimí (Fāṭimī), a term to designate the Mahdī in North African and Andalusian apocalyptic lore, must be underscored.79 In the ­Aljamiado text the Antichrist, who ­will act as the destroyer of an oppressive Church, becomes God’s plan for the salvation of humanity. Moreover, the conquest of Iberia by the Fatimí, a second Islamic conquest for Christians, can be understood only within the salvific history of the last Muslims of Spain as the restoration of Islam in the Peninsula and the work of a Messiah or Mahdi. Similarly, the pseudo-­Isidorian prophecies so popu­lar in the Iberian Peninsula during the medieval and early modern periods w ­ ere recovered and adapted into Aljamiado in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.80 Two Aljamiado renditions of the Isidorian prophecies titled The Prophecy Drawn by Means of Astrology and through the Wise Man, Worthy of Great Science, Saint Isidore and Plaint of Spain lament the loss or destruction of Spain and its inhabitants b­ ecause of their wickedness and sins. In one of the texts a power­ful snake w ­ ill rise in the east to surround the city of Constantinople (alluding to the conquest of the city by the Ottomans in 1453), marking the beginning of the perils of Christendom, and Spain in par­tic­ul­ar. As in Rupescissa’s Aljamiado prophecy, Chris­tian­ity and Spain ­will be chastised at the hands of Muslims. While indeed the prophecies of both Rupescissa and St. Isidore predict the destruction of the Christian faith, its

78. ​BNE Ms. 5305, f. 67r; see also Wiegers, “Jean de Roquetaillade’s Prophecies,” 247. 79. ​For an analy­sis of Morisco uses of the term Fatimí, see Marya T. Green-­Mercado, “The Mahdī in Valencia: Messianism, Apocalypticism, and Morisco Rebellions in Late Sixteenth-­Century Spain,” Medieval Encounters 19 (2013): 193–220. 80. ​For an edition of the Aljamiado prophecies of St. Isidore (BnF, Ms. 774), see Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 243–49. For an analy­sis of t­hese texts, see López Baralt, La literatura secreta de los últimos musulmanes de España. For the circulation of prophecies of St. Isidore in medieval Iberia, see Guadalajara Medina, Las profecías del anticristo, 343–52.

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institutions, and its most impor­tant Eu­ro­pean cities, neither prophecy elaborates on the image described by Martín Mayo of the Ottoman sultan reaching St. Peter’s Basilica. T ­ here is one Morisco jofor that includes a scenario of conquest for Rome before the End Times. In an Arabic prognostication that circulated during uprising in the Alpujarras mountains, the Prophet Muḥammad’s cousin and son-­ in-­law ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib purportedly predicted a reconquest of al-­Andalus a­ fter an initial fall to the Christians, the destruction of Christian regions, the appearance of the Hidden King, identified as the El Encorvado or El Encubierto, and the conquest of Rome by “the Turks.” As the prognosticative text reads, “The Turks w ­ ill march to Rome with their armies, and no Christian w ­ ill escape except for t­hose who convert to the law of the Prophet (los que se tornen a la ley del Profeta); the rest ­will be made captive and killed.”81 The image of an Ottoman takeover of the city of Rome notwithstanding, the Arabic jofor does not include the exact ele­ ments present ­ in Martín Mayo’s prophecy. However, another Aljamiado text might help us understand Mayo’s apocalyptic imagery and shed light on the circulation of apocalyptic texts inside and outside Iberia. Mayo was likely citing a prognostication that circulated in written form in Aljamiado titled Al-­waṣīya del Gran Turco (The G ­ rand Turk’s W ­ ill).82 T ­ here are two extant versions of this text: one comes from the well-­known trove of Aljamiado manuscripts found ­under the floorboards of a ­house being demolished in Almonacid de la Sierra, Aragon, during the nineteenth ­century.83 The provenance of the second one is quite striking.84 This par­tic­ul­ar manuscript remains undated, but the paper is from the sixteenth c­ entury. What is intriguing about this manuscript is that it was found, of all places, in the village of Morés, Martín Mayo’s own village. This fact confirms beyond doubt the widespread circulation of apocalyptic material among Moriscos in the period following the rebellion in Granada. Cross-­checking the inquisitorial information with the textual evidence allows for a better a sense of how this material circulated orally and how it might have been interpreted by Moriscos. The manuscript is a compendium of texts on dif­fer­ent subjects, including a narration on the death of the Prophet Muḥammad; a version of the Kitāb al-­Anwār (Book of Lights), discussed in chapter 1; several ḥadīths; suras from 81. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, 144. 82. ​BRAH, Ms. 11/9414, edited version in Álvaro Galmés de Fuentes, Los manuscritos aljamiado-­ moriscos de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1998), 116–20; and Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid), Manuscrito de la Junta IV. Both manuscripts are studied in Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez, “Algunos aspectos sobre los turcos en la literatura de los moriscos,” in Actas del coloquio internacional sobre literatura aljamiada y morisca (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1978), 295–311. 83. ​This manuscript is now ­housed at the Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás. 84. ​Housed at BRAH.

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the Qur’an and their exegeses; magic recipes; ­ and a poem in honor of Muḥammad, among others. ­ The waṣīya was purportedly written by the Ottoman sultan Meḥmed II (Muḥammad ‘Uçmān, el que ganó a Gostantinoble, “Muḥammad ‘Uthmān, the one who won Constantinople”). Framed as a mirror for princes, it is addressed to one of the sultan’s three sons, though the prince’s identity is not revealed. We know very ­little about the copyist or copy date, except that text was allegedly drawn from a copy that Don Lope Ximénez de Urrea, viceroy of Sicily from 1465 u­ ntil his death in 1475, sent to his wife in the town of Aranda de Moncayo (about nineteen miles west of Morés).85 The Aljamiado waṣīya opens with an admonition to the Ottoman prince to be a just ruler. Although the text was purportedly composed by Sultan Meḥmed II, the identity of the sultan is often conflated with that of his ­father, Murād II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51). While the sultan identifies himself as “Conqueror of Constantinople” and mentions his f­ather several times in the text, ­there are ele­ments that suggest such confusion. For example, in addressing his unnamed son, Meḥmed II declared how he was on his deathbed due to a leg injury (the sultan indeed suffered from gout, and his leg was injured during the Siege of Belgrade, in 1456). For this reason, he entrusted his son to “remain in our stead as emperor of Constantinople, and king of Lesbos [conquered in 1462] and Negroponte [island of Euboea, conquered in 1470] (I-­ansí, carísimo i feliçisimo hijo nueso, queremos que romangues, en lugar nueso, enperador de Gostantinoble y rey de Metelín i de Negrepón).”86 While Meḥmed II never abdicated the throne, his ­father Murād II did so in his ­favor in 1444, when he was only twelve years old. Another detail that suggests a confounded identity is Meḥmed II’s request to honor and care for his ­brothers, requesting that he have “paternal love” for his b­ rothers. The Morisco text thus completely ignores Meḥmed II’s official policy of fratricide.87 Nonetheless, it is evident that whoever wrote waṣīya was well versed in Ottoman po­liti­cal culture. For instance, as Halil İnalcık has pointed out, “The sultan’s edicts always professed that the imperial power was with ‘the poor’ [yoḳsullar] against ‘the power­f ul’ [ḳudretlüler],” and the foundation of the empire seems to have relied on and benefited from the presence of peasants exploited by rent-­gathering landlords, who welcomed the centralizing power of the sultan as a guarantee of protection.88 In the Aljamiado waṣīya, a princi­ple of good governance is emphasized 85. ​While the Moriscos likely used the viceroy as transmitter of this text to give it an air of verisimilitude, his transmission is uncertain, given the fact that, according to the text, Meḥmed II composed it in the year AH 884/1479 CE, and Don Lope Ximenez de Urrea died in 1475. 86. ​Galmés de Fuentes, Los manuscritos aljamiado-­moriscos, 117. 87. ​On fratricide, see Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 65–66. 88. ​Halil İnalcık, “Meḥemmed II,” EI2, 6:978–81.

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in the protection of the poor and needy. The sultan purportedly advised, “[Do not] disparage or be disturbed by the clamor of the poor, who live off their sweat, and be grateful that your lord gave you sovereignty, be thankful to the lofty Creator, who entrusted you to protect them, not to destroy or rob them (No ayas en menospreçio, ni te tome empacho en oyir los clamores de los pobres, que de su sudor viven; i [pues] tienes estado, agradeçelo al muy alto Criador, que te puso pueblos debaxo de tu mano, i te á encomendado para conservalos [sic], no para detruilos [sic] ni robarlos).”89 Moreover, the sultan added, “Do not think that t­ hese sheep are ours, but rather they are of their Creator, who make us accountable for them (i no pienses qu-­estas ovejas sean nuesas [sic], mas encomendadas del su Criador, del cual nos demandará estrecha cuenta),” which resembles a princi­ple often highlighted in Meḥmed II’s edicts: “The raʿāyā [flock] is a trust [wadīʿa] of Allāh to the ruler.”90 Another quality, according to the text, that must be pre­sent in a good ruler is that he not only expand his territory by the sword but also fight against nonbelievers who resist his authority. Yet the author of the text also includes ele­ments that w ­ ere of concern to Moriscos, ones that systematically appear in their writings. For example, for them a just ruler is one who does not force his subjects to convert to any religion. The text reads, “Do not force anyone into their law, for the Almighty Creator does not bring anyone by force into his glory (No fuerçes a ninguno en su ley, que el muy alto Criador no mete a ninguno por fuerça en su gloria).” Moreover, the critique of the Spanish monarch is magnified in the sultan’s emphasis on protecting the rights and privileges of his subjects. On two occasions in his waṣīya the sultan warns his son not to break pacts or to withdraw the rights and privileges of his subjects: We entrust you to follow all the commandments of our established law, and that you safeguard our unity . . . ​and may your ­people be listened to, and treated justly, and may they keep their privileges, and may you never take away their liberties, or be forced to give up their property, and the clamors of the poor w ­ ill be heart in the celestial court. (Te encomendamos que de todos los mandamientos de la ley estableçida nuesa de unidat seas guardador i acusador . . . ​i sean los mayores como los menores a la justiçia sometidos i iwales, qu-­esto haze reynar los príncipes; i sus gentes sean de ti oídos i-­escuchados, i bien tratados en justiçia, mantenidos privilejos; libertades ofertas no quebrantarás, ni sus bienes enturpados ni forçados, que los clamores de los pobres prejudicados i los del común deslibertado a la corte celestial sube.)

89. ​Galmés de Fuentes, Los manuscritos aljamiado-­moriscos, 118. 90.  ​ İnalcık, “Meḥemmed II.”

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And: Do not break pacts, privileges, and their laws, customs, liberties, rights, for ­those princes who forcibly break pacts enslave their ­people, the Creator breaks their souls and sovereignty, and they w ­ ill be abhorred by their ­people. (No crebantes los pactos, privilejos, i sus fueros, costunbres, libertades, franquezas, porque los prinçipes que forçiblemente quebrantan i ronpen i deslibertan los pueblos, el Criador ronpe sus ánimas i estados, i será aborreçido de sus pueblos.) While this was not an idea articulated in Ottoman po­liti­cal language, the text’s invocation is consistent with a strong Aragonese (and Catalan) ­legal tradition of fueros. This aspect of good governance is further discussed in chapter 6, but it suffices h ­ ere to say that the Moriscos—­g iven their condition of being New Christians who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism, who saw their rights and privileges increasingly curbed, and their property confiscated by the inquisitorial authorities—­would identify in the Ottoman sultan the ideal just ruler and portray him as such.91 Fi­nally, ­there is an apocalyptic component to the waṣīya that cannot be overlooked and that is crucial to understanding Martín Mayo’s confessions before the inquisitors of Aragon. This apocalyptic dimension is found in other con­ temporary Ottoman and Christian writings as well. Just as we saw in Yazıcıoğlu Aḥmed Bīcān’s el-­Müntehā, in the Aljamiado waṣīya Meḥmed II appears as a universal monarch who expanded the faith, fought against nonbelievers, and exalted the religion, but ­here the messianic role is not reserved for him. In the Aljamiado waṣīya, the sultan longs for his son to become “emperor of emperors, and king of kings, and lord of lords, expander of the faith and destroyer of the pagans of Christ, and conqueror of the ­whole world.” But beyond longing, the sultan predicts that his son ­will fulfill his dream of entering the ­g reat palaces of Rome and “­will destroy the h­ ouse of Peter and Paul, and destroy the gods and idols of gold and silver, and marble”; furthermore, he w ­ ill destroy the pope and humiliate his faith, and the pope w ­ ill convert to Islam. In a moment that brings us back to Martín Mayo’s confessions, the sultan predicts that his son ­will “feed barley to your [the sultan’s son’s] ­horse at the altar of Peter and Paul, before being crowned in Constantinople (i darás çebada a tu caballo en el altar de Pedro i de Pablo, antes que tornes a coronarte a Gostantinoble).”92

91. ​For a recent critique of a prevalent trend in Ottoman historiography that overemphasizes Ottoman ethnic and religious tolerance see Disliking ­Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Pre-­Modern Ottoman Lands, eds., Hakan T. Karateke, H. Erdem Çıpa, Helga Anetshofer (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018). 92. ​Galmes de Fuentes, Los manuscritos aljamiado-­moriscos, 119.

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In his purported waṣīya, Meḥmed II claims that neither God nor Muḥammad wanted him (Meḥmed II) to reach Rome. In this way, the role of Messiah is reserved for a member of the Ottoman h­ ouse, and this was ultimately what mattered to the Moriscos listening to ­these prophecies. While there ­ is no doubt that Martín Mayo was repeating the waṣīya of Meḥmed II, it is likely that he chose to make reference to the Christian prophets John of Rupescissa and St. Isidore of Seville instead for fear of revealing his Muslim affinities. It was undoubtedly safer to place t­hese oracles in the mouths of two well-­known Christian prophets, even if their prophecies had been reinterpreted by Moriscos, than to risk citing an Ottoman text, which would certainly incriminate him as a crypto-­Muslim and a treacherous subject. Yet, what might have been the source of waṣīya, and of the singular image of the sultan watering and feeding his horse ­ at St.  Peter’s? For the answer we have to look at other Mediterranean sources, such as a popu­lar Ottoman prognostication concerning Sultan Süleymān the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), recorded in an Ottoman chronicle written around 1520 and titled Ġurbetnāme-­i Sulṭān Cem (Tale of Exile of Prince Cem), which itself cites a Venetian source in which this image appears and which could be the source of our prophecy h­ ere. That chronicle narrates the life of Cem Sultan (d. 1495), a pretender to the Ottoman throne and Meḥmed II’s son, who spent twelve years living in Eu­rope as a captive. The chronicle rec­ ords what w ­ ere ostensibly several conversations of a polemical nature between Cem Sultan and Pope Innocent VIII (r. 1484–92) in which the Ottoman prince displayed his erudition by debating the veracity of the Christian faith and cited Christian sources that demonstrated the ultimate triumph of Islam over Chris­ tian­ity.93 The Ottoman prince cited a text of Venetian origin copied in 1488 that included an ancient prophecy predicting an Ottoman takeover of Rome. According to the oracle, an Ottoman ruler named Süleymān would wage war in Hungary as sultan of the ġāzīs. He would build a potent navy with which he would conquer many lands. He would then personally go to Rome and conquer it, killing countless numbers of Rome’s notables as well as the pope of the time. The sultan would w ­ ater and feed his h­ orse in the founts of the pope’s church (St. Peter’s), annex Rome to the rest of his domains, and remain t­ here for some time dispensing justice.94 This would all take place a­ fter the year AH 920/1514– 93. ​For an in-­depth discussion of the polemic nature of the Ġurbetnāme, see Barbara Flemming, “A Sixteenth-Century ­ Turkish Apology for Islam: The Gurbetmane-i­ Sultan Cem,” Byzantinische Forschungen 16 (1991): 105–21. 94. ​“Gurbet-­nâme-­i Sultan Cem,” ed. İsmail Hami Danişmend, Fâtih ve İstanbul 2 (1954): 211–77 (the prophecy appears on 227–28). For a discussion of this prophetic text, see also Fleischer, “Shadows of Shadows,” 52–53. Variations of this prophecy appear to have circulated in Venice and Rome during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Carlo Dionisotti discussed two versions of this prophecy in

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15 CE. A ­ fter listening to Cem Sultan, the pope went to get his own copy of the same prophecy, which he compared to the book in Cem’s possession, and confirmed that both texts ­were one and the same. Although it is impossible to know for sure the source of the prophecy, it is evident that all apocalyptic texts could be revised and reinterpreted according to each community’s concerns and expectations. Moreover, the case of Martín Mayo offers a glimpse into the pos­si­ble trajectories of apocalyptic prophecies across the Mediterranean, as well as the shared Mediterranean worldview and po­liti­cal discourse. Morisco apocalyptic material circulated widely, especially during times of po­liti­cal upheaval, not just within Spain but across the broader Mediterranean. The Moriscos ­were abreast of news regarding Ottoman defeats and victories, and, like their Christian contemporaries, they interpreted historical events in an apocalyptic key. B ­ ecause of this, t­here is a need for a broader Mediterranean focus in order to understand and contextualize Morisco apocalyptic texts, as well as information concerning Morisco apocalyptic thought that can be drawn from inquisitorial sources. This macroperspective serves to contest scholarly critiques of inquisitorial sources as profoundly biased. On the contrary, such sources can help us contextualize Aljamiado texts and understand the dif­fer­ent uses and meanings that Moriscos gave to them. Furthermore, by adopting an interpretive approach that is at once micro-­ and macrohistorical, we gain knowledge of the pro­cesses of production and circulation of prophetic texts among Moriscos. Martín Mayo’s case shows that the Moriscos not only had intimate knowledge of the prophecies circulating in the Ottoman Empire but also adapted t­ hese prophecies, just as they had done with the medieval Iberian Christian prophetic corpus, reinterpreting them in light of their own communal experiences. Fi­nally, and perhaps more impor­tantly, the fact that Mayo was citing what was very likely an Ottoman rendition of a Venetian prophecy is proof of the widespread circulation of apocalyptic prophetic material around the Mediterranean basin.95

which the Virgin intercedes on behalf of Christians, prompting the Ottoman sultan to convert to Chris­tian­ity. See Carlo Dionisotti, “La guerra d’Oriente nella letteratura veneziana del Cinquecento,” in Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1967), 170. 95. ​For this last point on a common Mediterranean apocalyptic tradition, see Fleischer, “Mediterranean Apocalypse.” While Fleischer sees a waning of Ottoman apocalyptic activities by the m ­ iddle of the sixteenth c­ entury, the cases analyzed in this chapter are particularly exciting b­ ecause they extend the life of this phenomenon well into the final de­cades of the ­century.

Ch a p te r 4

“The ­Grand Morisco Conspiracy” Prophecy and Rebellion Plots in Valencia and Aragon (1570–1582)

In 1574 Bernardo de Bolea, vice-­chancellor of the Kingdom of Aragon, submitted a report addressed to Philip II stating his opinion that “the Turkish armada would not come to harm t­ hese kingdoms in order to help the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon, since he [the Ottoman sultan] does not have a port wherein to gather his ships.”1 Bolea did not believe that the Moriscos of Valencia would rebel “since they do not have the aid of the Turk.” More impor­tant, he knew that the Moriscos w ­ ere not well armed and did not have provisions or ammunition, which would preclude them from staging a rebellion. Bolea was correct in pointing out that the Moriscos would not move without the aid of their power­f ul coreligionists, but was an Ottoman intervention as unlikely as the vice-­chancellor perceived? The memoranda produced in the meetings of the Council of State and the dismissive reports of Vice-­Chancellor Bolea have suggested to modern scholars that t­ hese alarms remained in the category of paranoid rumors, and that the Ottomans, as Bolea sharply pointed out, had no intention of supporting the Moriscos in their alleged plots.2 Yet, as chapter 3 demonstrated, reading Spanish archival sources alongside Ottoman material can yield fruitful insights into the question of Morisco po­liti­cal activities. Ottoman sources sug1. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 335. 2. ​See esp. Márques Villanueva, “El mito de la gran conspiración morisca,” 2:267. 130



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gest that the recruitment of Moriscos might have been part of an Ottoman Mediterranean strategy in the years following the defeat at the ­Battle of Lepanto. The possibility of a Morisco rebellion becomes more substantial when we consider that this community was at the center of Ottoman plans to reconquer La Goleta, at least according to a vizierial letter addressed to “the people ­ of Andalusia” sent sometime around 1574.3 The letter, which since being studied by Andrew Hess more than forty years ago has remained mostly unaddressed by scholars, reveals how the Ottomans attempted to direct a network of contacts between Spain and Algiers to coordinate a concerted attack against the Christians in Spain.4 This chapter traces the circulation of that vizierial letter among some Morisco communities of Aragon and Valencia and analyzes its content alongside the testimonies of a Morisco spy for the Inquisition named Luis Moreno. Between 1576 and 1583 Moreno warned the inquisitors about a plan to take up arms that had been devised by members of several prominent Morisco families of Aragon, in conjunction with other wealthy Morisco families of Valencia. Moreno’s accounts to the inquisitors reveal the existence of rifts and fractures within Morisco communities. One of the strategies employed by the Inquisition was precisely to exploit t­ hose fractures to break the communities from within, isolating members from dif­fer­ent economic backgrounds, as well as members of the same families, and setting them against one another. By paying attention to the internal dynamics of ­these Morisco families and their external interactions—­such as with the Inquisition, their lords, local authorities, and foreign powers—­their rebellion plots can be understood in terms of religious conflict (Muslim-­Christian), imperial conflict (Ottoman-­Habsburg), and the conjunction of local dynamics and structural conflicts and changes. A microhistorical approach to this conspiracy in its Aragonese and Valencian context sheds light on the ferment in which apocalyptic prophecies developed and flourished in the second half of the sixteenth ­century.

Morisco Conspiracies in Spanish Historiography The question of conspiracies has been pre­sent in the historiography of the Moriscos since the moment of their expulsion in 1609, and it is still subject to debate. In his influential article “El mito de la gran conspiración morisca [The Myth of the G ­ rand Morisco Conspiracy],” Francisco Márquez Villanueva 3. ​Ferīdūn Beg, Mecmūʿa-­i Münşeʾātü’s-­Selāṭīn (Istanbul, 1857), 2:550–52. 4. ​Hess, “Moriscos.”

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objected that the historiography on the Moriscos had never been able to rid itself of the explanation cemented in the pro-expulsion ­ propaganda that the extreme mea­sure of expulsion was a result of the Moriscos’ treason (prodición) against the Crown. As a result, Márquez Villanueva denounced, “­There is hardly any monograph or textbook dealing with the Moriscos that does not point out how they were ­ always a seedbed of conspirers, fifth- ­ columnists, and natu­ral allies of all of Spain’s enemies, to which they posed a threat and mortal danger.”5 Indeed, scholars have been interested in the question of Morisco conspiracies, particularly t­ hose whose work has centered on the question of the expulsion, yet Márquez Villanueva’s assessment of the historiography might be somewhat overstated. A brief overview of the lit­er­a­ture ­will shed light on the difficulties of writing a history of Morisco po­liti­cal activities. As has been mentioned, all the chroniclers of the Morisco expulsion justified the Moriscos’ fate by their alleged treachery. Following the school of Menéndez Pelayo (1856–1912), historians of the “restoration generation” once again became interested in the question of treason among the crypto-­Muslim minority. To defend the religious unity of Spain, ­these scholars again justified the Morisco expulsion as a necessary mea­sure against acts of Morisco disloyalty. Along t­hese lines, the works of Manuel Danvila and Pascual Boronat y Barrachina provided impor­tant unpublished source material to support the idea that the Moriscos, as inassimilable subjects of the king, represented a threat to the Catholic monarchy.6 A ­ fter the second de­cade of the twentieth c­ entury, and u­ nder the influence of French Hispanists who saw the cultural difference of New Christians as central to the Morisco question, the conspiracies of the Moriscos to take up arms with the aid of Spain’s enemies came to be seen as the manifestation of a Morisco-Old ­ Christian confrontation (be it doctrinal or national).7 As a result the role of the Moriscos as an “Ottoman fifth column” began to be investigated in depth. As a reaction against this tendency, Márquez Villanueva argued that the prob­lem was one of sources. Because ­ most of the information available on the conspiracies was produced by the Inquisition, sources he considered “poisoned,” the information extracted from the inquisitorial rec­ords could not be trusted. For him and other scholars, 5. ​Márques Villanueva, “El mito de la gran conspiración morisca,” 2:267. 6. ​Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión; Manuel Danvila y Collado, La expulsión de los moriscos españoles, ed. Rafael Benítez Sánchez-Blanco, ­ 3rd  ed. (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2007). 7. ​Braudel, Mediterranean; Louis Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos: Un enfrentamiento polémico, trans. Mercedes García-­Arenal (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1979); Halperín Donghi, Un conflicto nacional.



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the alleged Morisco conspiracies of the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury w ­ ere elaborated as part of the Catholic propaganda machine, one that ultimately resulted in the justification of the expulsion mea­sure. Márquez Villanueva was correct to point out that not all Moriscos w ­ ere conspirators, yet he assumed that b­ ecause only a minority within the Morisco community expressed intent to rise up in arms, any alarm of a pos­si­ble insurrection must have been exaggerated by the inquisitors, thus making all the documentation produced by the Holy Office highly unreliable. Analyzing the persecutory activities of the tribunals of Valencia and Aragon against Moriscos, scholars of the Inquisition have noted that the periods of intense surveillance and persecution coincide with alarms of uprising conspiracies.8 These ­ scholars provided the first descriptions of inquisitorial ­investigations against Moriscos involved in alleged seditious plots. The most recent treatments of the Morisco insurrection schemes of the 1570s and 1580s have also questioned the veracity of t­ hese conspiracies, particularly by focusing on the dubious information provided by Gil Pérez, a Morisco spy for the Inquisition (Pérez is discussed in chapter 5). While ­these works have contributed significantly to the understanding of Moriscos’ politi ­ cal ­ activities, there ­ are still unpursued lines of investigation. By reassessing the sources, both inquisitorial ones and documents produced in Council of State meetings, and working with newly uncovered material, this chapter sheds further light on the centrality of apocalyptic prognostications in Morisco rebellion plots, and reconsiders the plausibility of Morisco insurrection hopes a­ fter their defeat in the Alpujarras. The rebellion of the Granadan Moriscos, as discussed in chapter 2, must be understood as a radical reform movement that sought a return to the politi ­ cal ­ moment when Muslims held politi ­ cal ­ control of al- ­ Andalus. As was demonstrated, this reform movement, like many other medieval ­ and early modern Islamic reform movements, was imbued with messi­anic and apocalyptic ideas. In the context of Granada, the apocalyptic prognostications that circulated during the revolt offered the rebels the possibility of imagining themselves as lords of that land again. As this chapter shows, some Moriscos in Aragon and Valencia continued to express their grievances in apocalyptic terms during the second half of the sixteenth ­century, but the aims of the movement reflect the local realities of the tensions that arose from the introduction of a foreign institution, the Inquisition, to the Crown of Aragon.

8. ​See esp. Ricardo García Cárcel, Herejía y sociedad en el siglo XVI (Barcelona: Ediciones Península, 1980); William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

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A Message from the Sublime Porte The Granada War, the series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492 of Ferdinand and Isabella to conquer the last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula from its Naṣrid emirs (r. 1238–1492), was a psychological blow for Iberian Muslim populations in Granada and the rest of the Christian kingdoms. When it was apparent that Islamic rule in al-­Andalus was reaching its end, the Muslims of Iberia sent embassies to the most power­ful Muslim rulers in the Mediterranean in order to garner support in their time of need. As early as 1487 the Mudéjars of Valencia sent two envoys, one from Xátiva and another from Paterna, to inform Sultan Bāyezīd II (r. 1481–1512) of Ferdinand and Isabella’s war against Granada and to request aid. The Mudéjars petitioned the Ottoman sultan to send p­ eople to Valencia and assured him that 200,000 Muslims from Valencia and other kingdoms would rise up, b­ ecause they had plenty of arms and manpower.9 That same year Bāyezīd II sent a fleet commanded by Kemāl Reʾīs to survey the coasts of Spain.10 The fall of the Naṣrid Kingdom did not discourage Spanish Muslims from continuing to seek the help of their more powerful ­ brothers. ­ Recall the letters to the Mamlūk and then to the Ottoman sultan shortly a­ fter the fall of Granada.11 The Morisco poems sent to “Our Lord Abū Yazīd,” Bāyezīd II and to his Mamlūk counterpart attempted to appeal to the religious sentiments of their brethren of faith; the Spanish Muslims lamented their situation and stressed that they w ­ ere forced to renounce their religion and accept the law of the infidels. With t­ hese letters they attempted to persuade the Muslim powers to exercise diplomatic pressure on the pope and Christian Monarchs by threatening to subject the Christian populations of ­these Muslim rulers to the same treatment that the Spanish Muslims w ­ ere receiving at the hands of the Catholic Monarchs. In a letter the Moriscos of Granada sent to the Ottoman sultan Süleymān (r. 1520–66), they begged the sultan to send Ḫayreddīn Barbarossa to help them defeat their common e­ nemy.12 The chroniclers of the

9. ​See Mark D. Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 66–67. 10. ​Gilles Veinstein, “Autour de la lettre de Selim II aux Andalous et des origines de la Guerre de Chypre,” in España y el oriente islámico entre los siglos XV y XVI, ed. Encarnación Sanchez García, Pablo Martín Asuero, and Michele Bernardini (Istanbul: Isis, 2007), 271. 11. ​­These letters have been edited in James T. Monroe, “A Curious Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” Al-­Andalus 31, nos. 1–2 (1966): 281–303; and also in P. S. van Koningsveld and G. A. Wiegers, “An Appeal of the Moriscos to the Mamluk Sultan and Its Counterpart to the Ottoman Court: Textual Analy­sis, Context and Wider Historical Background,” Al-­Qanṭara 20, no. 1 (1999): 161–89. 12. ​This letter has been discussed and translated into French by Abdeljelil Temimi in “Une lettre des morisques de Grenade au Sultan Suleiman al-­Kanuni en 1541,” Revue d’Histoire Maghrébine 3 (1975): 100–106.



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Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras, Luis Mármol de Carvajal and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, emphasized that the Moriscos w ­ ere attempting to secure aid from the Ottoman and Moroccan sultans before and during the rebellion.13 Moreover, in his memoirs, the marquis of Mondéjar recalled that he had obtained some letters that the Moriscos had sent to the Ottomans, whose originals he sent to Philip II, along with a translation by the Morisco Alonso del Castillo, who served as translator for the Inquisition as well as royal interpreter.14 On April  16, 1570, Sultan Selīm II (r. 1566–74) dispatched a fermān (edict) addressed to the ­people of Andalusia in which he assured the Moriscos that their pleas had reached him. He addressed his Muslim brethren as the sultan “who does not cease to manifest his interest and his affection t­oward you [the Moriscos].” Selīm II informed the rebels that an imperial order had been sent to the beylerbey (governor) of Algiers, Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha (r. 1571–97), to send soldiers, arms, and provisions.15 T ­ hose provisions never arrived, but the defeat in the Alpujarras did not preclude the Moriscos from continuing to appeal to their coreligionists in the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury. Sometime between 1574 and 1576, the Moriscos of Aragon and Valencia received a letter from the Ottoman Empire acknowledging their pleas for help, citing reasons for the delayed response, and promising to come to their aid.16 The letter opens with an allusion to the enthronement of Sultan Selīm II in 1566. It recognizes that the Moriscos had sent an envoy with a letter to the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Ḥasan Pasha, lamenting their current strug­gles and asking for help against the Christians in what presumably w ­ ere preparations for the rebellion in the Alpujarras. It then embarks on a long justification of why the Ottomans had not come to the Moriscos’ aid, stating that the campaign in Cyprus (1570) had kept the sultan occupied. Controlling Cyprus was in the interest of all Muslims, according to the letter, since the Spanish navy was harassing pilgrims traveling to Mecca and took refuge in Cyprus

13. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, bk. 1, ch. 9; Hurtado de Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, bk. 1. 14. ​“Mémoire présenté au Roi Philippe II par Iñigo López de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondéjar et Capitaine Général du Royaume de Grenade por justifier sa conduite pendant la campagne qu’il dirigea contre les Morisques en 1569,” reprinted in Alfred Morel-­Fatio, L’Espagne au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle: Documents historiques et littéraires (Paris: Heilbronn, Henninger Frères, Libraires-­Éditeurs, 1878), 1–96. The translations of the letters are compiled in del Castillo, “Sumario e recopilación de todo lo romançado.” 15. ​The fermān has been translated into French by Abdeljelil Temimi in “Le gouvernement Ottoman face au problème morisque,” Revue d’Histoire Maghrébine 23–24 (1981): 249–62. 16.  ​A copy of the “Illustrious Letter Sent to the People ­ of Andalusia” was included in the Mecmūʿa-­i Münşeʾātü’s-­Selāṭīn, a collection of state papers compiled by Ferīdūn Beg (d. 1583), private secretary to the ­g rand vizier Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha. When the letter was composed in 1574, Ferīdūn Beg had already been promoted to the post of nişāncı (chancellor), and thus must have had direct access to the letter; he may have even drafted it.

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whenever the Ottomans attempted to stop them. Now that the Spanish had attacked Tunis (Don John of Austria had taken the city in 1573), the Ottomans ­were preparing to recover the city, and would be able to help the Moriscos. Not only were ­ they ready; it was their responsibility, for, as the letter states, “Helping and supporting the Islamic community (ehl-­i İslām) and insulting the enemies of the religion of the Prophet is a religious duty (farż-­ı ‘ayn ve mahż-­ı dīn) for their lofty desire of obligation.”17 Empathizing with the plight of the Moriscos and accommodating a response to their plans to recover Tunis, the Ottomans informed the despairing Spanish Muslims that they would send the imperial navy “to save Tunis and to conquer the fort named Ḫalḳu’l-Vād [La Goleta],” and that in the meantime, one of their men “from the special servants of the Empire and who is knowledgeable of t­ hose regions, has been sent to you with a book that shows [our] friendship (kitāb-­ı muḥabbet-­nemā).”18 Exactly what this book was is unclear—­perhaps it refers to the letter itself—­yet ­there is reason to believe that the special kitāb might have contained prophecies, as w ­ ill become evident in the following section. The Ottoman missive goes on to give instructions to the Moriscos as to how to proceed: When our abovementioned man arrives, God willing, may He be exalted, all of you ­shall consult together in good agreement and complete unity. Also, if in what­ever year and time you w ­ ill have the ability and power to move on and attack the enemies of religion with the zeal of the Evident Religion, accordingly you ­shall, with the knowledge of our abovementioned man, send your men to the Threshold of Felicity [Istanbul] from the direction of Algeria. You s­ hall communicate in detail with one another in order that the preparations of the enemies of evil repute s­ hall be known, that [aid] w ­ ill arrive for you by sea and land on the time that was appointed and assigned, and that they [the Algerians] ­will render ­every assistance.19 This letter suggests that the Ottomans had a large-­scale plan to attack Spain by supporting its enemies. As it also confirms, the Ottomans promised to help the Moriscos, but this “Ottoman fifth column,” as Hess called it, would have to coordinate its actions with Protestant rebels in the Netherlands to deliver a power­ful blow. The Ottomans reminded the Moriscos that “the Lutheran sect does not cease its war and combat with those ­ who are subject to the 17. ​Ferīdūn Beg, Münşeʾāt, 551, ll. 1 and 2. 18. ​Ibid., l. 27 (Hess’s translation in “Moriscos,” 18). 19. ​Ferīdūn Beg, Münşeʾāt, 551, ll. 36–37, and 552, ll. 1–5 (Hess’s translation in “Moriscos,” 18).



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Pope and his school,” and suggested that the Moriscos “secretly communicate with them [the Protestants], and when they set out upon war and combat with the Pope you ­shall also take care, jointly, to cause losses to the provinces and soldiers [of the Pope] from your side.”20 Si­mul­ta­neously, the Ottomans sent an imperial letter (nāme-­i hümāyūn) promising aid to the rebels in Flanders (Fılāndara) and in the Spanish provinces. The letter, which was also preserved by Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha’s private secretary, Ferīdūn Beg, informed the Protestant rebels of the Ottomans’ proposed Muslim-­Lutheran alliance: “Our imperial letter also has been sent to the notables of the Islamic p­ eople who are Müdeccel (Mudéjars), and it has been written saying [to them]: ‘When the Lutheran Beys [Begs], Beyzādes (Begzādes), and notables send troops against the followers of the Pope, you w ­ ill also advance on t­ hose without religion from one side, and you w ­ ill render assistance [to the Lutherans].’ You ­will mutually inform each other, always, and become friendly.”21 The Ottoman intention of weakening the Habsburgs by establishing alliances with the enemies of Spain was not a new strategy. They had been paying close attention to the religious and po­liti­cal events unfolding in Eu­rope, and the activities of the German Protestants became increasingly impor­tant to Sultan Süleymān as he opposed the emperor.22 The dealings of Sultan Süleymān with the “most Christian King,” Francis I of France, e­ nemy of the Holy Roman Emperor, w ­ ere well known throughout Christendom. But this new plan for the Moriscos must be read in the context of the Ottoman strategy of imperial expansion as conceived by the g­ rand vizier Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha.23 During the 1560s and 1570s, an increasing resentment of the Portuguese among local populations throughout the Indian Ocean translated into “a tangible if still inchoate yearning among its disparate Muslim communities to transcend their differences and forge a g­ rand pan-­Islamic alliance.”24 One of the ways the Ottomans pursued this was precisely by supporting local Muslim populations who could weaken the power of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. The proposed aid to the Moriscos must then be understood in terms of the Ottomans’ claim to universal sovereignty as protectors of all 20. ​Ibid. 21.  ​Ibid., 543, ll. 26–29 (Hess’s translation in “Moriscos,” 20). Hess rendered “Müdeccel” as “Morisco,” but it should read as “Mudéjars.” As we w ­ ill see in the following section, Moriscos who traveled to Constantinople as late as the 1570s ­were still referred to as Mudéjars. 22. ​See Christine Isom-­Verhaaren, “An Ottoman Report about Martin Luther and the Emperor,” Turcica 28 (1996): 299–318. 23. ​Giancarlo Casale has described this g­ rand strategy as a proj­ect of “soft empire” based not on territorial expansion but on an infrastructure of trade, communication, and religious ideology. See Giancarlo Casale, Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 150. 24. ​Ibid., 118.

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Muslims. At the same time, the inclusion of Protestants in this Euro ­ pean ­ scheme is perfectly in line with policies that had operated since the times of Sultan Süleymān: the Ottomans exploited the divisions between Euro ­ pean ­ powers in their strug g­ le with the Habsburgs, especially religious divisions with the emerging Protestant schism.25 Indeed, contact between the Moriscos and the Protestants of France had been a constant fear of the inquisitors, especially ­those of Aragon, as ­will be seen in chapter 6.

Luis Moreno and the ­Grand Morisco Conspiracy The Morisco as conspirator was a constant image in the minds of the inquisitors of Aragon and Valencia in the period a­ fter the Alpujarras revolt. While the Inquisition’s excessive zeal has led modern scholars to question the veracity of this characterization, the Ottoman letter of 1574 leaves no doubt that in the 1570s, ­after the rebellion in Granada, several Moriscos of the Crown of Aragon, which included the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, w ­ ere indeed planning to commit seditious acts against the Spanish monarchy. Yet while not all Moriscos were ­ conspiring against their king, the question remains, what was the identity of the plotters who sometime in 1574, or shortly before, sent an embassy to Sultan Selīm II begging for help, and what did they aim to achieve? Before December 23, 1576, the inquisitors of Zaragoza notified the inquisitor general, Gaspar de Quiroga, about the arrival of people ­ from Ottoman lands 26 with messages for the Moriscos. Proceeding with their investigations, the inquisitors continued to inform the Supreme Council in Madrid on January 24 and February 2, 1577, about the new information that was surfacing concerning the Morisco plot. By March 6, the Council of State once again met to discuss the state of affairs of the Moriscos in the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon. The vice-­chancellor presented the reports of the inquisitors of Zaragoza to the General Council of the Inquisition in a meeting of the Council of State. On January  27, 1577, Juan de Espejo, governor of the village of Xea de Albarracín, appeared before the inquisitor of Aragon, Diego de Haedo, to “relieve his conscience” (descargar su conciencia), swearing that about ten days e­ arlier he was in Xea de Albarracín when his squire Luis Mondragón confided in him that a Valencian Morisco friend of his had told him that the Moriscos of the Kingdoms of 25. ​On the doctrinal affinities, communal similarities, and points of contact between Moriscos and Protestants, see Louis Cardaillac, “Morisques et protestantes,” Al-­Andalus 36, no. 1 (1971): 29–61; Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos, ch. 3. 26. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 964, ff. 7v and 12r.



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Valencia and Aragon would revolt, without a doubt, in that year (1577). He added that t­ here w ­ ere around four hundred “Turks” (turcos) scattered about the Kingdom of Valencia.27 More alarming w ­ ere the confessions of a forty-­seven-­ year-­old Morisco from the Aragonese town of Nuez named Luis Moreno, who was the vassal of Don Pedro de Espés y Alagón (the viceroy’s ­brother).28 Don Pedro interrogated his vassal a­ fter discovering that the Morisco had been absent from Nuez for several days. Luis Moreno fi­nally confessed that “an ambassador of the Turks” (un embajador del turco) had come, bearing letters for the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon, and that he had met with the man. Promising his vassal that he would protect him, Don Pedro took Moreno to testify before the inquisitors of Zaragoza, where he confessed every­thing he knew. At the beginning of December 1576, Moreno declared that he had gone to Vinaceite to sell some lands, and passing by a town called Puebla de Híjar, in Aragon, he allegedly attended a secret meeting at the ­house of a young Morisco notary named Miguel Benalcadí.29 During the meeting, a man named Yuçe or Juçe (Yūsuf ) Duarte, whose Christian name was Juan, son of an Old Christian man and a Morisca, announced that he had come from Istanbul (Constantinopla) with a message for the Moriscos.30 In the presence of the most prominent Moriscos of the area, Duarte stated that “the Turk” (the sultan) had sent him to negotiate with the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon in response to a petition that the Moriscos of Valencia had sent to Istanbul. The petition, which was written by the Moriscos of Segorbe, Benaguacil, and Gandía, had been entrusted to a Morisco named Crespo, from the town of Morés, in Aragón, who, fleeing from the Inquisition, had de­cided to go into exile. In Valencia the man had learned that a ship carry­ing twenty-­five Granadans would soon leave for Algiers and that he could join them on the condition that he take the letters to Istanbul. When he arrived in the Ottoman capital, Crespo claimed to have seen more than three hundred Mudéjars, and through their mediation he was able to give the letter to the sultan on behalf of the Moriscos of Spain.31 A few days l­ater, the sultan had ordered that half a dozen of the Morisco notables (principales) living in Istanbul gather to select the person who would take his missive to the Moriscos; this person was Yūsuf or Yuçe Duarte.

27. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 914, f. 230r. 28. ​AGS, Secreto de Estado, Leg. 335. 29. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 417r. 30. ​This episode has also been described by Rafael Carrasco, Deportados en el nombre de Dios (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 2009), 165–68. 31.  ​BHUV, var. 26/7 (Testimony of witnesses against Miguel Marrán, Morisco of Segorbe, May  1577–­August  1582). ­These Mudéjars were ­ likely Spanish Muslims who had fled to Ottoman lands before the decrees of forced conversion.

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The instructions for Duarte w ­ ere to inspect the provisions and artillery along the Spanish coast from Dénia up to Perpignan.32 Duarte, who according to Moreno claimed to have carefully written every­thing down, must have visited dozens of watchtowers and found out about their provisions, munitions, number of soldiers, and the conditions of the posts. The fortifications along the Valencian coast had been neglected since the 1560s. ­Because of frequent North African corsair attacks on the Valencian coasts, the nobles had insistently requested the adoption of protective mea­sures. However, the architectural defense proj­ects that had been proposed by the Italian engineer Giovanni Battista Antonelli w ­ ere dismissed in the Cortes in 1564 for their excessive cost, which would have had to be absorbed by the cities and maritime villages, and which they could not afford.33 Yet as the historian Joan Reglà has pointed out, the Ottoman conquests of Tunis and La Goleta in 1574 revived Antonelli’s proj­ect, whose memorial was sent to the viceroy of Valencia that same year.34 Thus, it must be assumed that when Duarte inspected the Spanish coasts, he most likely had satisfactory news for the Ottomans. Upon reaching Dénia, Duarte set out with a Turkish-­speaking Ottoman and a renegade named Francisco to visit the Morisco towns and villages and to show them the letters from Istanbul. From the Kingdom of Valencia he went through Calanda, in Teruel, to Urrea and Puebla de Híjar, in Aragon, to meet with the leaders of the Moriscos of that kingdom.35 When they w ­ ere all gathered at Miguel Benalcadí’s h ­ ouse in Puebla de Híjar, Duarte read a letter that was “written in an alphabet that they did not know how to read” (scripta en letra que ellos no sabían leer), which, according to Moreno, stated, “We have learned through fulano (so-­and-so) of Morés about the ill treatment that ­those enemies of ours are subjecting you to, and also of your ­will [to take up arms], so if ­there are no disagreements among you, I ­will liberate you. You ­will send our ­brother Yūsuf Duarte as soon as pos­si­ble so that with your ­will and upon his arrival I can prepare what is necessary, and you ­will confirm certain ­things for us, which he ­will tell you.”36 Although what has reached us ­today is a thirdhand (and possibly fourthhand) version of the original letter sent by the Otto­ mans, the information that Moreno offered is nonetheless valuable. The letter he cited in his confession before the inquisitors of Zaragoza seems to be none other than the Ottoman vizierial letter sent in 1574, as read by Duarte to 32. ​Ibid. 33.  ​See Eugenio Ciscar Pallarés, Tierra y señorío en el país valenciano (1570–1620) (Valencia: Del Cenia al Segura, 1977), 60. 34. ​ACA, CA, 221, 4, 42, quoted in Reglà, Estudios sobre los moriscos, 207. 35. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 418v. 36. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1834. Also cited by Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones, 300–301.



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the Moriscos in Puebla de Híjar. When analyzed as one source, these ­ two documents, which have hitherto never been linked by historians, provide more depth to the alleged plot of 1576. Thus, reading Moreno’s testimony against the vizierial letter of 1574 forces us to reconsider the conspiracy, not as a false plot made up by a Morisco spy and exaggerated by the inquisitors of Aragon but rather as a concerted plan by some wealthy Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon to secure Ottoman aid in a pos­si­ble insurrection. Moreover, what the vizierial letter confirms is that the inquisitors’ fears w ­ ere not all baseless. That some Moriscos had sent an embassy to secure help in their intentions to rebel cannot be denied. Just as Luis Moreno had confessed to the inquisitors of Zaragoza, in his letter of response the sultan acknowledged the arrival of the Morisco emissary who had relayed the news about the insufferable conditions the crypto-­Muslim community was enduring at the hands of the ­enemy of Islam, as well as the community’s desire to take up arms. The Moriscos w ­ ere certain that the Ottoman sultan would come, and they told the inquisitors as much during their forced confessions. For example, a Morisco from Daroca named Joan Catalan confessed u­ nder torture that since 1575 “the Turk was supposed to come to win over the land.”37 The sultan had promised to send arms, men, and provisions, and he had assured them that aid would arrive from North Africa, specifically from Algiers. The same letter was read at the h­ ouse of Francisco Rascón and his wife, María de Samper, in Puebla de Híjar, where Duarte also stayed. Offering further details about the letter, both husband and wife confessed to the inquisitors of Zaragoza that Duarte had shown them “the letter that bore good news from Turkey,” which stated “that all this land would be of one shepherd, and that they would all be Muslim (que esta tierra toda sería de un pastor, y que todos serían moros).”38 With this statement, the message of the sultan confirmed what their prophecies had promised: that after ­ the final apocalyptic battle ­ with the infidel, Islam would emerge triumphant and the whole ­ world would convert to the one true religion.39 The Ottoman plan, according to Moreno as he heard it laid out by Duarte, was to send three fleets: one to Dénia captained by the governor of Algiers, Ramażān Pasha; another to the coast between Murcia and Valencia, whose general would be the viceroy of Rhodes; and a third, at the command of Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha, to Perpignan and Barcelona. The Moriscos would take up arms in concert with the French “Lutherans” of Béarn, who had already been advised 37. ​AHN, Lib. 964, f. 66r. 38. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 494r. 39. ​This idea is pre­sent in several Morisco apocalyptic texts; see chaps. 1 and 5.

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of the plan.40 Duarte would return sometime in the spring to notify the Moriscos about the Ottoman plan. On the Morisco side, the enterprise would be or­ga­nized as follows: the Kingdom of Aragon would be divided into three areas, or­ga­nized by three Morisco notables. Each was entrusted to find out the number of men and arms available in the towns u­ nder their command. According to Moreno’s testimony, which was confirmed by the confessions of other Moriscos involved in the conspiracy, Salvador Monferriz, a Morisco notary, resident in Puebla de Híjar, would be in charge of the lowlands (la tierra baja); a Morisco by the name of Rodero, a very rich man from Xea de Albarracín, would secure that town and the surrounding lands of Teruel; and Gerónimo Izquierdo the elder, resident of Morata, would command the highlands (tierra alta).41 When Duarte returned, he would establish contact with t­ hese three men, who would in turn notify their towns, in this way ensuring that every­one would be ready to take up arms. In the meantime, the Moriscos ­were to wait without becoming restless. According to Moreno, Duarte cautioned the Moriscos against precipitating the rebellion by acting too early without the aid of the Ottomans, as the Moriscos of Granada had rashly done. He reminded them that when the Granadans staged the uprising, “the Turk had come to their aid with an armada, but was forced to stop in the island of Jirba, Tunis (los Gelves), and in this way the Moriscos w ­ ere lost.”42 The envoy stated that “many t­ hings can happen at sea” to prevent the Ottoman armada from arriving on a specific day, and “that is why they do not specify when they w ­ ill come.” He warned them not to believe anyone who attempted to incite them to rebel, and in fact to report it to their lords. He also assured the Moriscos that “the Turks would come without fail.”43 Yuçe Duarte’s ­brother, Gerónimo Ezquerrero (alias Colomo), who was imprisoned by the Inquisition, confessed under ­ torture everything ­ he knew about his b­ rother’s visit. According to Ezquerrero, several copies of the sultan’s letter w ­ ere made for distribution around the dif­fer­ent Morisco villages 44 of Aragon. The Moriscos of Aragon received the information about Duarte’s arrival with jubilation. In Puebla de Híjar, Luis Monferriz killed a goat and hosted a big feast for the occasion.45 News quickly spread beyond the borders of the kingdom. Ezquerrero told the Morisco spy Luis Moreno that in Fraga (Catalonia) an innkeeper had told him that some Moriscos dressed as 40. ​BHUV, var. 28/12, f. 1r. 41. ​Ibid. Lib. 964, f. 54r. 42. ​BHUV, var. 26/7, f. 2v. 43. ​Ibid. 44. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 419v. 45. ​Ibid., f. 493v.



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pilgrims had gone to Castile to deliver the news about what Duarte had announced in the Kingdom of Aragon.46 Moriscos from Aragon, like Montesino Zeyt from Urrea de Híjar, had gone to Valencia to inform their coreligionists of that kingdom about the rebellion plans,47 and Morisco notables from Valencia and Zaragoza, such as the wealthy merchants Jaime Izquierdo from Segorbe and Juan Compañero of Zaragoza, met with Duarte at Benalcadí’s­house.48 When Duarte arrived in Puebla de Híjar in 1576, nearly two years had passed since the Ottoman sultan had drafted his letter to the Moriscos. References to the capture of Tunis by Don John of Austria in 1573, and the Ottoman plans to reconquer the city, led Hess to date the letter to the year 1574. The letter must have been composed between January and June that year, since an impressive fleet numbering 230 galleys and a few dozen small ships, carry­ing around forty thousand men, descended on the coast of Tunis at the command of Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha and Sinān Pasha on July 11, returning to Istanbul well past the campaign season on September 13.49 With Tunis conquered, the Ottomans would be able to fulfill their promises to the Moriscos, but they would certainly have to wait u ­ ntil the following summer of 1575. Yet perhaps the Ottomans w ­ ere in no condition to engage in a long and distant war against their Spanish ­enemy. The new heir to the throne, Murād III (r. 1574–95), had inaugurated his reign practically with the new year of 1575.50 It is unclear w ­ hether Duarte’s journey was delayed b­ ecause of the change of sovereign, but t­here is reason to believe that he first reached Spanish shores sometime in 1575. Chapter 3 reported the testimony of an Aragonese Morisco stating in March 1575 that since the Christians had lost La Goleta, the Ottomans would disembark in Barcelona, where Duarte had said Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha would land. ­There was also the testimony of a Morisco from Villafeliche who had heard a man from Constantinople (possibly Duarte or his companion) reading a prophecy that the land would be lost. Duarte most likely passed through Villafeliche, an impor­tant Morisco village on the banks of the Ebro River that was well known as a center of gunpowder production. While Duarte was negotiating a joint Ottoman-­North African offensive against the Spanish coasts with Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha, secret negotiations w ­ ere being carried out by an agent of Philip II, Antonio Abellán, to bring the g­ rand admiral of the Ottoman navy into the ser­vice of the Catholic monarch. Abellán was trying to secure an agreement with Ḳılıç ʿAlī through which the king of 46. ​Ibid. 47. ​Ibid., f. 397r. 48. ​Ibid., f. 417r. 49. ​Braudel, Mediterranean, 2:1137. 50. ​Sultan Selīm II passed away on December 25, 1574, and his son acceded to the throne a few days­later.

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Spain would help the former governor of Algiers take over the Ottoman province. Philip II offered Ḳılıç ʿAlī in­de­pen­dence in Algiers and protection.51 As Maria José Rodríguez Salgado has pointed out, with this alliance the Spanish monarch could avert several dangers: he could put an end to the Algerian pirate and corsair attacks, neutralize a power­f ul hawk in the Ottoman court who was one of the most active counselors in ­favor of an aggressive offensive in the Mediterranean and an enthusiast of Ottoman expansion in the Maghreb, and put an end to the Ottoman base in North Africa.52 Abellán was not successful in winning over the Ottoman ­grand admiral, but that did not halt Philip II from attempting to negotiate a strategy against the Ottomans with multiple agents. ­These examples show the favorable attitude of both the Ottoman and Spanish monarchs t­ oward this type of proj­ect and that neither the Ottoman sultan nor the Spanish monarch had any qualms about dealing with multiple agents, of reputable or dubious character, when it came to an offensive strategy against the e­ nemy in the Mediterranean. Yuçe Duarte left the Iberian Peninsula via Tortosa, in Catalonia, sometime in January 1577. He had promised to be back at the end of June or July. A ­ fter his departure, he practically dis­appears from the sources for a brief period. However, a letter dated March 23, 1577, from the archbishop of Ragusa, Vincenzo de Portico, to the marquis of Mondéjar, who was serving as viceroy of Naples at the time, might provide a clue to Duarte’s activities a­ fter leaving Spain. The archbishop informed Mondéjar about a thirty-­five-­year-­old man named Yusuf Conitre who had gone to Valencia via Algiers with an Ottoman letter and alleged promises from Aluchalí (Uluç ʿAlī or Ḳılıç ʿAlī) and Mehmed Baxa (Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha) regarding a treaty proposed by Ḳılıç ʿAlī against the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon. The coincidence in the name, Yūsuf, the circumstances of his trip to Spain, and his date of travel suggest that the man might have been Duarte. On March 15 he had returned to Algiers in a ship from Vizcaya, wearing Christian garb and announcing that he was ­going to Constantinople to rescue Christians. The man was in Ragusa with a Valencian Morisco named Ali when he revealed in secret that he was taking a resolution of the Morisco notables of Valencia that stated that they ­were prepared to execute the treaty. He also carried a letter for Ḳılıç ʿAlī and Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha, requesting that they send a large armada with ammunition and gunpowder, and assuring them that the Moriscos ­were well armed.53 Perhaps Du-

51. ​Maria José Rodríguez Salgado, Felipe II, el “Paladín de la Cristiandad” y la paz con el turco (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2004), 40. 52. ​Ibid. 53. ​AGS, Estado Nápoles, Leg. 1074, docs. 7, 8, 151.



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arte had retuned too late; on March  18, 1577, the king of Spain and the Ottoman sultan signed a secret peace agreement. The peace negotiations, which have been discussed in detail by Braudel and Rodríguez Salgado, ensured that neither party would engage in military operations against the other, or their allies. The peace negotiations resulted in two truces, in 1577 and 1578, the latter being extended for three additional years. Despite this ­grand achievement, the Ottomans demanded that a formal ambassador be sent to Istanbul, since the negotiations on the Spanish side had been carried out by Giovanni Margliani, a lesser-­known figure who had been taken captive in Istanbul following the siege of La Goleta.54 This was particularly impor­tant for the g­ rand vizier, who had supported early negotiations with a previous Spanish envoy, Don Martín de Acuña, who was dismissed by the king. Soḳollu Meḥmed found himself in a delicate situation with ­little support and warned the Spanish agent that if an ambassador ­were not sent, he would have to “take the advice of the Captain of the Sea (ḳapudān-­ı deryā),” Ḳılıç ʿAlī.55 The ­grand admiral had been actively opposed to the truce and continued to pressure for an offensive in the Mediterranean.56 In this environment of secret negotiations, rumors, and espionage, it is not unlikely that the Ottoman ­g rand admiral would continue to offer hopes to the Valencian and Aragonese Moriscos of an Ottoman-­North African intervention on the coasts of Spain, despite the ongoing peace negotiations between the two sworn enemies. In the event that the sultan were ­ to change his mind, Ḳılıç ʿAlī knew that the Moriscos would be ready to act accordingly and pay large sums of money to obtain the much-­desired aid. But the Ottomans w ­ ere already engaged in a difficult war with the Safavids, and thus needed the peace with the Spanish monarch to continue. This did not, however, restrain the g­ rand admiral from spreading rumors in 1580 that the peace negotiations had been broken off and that he had o­ rders to arm two hundred galleys and one hundred mahonas (māvnā/maʿūna), large merchant galleys).57 The Morisco agent Yuçe Duarte would soon be back on Valencian soil, accompanied by Francisco (the renegade) and “the Turk.”58 Although it is not clear what happened to the Morisco ­after his return, ­there is in­ter­est­ing information about his companions’ whereabouts. In the spring of 1577, Francisco was seen in Valencia bearing another letter, this time from the governor of Algiers, Ramażān Pasha. Although the authenticity of the letter cannot be 54. ​Braudel, Mediterranean, 2:1156. 55. ​Ibid. 56. ​Ibid., 1153, 1155; Emilio Sola Castaño, Uchalí: El Calabrés Tiñoso, o el mito del corsario muladí en la frontera (Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2010), 262–66. 57. ​Braudel, Mediterranean, 2:1159. 58. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 447r.

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verified, it complements both the Ottoman vizierial letter of 1574 and news about Duarte’s mission among the Spanish Moriscos. According to the information provided by the spy Luis Moreno, Francisco was taken by the Morisco notables Martín and Jaime Izquierdo to Segorbe, where he left a copy of the letter with another New Christian named Mahoma Macian, also known as Macian Diamant, of Paterna.59 Moreno, who had the letter read to him while he copied, gave the following transcription to the inquisitors: We, governor (alcaide) Ario Romadan, king of Algiers, to you, our beloved, the Muslims of the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, tell you that the reason why the armada has been delayed so much is so that the prophecy of al-­nabī ʿalayhi salām (the Prophet, peace be upon him) can be fulfilled, which declares that the French [king] w ­ ill charge first, and thus he ­will do, for ­there is order to do so, and the Turk ­will give war on three sides. Anazara w ­ ill be lost in this manner, that the w ­ hole armada will ­ come together toward ­ the end of the summer in the Bay of Algiers, and its general ­will be Ochalí (Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha), and it ­will go into sea, and t­ here it w ­ ill split, and seventy galleys w ­ ill go to Barcelona, and t­here they w ­ ill engage in b­ attle with the e­ nemy, and they w ­ ill do the same in Valencia, and two days l­ater the third one w ­ ill come close to the coast, and t­ hose of you who a­ re close w ­ ill come to give your arms to those ­ who live further away from the coasts so they can defend themselves in high lands where they can be secure, and t­hose of Aragon, when they hear that the French [king] has attacked, w ­ ill go to the highest places.60 If the governor of Algiers, a close ally of Ḳılıç ʿAlī, did in fact send a missive to the Spanish Moriscos, did Luis Moreno have access to the pasha’s letter, and was its content read to him as he wrote it down and gave it to the inquisitors of Zaragoza? Was it forged by Francisco the renegade to deceive the Moriscos into believing that an Ottoman armada would come that spring? Or was it the product of Moreno’s imagination, to provide proof to the inquisitors about a Morisco conspiracy, in this way securing his salary?61 It is impossible to know for certain, but nevertheless ­there are in­ter­est­ing ele­ments in the letter regarding the military plans of the Ottomans and North Africans 59. ​Diamant, along with other accomplices, was tried by the inquisition of Valencia in the auto de fe celebrated in the city on August 24, 1578. A summary of his accusation (relación de causas de fe) can be found in AHN, Inq. Lib. 936, f. 180v. 60. ​Published by Danvila y Collado in La expulsión de los moriscos españoles, 191–92. 61. ​The possibility of the letter being forged by Luis Moreno is discussed ­later in the chapter. For more on the prob­lem of Morisco forgers, see chap. 4.



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that make the correspondence at least plausible. Multiple reports asserted that Murād III was preparing a g­ reat expedition for that spring. According to the news received by Philip II, the Ottomans w ­ ere preparing three hundred galleys, 10 ships (naves), thirty large merchant galleys, one hundred karamusal (ḳaramürsel, or small cargo ships), and thousands of men—­all ready to set sail on April 23, 1577.62 The French, for their part, magnified the weaknesses of the Spanish monarch as a result of the events taking place in Flanders in an attempt to incite the Ottomans to attack Spanish lands.63 Additionally, between January and March 1577 more news surfaced in the Spanish Cortes about the dealings of the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon with Ḳılıç ʿAlī. It must not be forgotten that the g­ rand admiral of the Ottoman navy fiercely opposed the truce negotiations that had taken place in Istanbul. If the letter was indeed sent by the governor of Algiers, why would prophecy figure prominently as the explanation for the Ottomans’ delay? That the Ottomans would make impor­tant military decisions based on apocalyptic prognostications would seem far-­fetched ­were it not for Sultan Murād III’s well-­ known proclivity to all t­ hings occult.64 In such a context, it would not seem absurd for the Ottomans to pre­sent the confirmation of a prophecy as sufficient reason to delay an attack on Spanish soil. Prophecy thus gave legitimacy to the enterprise, and it excused the Ottomans for their lack of action before their weaker Muslim brethren. Indeed, the Moriscos expected the Ottoman armada to come. Perhaps the governor’s appeal to prophecy was meant to appease any anx­ie­ ties or doubts that the Moriscos might have had about the intentions of the Ottomans. ­After all, as one con­temporary observer commented in his memorial to the Inquisition of Valencia in March 1576, it was discussed among the “men of war” that the Turks w ­ ere possibly trying to deceive the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon. Writing from North Africa, Juan de Torres, a Jesuit intermediary who used to pay ransoms on behalf of captive Christians, believed that since the Moriscos ­were pleading with the Ottomans to send an armada, stating that they would hand over to them the coast of Spain, “the Turk would approach with his armada close enough so that the Moriscos would think that they ­were coming to their aid and they would revolt.” Then the Ottomans would turn around and charge against Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca, and Sardinia, and against Sicily, “which is now its main target, so that [the 62. ​Rodríguez Salgado, Felipe II, 49. 63. ​Ibid. 64. ​Emine Fetvacı has highlighted Murād III’s interest in occultism and astronomy based on works he commissioned, works presented to him, and on con­temporary sources that describe the sultan’s character. See Emine Fetvacı, Picturing History at the Ottoman Court (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 43.

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sultan] can winter in Messina or Palermo.”65 If the Moriscos had any doubts about the Ottoman pledge to rescue them, the appeal to prophecy could have been aimed at putting an end to such speculation; the Ottomans w ­ ere fulfilling God’s w ­ ill. By invoking the “prophecy of al-­nabī,” t­ here was an assumption on the part of the sender that the Moriscos knew which prophecy was being cited.66 This suggests not only that the Ottomans and Moriscos shared the same prophetic corpus but also that, for both communities, prophecy was a legitimate medium of po­liti­cal discourse.

“To Each His Own Law” What did the conspirators aim to achieve? The goals of the movement, according to the information gathered by the Inquisition, w ­ ere vari­ous, if not conflicting. A man from Béarn named Francisco Nalias confessed u­ nder torture that if the French Protestants joined forces with the Moriscos, they would “ruin Christendom and each would live by their own law (arruinarian la christiandad, y viviria cada uno en su secta).”67 Also subjected to torture and pressed to disclose the seditious plans, a Morisco named Lope de Arcos confessed that the rebels sought “to protect themselves (guardar sus personas),” most likely from the Inquisition.68 Other Moriscos confessed that the Ottomans and Protestants would come “to win over this land so that they [the Moriscos] could live as Moors [Muslims].”69 The inquisitors also recorded the confessions of Yuçe Duarte’s b­ rother, who stated a­ fter torture, “When the Turks came, the Moriscos had agreed to be ready for war, to charge against the Christians in ­favor of the Moors, so as to live by the sect of Muḥammad.”70 In their investigations of the towns of Daroca, Villafeliche, and other areas, the inquisitors discovered that the Moriscos “planned to rise against Christendom, and wanted the Turk to come so that, just as this land had once been Moorish, now it would be theirs (y que viniese el turco para que como antes era esta tierra de moros, que agora fuse suya).”71 Similarly, speaking to a priest about the Inquisition’s imprisonments, a Morisco from Villafeliche named Martín Bendicho stated that it was useless for the familiares to keep imprisoning 65. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 538/1, exp. 1, f. 2v–3r. Trial against Audela Alicaxet, Morisco of Gandía, Valencia. 66. ​For a discussion of Aljamiado apocalyptic ḥadīths see the introduction. 67. ​AHN. Inq. Lib. 988, f. 352v. 68. ​Ibid., f. 353r. 69. ​Ibid., f. 361v. 70. ​Ibid., f. 419r. 71. ​Ibid., f. 362v.



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Moriscos, b­ ecause “our g­ reat lord [the Turk] is already in Algiers, he who w ­ ill ­favor us.”72 It is unclear ­whether the Moriscos intended to recover their land, or if they would deliver it to the Ottomans in exchange for their aid, which is not unlikely, as ­will become evident in chapter 6. What we do know is that together ­these testimonies reveal two narratives on which the Morisco conspirers ­were drawing, two proj­ects that could complement but also compete with each other. T ­ hese ideas differed from the aims of the Granadan rebels. While the Granadan rebels sought to reinstate Muslim rule in Granada, in this way ensuring and reviving Islam in their land, the goals of the Aragonese Morisco conspirators w ­ ere oriented t­ oward reviving the Mudéjar paradigm, one in which the Moriscos would be allowed to live by their own law (i.e., according to Islamic precepts). A more radical proposition contemplated a system similar to the one operating in North Africa, with some exceptions. They sought to raise a Morisco as their own king, just as in Granada, but one who would serve as their leader u­ nder Ottoman suzerainty. In fact, in Aragon Moriscos perceived the Ottomans as rulers who practiced religious tolerance. As Alexandre Arroba, a Morisco from Segorbe, recalled in 1587, “In Turkey they let Christians live by their law, and t­ here is more peace letting them be.”73 This image of the Ottoman sultan as a tolerant monarch would survive up to the time of the Moriscos’ expulsion. For example, one day a Morisco named Francisco Luengo was talking to an Old Christian about the expulsion of the Moriscos of Valencia when the former stated that the Ottoman sultan was parading around Valencia on a white h­ orse, and the king of Spain did not have enough forces to fight him. Disturbed, the Old Christian replied that he “pray to God that the Turk did not enter,” to which Luengo replied, “We have to be vassals of a king, so it’s all right to be [vassals] of the Turk, ­because he ­will let each one of us live by our own law.”74 Together, t­ hese pieces of information impel us to qualify the traditional image of the Moriscos as a fifth column who, b­ ecause of their religious affinity with the Ottomans, naturally conspired to ruin the monarchy. The preservation of peace seems to have been the ultimate goal of t­ hese Moriscos, but this could be achieved only through the exercise of tolerance. Implicit also is the idea that each believer could be saved by his or her own law.75

72. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 989, f. 94v. 73. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 937, f. 16r. 74. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 991, f. 39r. 75. ​For a study of popu­lar ideas of religious tolerance in early modern Iberia and colonial Amer­ i­ca, see the persuasive study by Schwartz, All Can Be Saved.

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This image of the Ottoman sultan as a just ruler was shared by other subjects of the Spanish king. In March 1575, in a letter to the Supreme Council in Madrid, the inquisitor of Sardinia, Alonso de Lorca, warned that in his visits throughout the kingdom, many p­ eople complained about the suffering they experienced at the hands of the barons and officials of the island, and they affirmed that “if they ­were ­under Turkish power, and He [the sultan] governed them, they would be treated better.” He added that if the Ottomans attacked the island, the Sardinians would offer no re­sis­tance but rather “would give themselves to him as vassals, especially if they w ­ ere favored by the king of Algiers [Ramażān Pasha], ­because he is of their nation and a highly esteemed man among them, and seen as brave and a good ruler (de buen gobierno), one that seems to treat Moors and Christians well.”76 What emerges from t­hese diverse sources of information is that, at least during the key de­cades of 1560s and 1570s, t­ here w ­ ere Christians in the western Mediterranean, and particularly certain subjects of the Spanish king, who viewed the Ottoman sultan as a more tolerant ruler than their own.77

“Quitarles las cabezas”: New Christian Elites in the Crown of Aragon Between 1578 and 1582, dozens of Moriscos ­were arrested, accused, and sentenced by the tribunals of Aragon and Valencia. Members of the most affluent New Christian families of both kingdoms, leaders in their communities, w ­ ere suspected of plotting to rebel against His Majesty. Prominent Morisco families like the Compañeros and the Navarros of Zaragoza, the Zafar (Çafar) f­amily of Huesca, the Zaydejos (Çaydejos) of Torrellas, the Castellanos of Calanda, and the Izquierdos of Segorbe appeared in the autos de fe celebrated in both cities between 1578 and 1585. With ­these persecutions the inquisitors repeatedly expressed their intention to “rid them of their heads (quitarles las cabezas),” to decapitate the New Christian communities, effectively leaving them without leaders. As had occurred in preparation for the rebellion in Granada, the conspirators in 1575 planned to select their king from among the Aragonese Morisco aristocracy. But not all t­ hose who dreamed of armed 76.  ​AHN. Inq. Lib. 768, ff. 524r–528v, available at http://­www​.­archivodelafrontera​.­com​/­wp​ -­content​/­uploads​/­2011​/­07​/­A​-­MED26​.­pdf. 77. ​For a discussion of the concept of religious tolerance in the Ottoman Empire, see İnalcık, Ottoman Empire; Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), among o­ thers. For a critique of the historiographical view of the Ottomans as tolerant rulers see Disliking­Others, eds. Karateke, Çıpa, and Anetshofer, cited in chapter 3.



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re­sis­tance ­were counted among the wealthy Moriscos; the potential revolt also drew supporters from peasants and poor artisans. This is evident from testimonies of Morisco peasants and artisans who, in their conversations, expressed their sympathies for the cause, stating that they w ­ ere ready to take up arms upon the arrival of the Ottomans. According to numerous witnesses interrogated by the inquisitors of Zaragoza, Juan Compañero, a Morisco from Huesca, would be elected as king during the insurrection. Sometime between 1576 and 1577, a Béarnese ­woman testified against Juan Compañero stating that she had gone from Zaragoza to Béarn around October or November of 1575, and that ­there, a cousin of hers who was a “Lutheran” told her that a “minister of the Lutherans” had entrusted him in all secrecy to find out from the w ­ oman w ­ hether Juan Compañero had been released from the Inquisition prison, “­because before he was arrested, the Moriscos had agreed to take up arms.” The Lutherans “would come to aid them, and that they would raise Juan Compañero as king,” but they desisted from the plans when he was captured.78 Compañero had been in prison in 1574 and was prosecuted again in 1577 for his role in the conspiracy. Juan Compañero came from a f­amily of merchants and lenders who had amassed a fortune through commercial dealings that extended throughout the Crown of Aragon, including Valencia, to Béarn and Gascony.79 As a notary and merchant, Compañero carried out impor­tant business dealings with the Aragonese nobility, the councils (consejos), and religious institutions. In his study of the notary rec­ords of the cities of Huesca and Zaragoza, Ánchel Conte Cazcarro found that in 1562 Compañero was leasing the seigniorial lands of the Order of the Templars.80 He also leased public property, bridges, and mountain passages, effectively controlling the routes between Aragon and southern France. The f­ amily enjoyed religious prestige throughout the sixteenth c­ entury. For example, Juan’s f­ather, Pedro Compañero, had been the alcadí (judge) of the aljama (Muslim town council) of Huesca. Also, the Compañero ­family’s piety was well known among their coreligionists. In Juan Compañero’s h­ ouse many Moriscos secretly gathered to pray and fast during the

78. ​AHN. Lib. 988, f. 515r. 79. ​For an in-­depth study of the commercial transactions of the Compañero f­amily, see Ánchel Conte Cazcarro, Los moriscos de la ciudad de Huesca: Una convivencia rota (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 2009); Ánchel Conte Cazcarro, “La rama oscense de los Compañero (Apuntes biográficos),” Sharq al-­Andalus 13 (1996): 129–44. See also María del Carmen Ansón Calvo, “Diego de Rojas y Alonso Muley Enríquez y Merín de Fez: Ilustres esposos de Cándida Compañero,” Sharq al-­ Andalus 18 (2003–7): 9–37; Jacqueline Fournel-­Guérin, “Une famille morisque de Saragosse: Les Compañero,” Awraq, no. 4 (1981): 179–84. 80. ​Conte Cazcarro, Los moriscos, 378.

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month of Ramadan, and the w ­ omen of his h­ ouse­hold w ­ ere well versed in religious m ­ atters. In fact, as one Morisca confessed during an inquisitorial interrogation, Compañero’s sister-in­ law, ­ Gracia Navarro, “read from a Moorish book as well as an alfaquí.”81 Moreover, among the fifty-three ­ p­ eople who testified to Compañero’s Islamic beliefs and practices, his wife, Ana Navarro, his sister-­in-­law Gracia, and his good friend Jaime Izquierdo, a wealthy Valencian Morisco, confirmed that ­after being released from the Inquisition, Compañero fasted with devotion to make up for all the days he could not fast while in prison, “­every Monday and Thursday of e­ very week of e­ very year, in addition to the month of Ramadan, the six white days ­[al-ʿAyyām al-­bīḍ], ten days for the feast of sacrifice [ʿĪd al-­aḍḥā], and the two months of xadixahem(?), and other Muslim fasts.”82 The witnesses also testified that he led prayers at home, and that in his house ­ the Qurʾān and ḥadīths of Muḥammad (comentos de Mahoma) w ­ ere read on the Night of Decree [Laylat al-­Qadr], and the inquisitors commented that they had found more than thirty Qurʾāns in his h ­ ouse.83 Compañero also sought to fulfill his religious duties by protecting his fellow Moriscos. It is for this reason that in 1574 he found himself imprisoned in the palace of Aljafería, seat of the tribunal of Zaragoza. The accusation was that he had written a letter on behalf of a man from Algiers whose b­ rother had been taken captive in Sicily and needed money for his ransom.84 Like many Moriscos, Compañero saw the paying of ransom for Muslims, whom he described as “our blood and our b­ rothers,” as a religious duty.85 Compañero’s standing among his coreligionists in the Kingdom of Aragon was such that the Algerian man had managed to collect sixty escudos, and Compañero had pledged to pay the remainder of the money if the man could not complete the total sum.86 This episode sheds light on another import­ant aspect of Juan Compañero and his ­family: their connections with North Africa. The Algerian man who was collecting money for his b­ rother’s ransom had been sent to Aragon by Compañero’s nephew, Juan Çafar, member of the wealthy Çafar f­amily of Huesca. Juan Çafar had emigrated to Algiers, and his h­ ouse

81. ​AHN, Lib. 988, f. 504v. 82. ​Ibid., f. 513v. 83. ​Ibid. 84. ​On ransoming activities in the western Mediterranean, see Daniel Hershenzon, The Captive Sea: Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). 85. ​On slavery a­ fter the war of Granada, see Aurelia Martín Casares, La esclavitud en la Granada del s. XVI: Género, raza y religión (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2000). 86. ​AHN, Lib. 988.



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served as safe haven for many Moriscos who de­cided to flee to Muslim lands.87 In confession, Gerónimo Ezquerrero declared that his b­ rother Yuçe Duarte had entrusted him to deliver the letter to Çafar’s f­ather, the prominent and very wealthy Morisco of Huesca Hernando Çafar, Juan Compañero’s brother-­ in-­law. Although Juan Çafar was living in Algiers at the time, it might have been pos­si­ble for him to hold such a post, since in 1576, when Duarte arrived in Aragon, ʿAbd al-­Mālik, the Ottomans’ preferred candidate for the Moroccan throne, had recently occupied the city of Fez and had taken over the rule of Morocco with the help of the Algerian governor, Ramażān Pasha and his janissaries, as well as with an impor­tant contingent of Spanish Muslim exiles who had deserted the Sāʿdīan army.88 Juan Compañero would thus be the perfect candidate for the Aragonese Moriscos to represent them; his impor­ tant connections with North Africa and with Béarn made him an ideal spokesperson for and leader of the community. Other witnesses pointed to Jaime Izquierdo, a wealthy merchant from Segorbe, Valencia, and a good friend of Juan Compañero, as leader of the conspiracy. In the fifteenth c­ entury, members of the Izquierdo (al-­Aysar) ­family, who ­were originally from Aragon, ­were living in Huesca, Teruel, Albarracín, and Segorbe.89 T ­ here they had established ties with other Valencian Morisco notables. For example, in the mid-­sixteenth c­ entury, Luis Izquierdo was married to the sister ­ of Lorenzo Benazar, a prominent Morisco of Segorbe.90 Some Izquierdos also migrated to North Africa and Ottoman lands over the course of the sixteenth c­ entury, and thus we find in 1568 a man by the name of Ibrahim Isquierdo in Salonika (Greece) who autographed an Aljamiado interlinear translation of the Qurʾān. The fine craftsmanship of this manuscript, which is ­housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris as Ms. 447, is evidence of the compiler’s wealth. Equally fine was Isquierdo’s command of both the Castilian and the Arabic languages; his translation from Arabic into Romance is quite exact. Another Izquierdo who fled to North Africa was Martín, nephew of Jaime Izquierdo, who was also accused of participating in the conspiracy in Valencia. According to Luis Moreno’s testimony to the inquisitors of Zaragoza on May 31, 1577, when Francisco, the renegade who had come with Yuçe

87. ​According to several of the accused who confessed about the coming of Yūsuf Duarte, Juan Çafar, who had asked Duarte to deliver a letter to his ­family on his behalf, held the post of lieutenant to the king of Fez (lugarteniente del rey de Fez). AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 419v. 88. ​Andrew Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century ­ Ibero-African ­ Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 96. 89. ​María Blanca Basañes Villaluenga, La aljama sarracena de Huesca en el s. XV (Madrid: CSIC, 1989), 40; Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 85. 90. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 552/7, f. 11v.

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Duarte, came back to Spain with Ramażān Pasha’s letter to the Moriscos of Valencia, Martín Izquierdo took him to Segorbe, presumably to meet with the Morisco notables of the city. We do not know much about Martín Izquierdo’s involvement in the rebellion conspiracy, but we do know that sometime in 1577 the inquisitors of Valencia ordered his arrest.91 Turning back to Jaime Izquierdo, the chronicler of the expulsion Marcos de Guadalajara reported that it was Duarte who persuaded the Aragonese Moriscos to accept Jaime Izquierdo as their leader, “filling them with uncertain hopes.”92 Izquierdo, according to Guadalajara, befriended the wealthy Moriscos of the Kingdom of Aragon, especially Juan Compañero, in whose h­ ouse he had been staying since 1576. T ­ here he led Compañero’s f­amily in prayers while his friend was in prison. When the inquisitors of Zaragoza discovered the conspiracy, Jaime Izquierdo was among the first to be arrested and interrogated. The Inquisition of Zaragoza imprisoned Izquierdo on May 21, 1577, for his involvement in the conspiracy and for attempting to flee to North Africa. Upon his arrest, the inquisitors found many letters written in Arabic and in cipher in his possession, some pertaining to the rebellion conspiracy. Izquierdo’s correspondent was a Morisco notable from Torrellas named Gaspar Çaydejos.93 As has been already stated, it is evident from the epistolary evidence seized by the Inquisition that the conspiracy was being or­ga­nized and directed by the wealthiest and most prominent Moriscos of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia. They nonetheless seemed to have had the support of individuals from all levels of Morisco society. Thus, when Jaime Izquierdo was imprisoned, the lord of Bureta, Lope de Francia, remarked that he believed “that the New Christians had lamented Jaime Izquierdo’s arrest b­ ecause they held him as notable among them.” Francia expressed his doubts about the prudence of arresting more Moriscos, “so that they would not be further scandalized.”94

A Martyr for a Rebellion Jaime Izquierdo was thirty-­four years old when he appeared in the auto de fe that was celebrated in the marketplace of Zaragoza on Monday, March 13, 1581. He had been a wealthy merchant and held a central place in his f­ amily. 91. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 552/2. 92. ​Marcos Guadalajara y Javier, Memorable expulsión y justísimo destierro de los Moriscos de Castilla (Pamplona, Nicolás de Assiayn, 1613), 61. 93. ​For a study of the fascinating and influential Morisco Gaspar Çaydejos (Zaydejos), see María del Carmen Ansón Calvo, “Gaspar Çaydejos: Destacado morisco aragonés,” Turiaso 16 (2001–2): 233–62. 94. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 964, f. 24v.



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More importantly, at such a young age Izquierdo had been a pillar of the Morisco communities of Valencia and Aragon, leading Moriscos to prayer and instructing them in the teachings of Islam.95 He had also been, as the inquisitors believed, a leader of the po­liti­cal aspirations of some crypto-­Muslims of the Crown of Aragon, and it was for this reason that on that early spring day, Jaime Izquierdo was brought before a crowd to be handed over to the secular authorities (relaxado al brazo secular) to be burned at the stake. Although his trial rec­ord does not survive, t­here is a brief description of his execution in the testimonies of several eyewitnesses, as recounted by the inquisitors of Zaragoza to the general inquisitor. The witnesses stated that Izquierdo “died as a Moor [Muslim,] praying in Arabic and calling for Alda [Allāh], raising his fin­ger.”96 In their summary of the events, the inquisitors wrote that when Izquierdo arrived at the place where he was to be burned (quemadero), he had a rope tied around his neck (dogal) and was given a cross. He began yelling for the rope and the cross to be removed “­because he knew what was good for him (que él sabía lo que le convenía).” Upon seeing this, the inquisitors added, “The p­ eople who w ­ ere pre­sent stoned him and beat him (lo apedrearon y die­ ron muchos palos) before choking him.”97 Izquierdo died, the inquisitors said, while raising the index fin­ger of his right hand high above his head. Jaime Izquierdo died a martyr (shahīd) at the hands of a violent mob, bearing witness to the oneness of God. But he was not the only shahīd that day. Among the crowd t­ here w ­ ere three Moriscos who witnessed the moment when Izquierdo died as a Muslim. Gerónimo Meçot, Rodrigo Ricle, and Pedro Gerónimo walked to the Plaza de la Magdalena, where they knew Izquierdo would pass by. Upon seeing the prisoner, the three men lifted their index fin­ gers and looked directly at him. Izquierdo lowered his head as if nodding and did the same. The three Moriscos w ­ ere denounced by an Old Christian, who upon seeing them promised that “within twenty-­four hours you w ­ ill be denounced to the Inquisition.” The three men ­were reconciled with the Church a few months l­ater in an auto de fe and sentenced to serve in the galleys for life. In a summary of his trial rec­ord, the notary taking Gerónimo Maçot’s confession recorded that “the sign that he made to Jaime Izquierdo is a ceremony of the sect of Muḥammad when someone dies, so that he w ­ ill die as a Moor [Muslim].  .  .  .  ​Raising the finger, ­ they say there ­ is no god but God and Muḥammad is the Messenger of God (leylalda Mahama de la çurralda [lā ilāha illā Allāh, Muḥammad rasūl Allāh]), which is to say the profession of faith 95. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 989, f. 51v. 96. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 525r. 97. ​Ibid.

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(xahedar [shahāda]).”98 Izquierdo’s defiant be­hav­ior before the Inquisition and the angry crowd is reminiscent of the acts of martyrdom of crypto-­Jewish Conversos in the early part of the sixteenth ­century.99 In the atmosphere of persecution following the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition during the late fifteenth ­century, a new model of martyrdom emerged among the crypto-­ Jews. As Miriam Bodian has explained, “The accused could choose death rather than reconciliation with the Church by admitting to Judaizing and refusing to repent.”100 ­These crypto-­Jews chose to “die in the Law of Moses.” In the second half of the sixteenth ­century, with the increasing repression of the crypto-­Muslims of the Crown of Aragon, some Moriscos chose the same path as their Converso counter­parts. In numerous inquisitorial sources we find Moriscos who state that they want to “live and die as Muslims.” In a sense, Izquierdo lived his life striving for martyrdom. He had actively resisted the Inquisition by plotting to bring the kingdom to rebellion, and, when threatened with being burned at the stake, he defied the tribunal and the spectators of the auto de fe by becoming a witness to God’s oneness (shahīd), which he declared with the gesture of raising his fin­ger and reciting the shahāda. In this way he died a martyr for God’s cause. According to the Islamic theological criteria for martyrdom, Izquierdo would be considered one of ­those “martyrs of the next world” (shahīd al-­ākhira) killed not on the battlefield but for his beliefs, one who encountered death in the ser­vice of God.101 Moreover, as was demonstrated in chapter 2, in the Moriscos’ apocalyptic lore, martyrdom and jihād w ­ ere intimately linked to a self-­conception of suffering that was part of the sacred history of the Muslim community on Iberian soil. The defiance of the inquisitorial authorities that resulted in martyrdom also gains significance when understood in the context of this apocalyptic lore. When the Prophet Muḥammad exalted the virtues of t­hose who chose to remain in the Peninsula “guarding the frontier” (guardando frontera), he elevated them to the rank of martyrs.102 If, then, the rewards of martyrdom, according to Morisco prophetic narratives, w ­ ere reserved for ­those who endured the suffering ­under Christian rule, surely ­those who died affirming the oneness of God would earn their place in paradise. While crypto-­Muslims perceived Jaime Izquierdo’s martyrdom as a noble death, it was also lived as a trauma by the Morisco communities of Valencia and Aragon. As chapter 5 w ­ ill demonstrate, Izquierdo’s death would serve as

98. ​AHN. Inq. Lib. 990, f. 13v. 99. ​Miriam Bodian, ­Dying in the Law of Moses (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 100. ​Ibid., 14. 101. ​See Etan Kohlberg, “Shahīd,” EI2, 9:203–7. 102. ​See the apocalyptic prognostications discussed in chap. 3.



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the main motivating f­actor for the Moriscos’ w ­ ill to rebel. But more immediately, his martyrdom served as a model for t­ hose who suffered the persecution of the Inquisition. Almost one year l­ater, on April 5, 1582, a twenty-­three-­year-­ old Morisco named Juan Compañero, son of Juan Compañero the elder, who was the alleged leader of the conspiracy and close friend of Jaime Izquierdo, was also burned at the stake. In their description of the auto de fe, the inquisitors of Zaragoza wrote that Juan Compañero died an “obstinate Moor (moro pertinaz),” that is, a Muslim. When his sentence was pronounced, Juan Compañero left the cross on the ground and lifted his fin­ger, just as Jaime Izquierdo had done. Compañero died publicly “at the hands of the urban youth (en poder de los muchachos villanos)” and o­ thers who, seeing him in that error, “charged against him and stoned, beat and tortured him to death (arremetieron contra él y lo mataron a pedradas, palos y con otros muchos tormentos).”103 Between 1581 and 1583 the tribunal of Zaragoza carried out an intense persecution of Moriscos, incarcerating, sentencing, and burning members of the most prominent families of the kingdom. The Zambriel, Fenix, Belvis, Monferriz, Compás, Navarro, Gali, Çafar, and Compañero families, among ­others, saw their entire ­house­holds tried by the Inquisition. With the autos de fe of 1581 and 1582 and the arrests that had been carried out, the inquisitors reflected that “the rest [of the Moriscos] are very afraid and pacified, and the p­ eople very happy and satisfied (han quedado los demás con mucho temor y sosiego, y el pueblo muy contento y satisfecho).”104

Prophecies Multiply Scarcely a month a­ fter the fateful auto de fe in which Juan Compañero the younger died a martyr, a Morisco from Calanda allegedly arrived in Aragon from Ottoman lands bearing yet another letter—­this according to the Morisco spy Luis Moreno, who notified the inquisitors in November of that year. The information reached Philip II through a report sent by the inquisitor of Zaragoza, Andrés Santos de San Pedro. In marginal notes on the original report is the king’s response, which instructs the inquisitor “to make sure to keep Luis Moreno happy and to always find out from him what he knows (que procure contentar a ese Luis Moreno y siempre saber del lo que entendiere).” In December the count of Sástago, viceroy of Aragon, had received alarming information that confirmed Moreno’s testimonies. The ambassador of France had informed 103. ​AHN. Inq. Lib. 988, f. 867r; Inq. Lib. 990, f. 7r. 104. ​Ibid.

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him that in the Kingdoms of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia a rebellion was being plotted, and that it could only be by the Moriscos.105 The viceroy notified the inquisitors of Valencia and Aragon, ordering them to carry out the necessary investigations. Around the same time, the inquisitor Santos de San Pedro had received the testimony of a man named Miguel Cortes, who stated that he had gone to France with a Valencian nobleman named Don Juan de Buyl, and that returning through Toulouse, they received information that the New Christians of Aragon ­were in contact with the king of Béarn (Henry III) and w ­ ere offering p­ eople and money if the French charged against Spain, entering through Canfranc to Jaca and Huesca. He warned that the French had sent ­people to scout that land.106 When interrogated about the dealings of the Moriscos with the French, Moreno asserted that the Moriscos did not trust the Béarnese “since they ­were not of their nation or sect,” and insisted that if the Ottomans came with an armada, albeit a small one from Algiers, the French would attack and the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon would rebel.107 Although Moreno downplayed the dealings between the Moriscos and the French, the inquisitors had received additional information that confirmed their fears. Don Antonio Bardaxi, lord of Concas, wrote to the Aragonese inquisitors from Benás (in the province of Huesca), on July 1, 1582, stating that a French captain, Monsieur Detroça, had gone to the island of Terceira, in the Azores, taking three ships full of provisions to build a fort. He also reported that Don António, the prior of Crato and Portuguese pretender to the throne, was still in France and was being courted by the queen ­mother (la reina vieja), Catherine de’ Medici, who provided him with all the money he needed. A few weeks ­later, Don António and his Anglo-­French supporters would be defeated by Don Álvaro de Bazán, marquis of Santa Cruz, while attempting to stake António’s claim to power in Terceira. T ­ hese w ­ ere difficult times for the king of Spain. Bardaxi also confirmed that t­ here w ­ ere rumors in Huesca and in France that the Moriscos wanted to rebel, and that they had offered the prince of Béarn (Henry III of Navarre, the ­f uture Henry IV of France) seventy thousand men and two hundred escudos in exchange for military support. He also

105. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1511, f. 9r. The Spanish ambassador to France, Juan Bautista Tassis, held the post between 1573 and 1598. 106. ​BHUV, var. 28, ff. 18r–24. A fragment of this deposition is also ­housed at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan (IVDJ), envío 1, vol. 4, f. 132r. An excerpt of the IVDJ document was published by Cardaillac in his Moriscos y cristianos. Although Cardaillac reproduced a very in­ter­est­ing text, he provided no information about the document, its provenance, or the historical context of the declaration. This study has instead attempted to situate the prophecy in its proper politi ­ cal, ­ social, and historical context. 107. ​BHUV, var. 28, ff. 18r–24.



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stated that a Morisco by the name of Izquierdo (most likely Martín Izquierdo) was in Monreal (in Rosellón), along with Albariel and o­ thers, and he offered to send men to capture them if the inquisitors wished.108 According to further information that Luis Moreno offered the inquisitors, a Morisco from Calanda had come from Ottoman lands (Turquía) in April 1582 bearing some letters. The man was Alexandro Castellano, and he had come from Istanbul, where he had been living since 1560. Castellano was none other than the late Juan Compañero’s brother-­in-­law. Moreno reported that Castellano had come bearing a prophecy whose signs the Ottomans had entrusted him to confirm in Spain. Responding to the Moriscos’ desire to take up arms, Murād III allegedly gathered a council to discuss the appropriate time to send his armada. During this meeting a North African man named Cid Alhad supposedly disagreed about the most suitable time, stating that the armada should not be sent yet and mentioning a prophecy written by a hermit who was considered a saint that stated, “­After the Christians won what had been possessed by Muslims in Spain, the Muslims would not practice their religion in public, but rather secretly, and they would not recover it u ­ ntil t­ here w ­ ere g­ reat wars among the Christian kings. . . . ​Then [the Ottomans] would come, and victory would be certain, preceded by some signs in Ottoman lands and in the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon.” Moreno told the inquisitors that “­because the Turks believe so much in t­ hese t­ hings, they de­cided not to send the armada, but rather would wait ­until they saw the signs mentioned in the prophecy being fulfilled in their land.” Seeing that the signs of the prophecy had been fulfilled, the Ottomans sent Alexandro Castellano with instructions of the signs that would be seen in Spain. They informed him that “in the mountains of Gallinera in the Kingdom of Valencia a very disfigured child would be born, and he would be orphaned at the age of five or six months, and when he reached the age of twenty-­eight or thirty he would be captain of the Moriscos of that kingdom, and very victorious in war.” Castellano claimed to have seen and talked to this man, and he assured other Moriscos that he exhibited the same signs stated in the prophecy. The man’s disfigurement consisted in his having very large arms with claws, and six fin­gers on each hand. He also assured them that in Valencia, which is referred to in the prophecy as the “green city” (ciudad verde), he had recognized other signs, as he did in Zaragoza, which was known as the “city of the river” (ciudad del río); in Daroca, “the city of the ravine” (ciudad del barranco); and in Calatayud, “the white city” (ciudad blanca). Many t­ hings

108. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, f. 1r.

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he saw coincided with the prophecy, which also predicted that “a very cruel ­battle ­will be fought between Christians and Muslims (Moros), and the French w ­ ill join the Muslims, and a king of Spain w ­ ill appear t­ here in b­ attle, whose name w ­ ill be Philip.” Castellano was sure that the b­ attle would take place in 1583.109 The inquisitors of Zaragoza sent Castellano’s testimony to Philip II, whose thoughts about it ­were written in the margin by his secretary. His Majesty, the secretary wrote, “believes [what is said about the prophecy to be] a joke and ­g reat superstition, and thus he pays no attention to it (tiene por cosa de burla, y de gran supersticion, y ansi no hace caso dello).”110 Once again Morisco prophecies had surfaced in connection with rebellion conspiracies. Surely Philip II knew about their importance during the Alpujarras revolt. Like most Old Christians of his time, the king believed that any prophecy declared by a Morisco was a sign of their superstition. Philip II might not have given credit to the prognosticative text itself, but he was certainly interested in the context in which the text had surfaced—­hence his insistence in his marginal comments to keep the Morisco in­for­mant “happy.” Moreno also told the inquisitors that in response to Castellano’s embassy, the Moriscos of Valencia had agreed to send their own man to negotiate with the governor of Algiers. This man was Pedro Compañero, Alexandro Castellano’s nephew.111 A few months l­ater Moreno went to Foz-­Calanda to gather more information about the plot. T ­ here he saw Pedro Compañero, who had allegedly returned from Algiers with a message from Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha (Ochalí).112 Compañero stated that the Ottoman sultan had sent an envoy to the king of France to negotiate a joint enterprise against Spain. According to Moreno, Compañero had also mentioned that Ḳılıç ʿAlī told him about the council that the sultan had gathered in Istanbul to review a 400-­year-­old prophecy that threatened the Vicar of Christ. In that meeting one of the men of religion (alfaquís) had allegedly asked w ­ hether they would defeat the Christians when New Year’s Day fell on a Saturday and w ­ hether that would be in the year 1583. Since they ­were confused about the exact dates, the sultan had

109. ​For abnormal births and prodigies in prophecies, see Ottavia Niccoli, Prophecy and P­ eople in Re­nais­sance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1990), 30–60. 110. ​Instituto Valencia de Don Juan (IVDJ), envío 1. 111. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, f. 330r. 112.  ​­Here Moreno’s account is problematic. Ḳılıç ʿAlī’s final trip to Algiers was at the end of May 1581. Thus, e­ ither Pedro Compañero returned from Constantinople as his u­ ncle had done the previous year, or someone was making up the stories being reported to the inquisitors of Zaragoza. For an account of Ḳılıç ʿAlī’s final trip to Algiers and his last years in Istanbul, see Sola Castaño, Uchalí, chs. 6 and 7.



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supposedly ordered a large armada to be sent ­toward Spain, taking advantage of disturbances in Portugal, “so that the French would attack Spain, and when the Christians ­were in Aragon defending the kingdom against the French, the king of Algiers would attack the coast of Valencia, and ­there fifty or sixty-­five thousand Moriscos would be waiting with arms, munitions and provisions.”113 Pedro Compañero brought a copy of the prophecy, which was written in Turkish, and left it with some Moriscos in the Valencian town of Bechí.

A Radical Proposal On February 9, 1581, the archbishop of Zaragoza, Andrés Santos de San Pedro, wrote a letter to Mateo Vázquez, royal secretary and close adviser to Philip II, informing him that the Moriscos, supported by their lords, petitioned to send notables to the court to negotiate a new edict of grace with the king and the inquisitor general. The archbishop noted that t­here would be no use in granting them the edict of grace ­were it not for the need to disarm them. ­After all, Santos de San Pedro knew that “trying to reduce them to the true knowledge of God and his holy evangelical law” would be futile. When he had asked Luis Moreno how this could be achieved, the Morisco spy had told him, “They are all such obstinate Moors [Muslims] and they w ­ ill always be u­ ntil they are finished (que son todos moros obstinadisimos y lo seran hasta que se acaben).”114 Moreno had also assured him “that they [the Moriscos] attempt to secure arms by all means and hide them (que se proveen de armas por todas las vias que pueden y las esconden).”115 For this reason the archbishop believed that instead of offering a new edict of grace it was more impor­tant to “persuade his Majesty to convene a national council (concilio nacional) to decide the fate of the new converts of Spain. . . . ​I am afraid God is more offended by them than by all other Moors [Muslims] who live in their sect, and experience has shown that the more diligence employed in teaching them, the more they take pains to live licentiously.”116 In the following year, on April 20, 1582, the inquisitors of Valencia sent their opinions concerning the Moriscos of Valencia and all of Spain to Gaspar de Quiroga, inquisitor general and archbishop of Toledo. In their secret report, Pedro de Çarate, Ximénez de Reynoso, and Joan de Llano de Valdes proposed the radical idea of a general expulsion of the Moriscos from the Spanish kingdoms,

113. ​BHUV, var. 28, ff. 1v–3v. 114. ​Ibid. IVDJ, envío 1, vol. 4, ff. 131r. 115. ​Ibid., f. 132r. 116. ​IVDJ, envío 1, vol. 4, ff. 132r.

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in addition to securing all of the North African coast by taking hold of Algiers. To support their cause, they recalled all the attempts made by the Moriscos to take up arms. The inquisitors reminded Quiroga that during the Granadan revolt, the Valencian Moriscos had wanted to join the insurrection, but they gave up on the idea when the Ottoman armada did not show up. Then in 1574, with the loss of Tunis and La Goleta, they rejoiced and expected the Ottomans to come, and they still had not given up the idea of “handing the land over to the Turks.” Since all the kingdoms ­were at risk of a Morisco uprising, the inquisitors of Valencia proposed that the safest solution was to banish all the Moriscos from all of Spain. They should not be sent to eastern lands (Levante) or North Africa (Berbería) since “­after all, they are Spaniards like us (porque al fin son españoles como nosotros)” but rather should be shipped to Newfoundland (Terranova) through the ports of Galicia, Asturias, and Vizcaya. They w ­ ere to be taken t­here by men-­of-­war and given to Christians “in repartimientos and encomiendas like the Indians . . . ​so that they [would] live as good vassals of the king.” Scarcely five months a­ fter the inquisitors of Valencia sent their report, Philip II would create a special junta to deal with the Morisco prob­lem. In response to the possibility of an armed rebellion staged by the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon, the idea of a general expulsion was proposed in the famous meetings known as the Juntas de Lisboa that began on September 19, 1582, when Philip II was residing in Portugal.117

The Fate of a Morisco In­for­mant Luis Moreno, Morisco of Nuez, testified before the archbishop of Zaragoza around 1576 and l­ater to the inquisitors. He assured the inquisitors of Zaragoza and Valencia that the Moriscos of both kingdoms ­were ready to take up arms. The information he provided had devastating consequences for the Morisco elites of Aragon, and it influenced the first opinions in f­avor of the expulsion.118 It is not evident from the sources why Moreno would betray his fellow Moriscos by revealing sensitive information about their rebellion plans. Moreno had not been a voluntary denouncer; his lord, Don Luis de Alagón y Espés, had taken him to testify before the inquisitors. But Luis Moreno bypassed his lord’s authority and began offering secret testimonies without the

117. ​See Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones, 325. 118. ​Although Moreno testified against many of the Moriscos who appeared in the autos de fe of 1581–85, he was not the only Morisco in­for­mant who accused the same ­people. As we ­will see in chap. 5, the Morisco spy Gil Pérez also offered damaging testimonies against the Aragonese Morisco elites.



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latter’s consent. It is clear why Don Luis wanted to mediate between his vassal and the Inquisition; a­ fter all, Moreno was testifying against many of his own Morisco vassals. When the Morisco in­for­mant overstepped his authority and continued to offer testimonies, Don Luis announced to all his Morisco vassals that Moreno was cooperating with the Inquisition, thus endangering his life.119 This incident reveals the tense relations in the Kingdom of Aragon between the Inquisition and the feudal lords of Morisco vassals. Many lords fiercely opposed the Inquisition, which they perceived as impinging on their jurisdictional authority and bypassing the traditional Aragonese l­egal system (fueros). When Moreno managed to convince his fellow Moriscos that he was not betraying them, Don Luis accused him of stealing some pieces of bread and defrauding ­others by changing his [Don Luis’s] accounting books; he was quickly arrested.120 Executing his l­egal right, Don Luis, a­ fter keeping Moreno for more than a year in prison, sentenced his vassal to death. Luis Moreno’s life was spared, mostly through the mediation of the archbishop of Zaragoza, but he was still in danger. Sometime in March 1583, the inquisitors of Zaragoza requested that Moreno’s case be revisited to clarify certain things ­ he knew concerning the conspiracy. To their surprise, they discovered that the Morisco had escaped prison with the help of his coreligionists.121 On April 10, 1583, the archbishop received a letter from none other than His Majesty, Philip II, ordering him to work with the viceroy, the count of Sástago (and ­brother of Don Luis), to find and arrest Moreno. Sparing him from any offenses that he might have committed, they wanted to continue to interrogate him. Moreno had been a good in­for­mant. The information that he had given in the Holy Office about Yuçe Duarte’s mission had turned out to be true, according to the inquisitors. However, they acknowledged that “other ­things he has said afterward we have not been able to verify, although the procedures have been followed.”122 When Moreno was found, the archbishop of Zaragoza made arrangements to bring him to testify, “promising an abundant reward (muy cumplida gratificacion).”123 Moreno was ­later taken to the Aljafería prison in Zaragoza, where he gave the testimonies about the recent visits of Alexandro Castellano and Pedro Compañero and the prophecies they brought from Ottoman lands. Although his full inquisitorial dossier has not survived, Moreno appears in the summary of t­hose tried in the auto de fe celebrated in the marketplace of

119. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, f. 300v. 120. ​Ibid., f. 284r. 121. ​Ibid., f. 268r and f. 282r. 122. ​Ibid., f. 296r. 123. ​Ibid., f. 282v.

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Zaragoza on Monday, April 28, 1586 (nearly two and a half years a­ fter he had been jailed by the Inquisition). The summary of his trial states that “he confessed to having lived as a Moor u­ ntil he was brought as a prisoner to this Holy Office, and that he has believed [in Islam] ­until the day he began confessing.”124 This chapter has reconstructed, from disparate and scattered documentation, a well-­known but poorly understood episode in the history of the New Christian community in the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury: the so-­called g­ rand Morisco conspiracy of the 1570s. In so d­ oing, it has shed further light on the significance of prophecy in the period ­after the Alpujarras rebellion. By attempting to trace a wide range of allusions to Morisco apocalyptic expressions, this chapter has also illustrated how in the post-Alpujarran ­ period (and up to the moment of the expulsion), apocalyptic prognostications came to be invariably associated with rebellion conspiracies. ­After the defeat at Granada, the Moriscos continued to harbor hopes of staging a new and definitive insurrection, aided by the Ottomans and the French Huguenots. Seen in light of the po­liti­cal developments occurring in Eu­rope and the Mediterranean, through their conspiratorial activities (whether ­ successful or not), which were ­ inspired by the prophetic promises of a f­uture victory, the Moriscos can be seen as actors in the po­liti­cal scene of the late sixteenth c­ entury. A conspiracy of this magnitude might seem fictitious; the product of the inquisitors’ fears fueled by the information provided by a Morisco in­for­mant with a big imagination, w ­ ere it not for the existence of the Ottoman letters to the Moriscos and Protestants that have been discussed, which have allowed us to confirm the rumors of the Morisco contacts abroad. But the fact is that the aspirations of the Moriscos w ­ ere “fantastic” in and of themselves, and the centrality of prophecy confirms this. From their contacts with the Ottomans new prophetic narratives were ­ introduced to the Morisco apocalyptic imaginary, adding another layer to the Morisco po­liti­cal language. As has been shown in this and the previous chapter, in the post-­Alpujarran period Morisco prophecies acquired a markedly Mediterranean character. The examples presented in this chapter confirm that prophecy mediated the communication between Ottomans and Moriscos. Regardless of ­whether ­these messages ­were in fact coming from abroad or they ­were being produced from within the community, prophecy appears as a determinant f­actor for po­liti­cal action; and, more impor­tant, it became a beacon that indicated to the Moriscos when to take up arms. This last feature was recognized by the religious authorities, whose fear of a Morisco insurrection made prophecy an identifying ele­ment for ­every conspiracy. This aspect ­will further be explored in chapter 5.

124. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 989, f. 228r.

Ch a p te r 5

Prophetic Fabrications of a Morisco In­for­mant Gil Pérez and the Moriscos of Valencia

On January 8, 1582, a peculiar-­looking individual appeared before the Inquisition of Valencia.1 This medium-­height, slender man, with a thin reddish-­blond beard and a deep scar across his nose was already well known to the inquisitors. He was Gil Pérez, an Aragonese Morisco from Xea de Albarracín, a small village located along the border of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, where he worked as a shoemaker. Every­thing about him should have alarmed the inquisitors to his potential unreliability: to begin with, he was a Morisco, a member of a ­people thought by Old Christians to be particularly mendacious. He also was redheaded, another conventional sign of untrustworthiness: according to the popu­lar saying, “­There is nothing worse ­under God [in the Kingdom of God] than a thin red beard (poca barba y bermeja de color, debajo de Dios no la hay peor).”2 But despite his looks, during the previous two or three years, Pérez had proved himself a trustworthy infor ­ mant ­ to the Inquisition. He had been collaborating sporadically with the Holy Office of Valencia, making reports on suspicious Morisco activities and sowing the seeds of conspiracy. Thus far, his information had

1. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, f. 36v. 2. ​José Manuel Prieto Bernabé, “Aproximación a las características antropológicas de la minoría morisca asentada en Pastrana en el último tercio del siglo XVI,” Wad al-­Hayara: Revista de estudios de Guadalajara 14 (1987): 358. 165

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been truthful, according to the inquisitors, who had been able to corroborate his reports.3 That day in early January, Gil Pérez stood before the inquisitors and stated that three months ­earlier, one September eve­ning in 1581, he had been invited to attend a secret gathering of seven or eight ­people at the ­house of a Morisco notable from Calanda in Aragon. During the meeting they had read a prophecy that stated that in the following year, 1583, the Moriscos of Aragon would take up arms, supported by the Moors (North African Muslims) and “Lutherans” (Huguenots or French Protestants).4 The clandestine audience was also assured that the Ottoman sultan Murād III (r. 1574–95) was sending the g­ rand admiral of the Ottoman fleet (ḳapudān-­ı deryā), Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha, to Algiers to bring as many men as he could to the Iberian Peninsula.5 As was to be expected of a Morisco conspiracy, ­these practical aspects of the rebellion ­were accompanied by apocalyptic prognostications. Pérez referred to letters coming from Algiers addressed to prominent members of Valencia’s Morisco community, which announced prophecies of Muḥammad (profecías de Mahoma) delivered in the form of ḥadīths. T ­ hose prognostications stated that if the Ottomans came, they would be lords of Spain (serían señores de Spaña). T ­ hose who attended the meeting ­were thus urged to take up arms, since the prophecies promising signs of victory ordered them to do so. The definitive moment had arrived: the prognostications announced that in the year 1583, all prophecies would end.6 The new information that Pérez presented to the inquisitors confirmed their suspicions of the Moriscos’ treason, suspicions that w ­ ere backed by the testimonies of Luis Moreno, the Morisco in­for­mant discussed in chapter 4. This report was the first of a long series of testimonies to the inquisitors of Valencia and Aragon during which Pérez informed them about his further involvement in the rebellion plot. Over the course of his depositions, which extended for more than a year, he implicated in the conspiracy members of the most prominent Valencian and Aragonese Morisco families. He claimed to have attended their secret meetings, to have been entrusted with the negotiations with the prince of Béarn—­Henry III, king of Navarre (r. 1572–1610) and the f­uture Henry IV, king of France (r. 1589–1610)—on behalf of the Moriscos of both kingdoms, and to have seen and read missives from Algiers. T ­ hese he described in g­ reat detail, and he furnished proof in the form of letters to give credence to his testimony. Pérez’s story is intimately linked to the

3. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, f. 191r. 4. ​BL, Egerton ms. 1511, f. 9r; the same testimony is reproduced in BHUV, var. 28/3. 5. ​BL, Egerton Ms. 1511, f. 9r. 6. ​Ibid., ff. 9r, 10v, and 16r.



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rebellion plot discussed in chapter 4, of which it seemed to be a continuation, and therefore it must be understood in that already-­described historical context. Yet while Moreno’s testimonies could be corroborated both by other witnesses and by the accused themselves, Pérez eventually confessed that the information he had provided to the inquisitors was the product of his imagination. His case thus posed a serious quandary for the inquisitors, who had incarcerated some of the most prominent Moriscos of the Kingdom of Valencia as a result of Pérez’s false accusations. But it poses no less a prob­lem (though one of a dif­fer­ent nature) for the modern historian, who needs to situate Pérez within the structures of his time in order to explain his actions. The Gil Pérez affair often has been discussed as a curious case of a Morisco rogue.7 Rafael Carrasco has offered the most detailed description of Pérez’s trajectory to date.8 His interest in the case stems from a more general concern with the c­ auses of the Morisco expulsion in 1609. For Carrasco, one of the key ele­ments that contributed to the Moriscos’ banishment was the religious authorities’ unfounded paranoia over a general Morisco conspiracy. While Pérez’s story seems to lend itself to this line of inquiry, reading the story in this way inadvertently limits it to one par­tic­u­lar teleological narrative that looks ahead to the expulsion, and thus overlooks the rich insight that the story can offer us into the narrative strategies of Moriscos in their dealings with the Catholic authorities. This chapter goes beyond the superficial characterization of Pérez as a s­ imple rogue by shifting the focus to the prophetic ele­ment in his depositions. While we know a ­g reat deal about the intricacies of Pérez’s deception, which fueled the inquisitors’ paranoia, its prophetic ele­ ment has received only anecdotal attention at best, and so this chapter emphasizes the centrality of prophecy in Pérez’s testimonies to the Inquisition and in his forgeries. We will ­ also look at how Pérez’s use of prophetic and apocalyptic discourse can help us understand this slippery character and situate him within the historical structures of the time, thus illuminating the problematic nature of those ­ very structures. And to explore the place of prophecy in the affair, the chapter revisits the details of Pérez’s case and analyzes previously unstudied material h­ oused at the Biblioteca Histórica at the University of Valencia.9 In d­ oing so, it offers new insights into the issue of 7. ​See esp. Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de dios; Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos; García Cárcel, Herejía y sociedad en el siglo XVI; Anita Gonzalez-­Raymond, “Les limites de la solidarité morisque: Mouchards, transfuges, exaltés,” in Solidarités et sociabilités en Espagne (XVIe–­XXe siècles), ed. Rafael Carrasco (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1991), 1:243–66; Monter, Frontiers of Heresy. 8. ​Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de dios. 9. ​Most of the documentation analyzed in this chapter is ­housed at BHUV, var. 10, 24, 26, 27, 28. Especially impor­tant is the case of Pérez’s associate, Alonso Cornejo (BHUV, var. 29/2), which w ­ ill

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rebellion conspiracies and their relation to Morisco apocalyptic thought. Fi­ nally, where chapter  4 explored prophecy from an international vantage point, this chapter analyzes apocalyptic prognostications from a local perspective, centering on their sociopo­liti­cal and religious function. Gil Pérez’s case is ideal for examining the circulation and reception of apocalyptic prognostications among Moriscos. While the prophecies alluded to by Pérez w ­ ere, as he confessed, his fabrication, the descriptions that he offered about how they w ­ ere announced reveal a g­ reat deal about how t­ hese apocalyptic messages ­were diffused, in what contexts, and how they ­were received, understood, and commented on by ordinary Moriscos and by Valencian society at large. This was pos­si­ble b­ ecause, a­ fter all, Pérez was a product of Morisco society, and he most likely learned to produce apocalyptic prognostications by listening to Morisco prophecies being recounted. But Pérez was not acting alone. His partner in crime was a twenty-­two-­year-­old Morisco named Alonso Cornejo, who was born in the Valencian village of Navajas and raised in a deeply religious crypto-­Muslim ­family in the town of Segorbe. His Inquisition trial, which to date has not been studied, offers insights into the ordinary lives of a sector of Valencian Moriscos in the late sixteenth c­ entury. Moreover, it captures the po­liti­cal and religious climate for Moriscos during this tense period of conspiratorial alarms. Cornejo’s ex post facto confessions to the inquisitors of Valencia suggest that the conspiracy that was being investigated more than half a de­cade e­ arlier in Aragon and Valencia, around 1573–75, had most likely taken place, and that his f­ amily was in close contact with the Morisco notables accused of plotting the rebellion. Pérez used this information to shape his story, which Cornejo confirmed. The conspiracy “uncovered” by Pérez and Cornejo was being or­ga­nized and directed by the Valencian Morisco elites. The picture they presented is strikingly similar to the preparations before the Alpujarras revolt. Just as had occurred in Granada, during their secret meetings alfaquís (religious leaders) read prophecies that augured a Morisco victory. In both cases prophecies w ­ ere invoked as moral imperatives for action. Yet while the recipients of prophetic discourses ­were members of the Morisco elite, the prophetic messages quickly spread to the lower levels of Morisco society. In this way, then, prophecy also served to prepare and mobilize the populace for an insurrection without the elites’ having to reveal the a­ ctual details of the rebellion plot. Prophecy was thus an internal, esoteric discourse directed at the Morisco community. But allow us to reconstruct a more nuanced picture of Valencian Morisco society of the second half of the sixteenth ­century. I am most grateful to Prof. Rafael Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco for his help in locating Cornejo’s dossier and for facilitating my access to the archive.



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Pérez’s forgeries also draw attention to the exoteric possibilities of Morisco prophetic discourse. By invoking apocalyptic prognostications and identifying them as a key ele­ment of the conspiracy, Pérez established a dialogue with the inquisitors, who had come to recognize the importance of apocalyptic discourse in Morisco society. Once the Moriscos—and ­ especially the inquisitors—­identified prophecy with rebellion conspiracies, it had to figure prominently if the idea of a Morisco conspiracy was to appear credible. To locate the place of prophecy in the context of sixteenth-­century Valencia, the discussion that follows is divided into two sections. The first analyzes Alonso Cornejo’s spontaneous confessions to the inquisitors of Valencia in March 1583, right before he was jailed in the secret prisons of the Inquisition ­after being accused of fabricating evidence and bribing and coercing witnesses into giving false testimonies to the Holy Office. Cornejo’s confessions are crucial to understanding how his partner, Gil Pérez, constructed his story. But more impor­tant, his testimonies offer an unexpected glimpse into the life of an aspiring alfaquí, and the significance of ­these religious leaders for the crypto-­ Muslim Morisco society of the late sixteenth c­ entury. Moreover, they shed light on aspects of the transmission of knowledge, the trade and circulation of books, and Morisco religious learning.10 Cornejo’s case thus illuminates Morisco social and religious organ­ization in late sixteenth-­century Valencia. Only by understanding this society that produced and consumed prophecies can we fully comprehend the function of apocalyptic discourse. The second section centers on Pérez and Cornejo’s story of a Morisco rebellion plot, arguing that the way this case has been treated by scholars—as a story of forgery and imposture—­has l­imited our understanding of Morisco po­liti­cal thought in the late sixteenth ­century and of the importance of prophecy to Morisco collective action. By insisting on understanding fabrication in terms of falsity rather than as a creative strategy employed for productive pro­ cesses, e­ arlier readings of this and similar stories have stripped away the centrality of apocalyptic discourse to Morisco po­liti­cal thought. Instead, we must reconsider the very notion of fabrication, especially when dealing with prophetic texts; that is, which prophecies do we consider au­then­tic and which do we consider forged? Pérez’s prophecies are as impor tant ­ as other textual Aljamiado prognostications that have been considered in this book and the apocalyptic sermons delivered by the alfaquís b­ ecause they are all reflections of the same Morisco mental ­ universe. Moreover, Pérez’s prophecies reveal 10.  ​For the circulation of books among the Morisco communities of Aragon, see esp. Fournel- ­ Guérin, “Le livre et la civilization écrite”; Ana Labarta, “Los libros de los moriscos valencianos,” Awraq 2 (1979): 72–80. For Morisco solidarity in Valencia, see Halperín Donghi’s classic study Un conflict nacional.

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that both the Moriscos and the inquisitors shared the same ideas about the power of prophecy among the Moriscos. Pérez had a deep knowledge of that discourse, and the inquisitors were ­ aware of the significance of prophetic prognostications for the Moriscos. Pérez, then, recognized and exploited that knowledge, effectively becoming an intermediary between the two.

Confessions of an Aspiring Alfaquí: Alonso Cornejo’s Testimony before the Inquisitors of Valencia On March 22, 1583, Alonso Cornejo stood before the inquisitor Pedro Çarate and declared his name and stated his occupation (tailor), his place of birth (Navajas, Valencia), and his f­ ather’s name (Miguel Ángel Cornejo). He had been speaking to the inquisitors for at least a year about an alleged Morisco conspiracy, but this time his testimony would not concern the rebellion plot. Rather, when asked what compelled him to request a hearing with the inquisitors, Cornejo stated that during Lent a few weeks e­ arlier, upon hearing the sermons of a certain Fr. Moreno, he had “converted” and wanted to be a Christian from then on.11 Cornejo must have heard the friar give his sermon during a visitation by the inquisitor, which concluded with the proclamation of the edict of grace, meant to gather confessions of sins committed against the Church and against God.12 In response to the edict, Cornejo admitted to having been a Muslim his whole ­ life and asked for forgiveness for his past offenses. He promised that from that moment on he would be a Christian and that he would learn Christian doctrine. This must have come as a surprise to the inquisitors. Why would Cornejo make use of an edict of grace at this point, admitting that he was and had been a Muslim all his life, ­after having informed the Inquisition about the “crimes” of other Moriscos for more than a year? As w ­ ill become clear, the information he gave in his confession was not directly related to the fabricated conspiracy (although it serves to illuminate many aspects of the fabrication itself ). In his confession, Cornejo referred to an ­earlier period in his life, before he became Gil Pérez’s associate. But at the time, word had begun to circulate among the Moriscos that Pérez and Cornejo w ­ ere in13 venting false accusations against members of their communities. The two 11. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 138r. 12. ​For more on inquisitorial visitations, see García Cárcel, Herejía y sociedad; Jean-­Pierre Dedieu, “Denunciar-­denunciarse: La delación inquisitorial en Castilla la Nueva en los siglos XVI–­XVII,” Revista de la Inquisición 2 (1992): 95–108; Monter, Frontiers of Heresy. 13. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 48v.



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men quite prob­ably feared that t­hose rumors would easily reach the ears of the inquisitors, seriously threatening to reveal their dangerous and mendacious game. Cornejo might well have thought that his spontaneous confession would help improve his credibility before the Inquisition in the face of such rumors. It was a risky move in an already risky game, but he hoped it would work. Cornejo’s was a confession designed to thwart the potential effects of the discovery of a fraud, a dose of truth to counteract an overdose of lies. Explaining to the confessant the conditions of the amnesty offered by the Inquisition for voluntary confessions, through the edict of grace, the inquisitor informed Cornejo that the Holy Office would admit his conversion in good faith, but he first had to declare in detail “every­thing he had done, or said, or seen other persons do or say about ­things against our Holy Catholic faith and Christian religion.”14 The inquisitors assured the Morisco that all mercy would be shown to him. Confessing during edicts of grace was a delicate m ­ atter, and for that reason many Moriscos avoided testifying altogether: even if they w ­ ere pardoned for any offenses that they might have committed before their reconciliation with the church, the inquisitors might use against them any information collected in subsequent lapses, for which the punishment could be death. But despite all this, Cornejo sought to demonstrate his sincere conversion to the Catholic faith by confessing his sins and denouncing ­those of ­others.15 Cornejo’s confessions, repentance, and conversion, however, aroused (or perhaps reinforced) the suspicions of the inquisitorial authorities. For the time being, though, his confession was accepted and the Morisco was reconciled in accordance with the edict of grace. But in 1584, scarcely a year l­ater, the inquisitorial prosecutor accused Cornejo of having feigned his conversion and of taking advantage of the mercy shown to him in order to obstruct “the ­free and upright exercise of the Holy Office.”16 And so Cornejo had not managed to convince the inquisitors of the sincerity of his conversion. Nonetheless, he left ­behind an invaluable description of his life as a crypto-­Muslim in sixteenth-­ century Valencia. His testimony reveals precious details about an impor­tant dimension of Valencian Morisco culture in the period a­ fter the Alpujarras

14. ​Ibid. 15. ​For edicts of grace directed t­oward Moriscos, see Rafael Carrasco, “Le refus d’assimilation des morisques: Aspects politiques et culturels d’après les sources inquisitoriales,” in Les Morisques et leur temps (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983), 169–216; Jean-­Pierre Dedieu, “L’Inquisition face aux morisques: Aspects juridiques,” in Les morisques et l’Inquisition, ed. Louis Cardaillac (Paris: Publisud, 1990), 110–27; Bernard Vincent, El río morisco (Valencia, Universitat de València, 2006), 41–52. 16. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 169v.

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revolt, illuminating both the “true” conspiracies described in chapter 4 and the “false” ones that are the subject of the pre­sent chapter.

The Making of an Alfaquí Alonso Cornejo was born in Navajas around 1560. Navajas is a small town in the Valencian hinterland, close to Segorbe and an impor­tant route between Valencia and Teruel. He was ­there when Philip II visited the kingdom in 1564, around ten years old when the Iberian Morisco community was shocked by the Alpujarras revolt, and around fifteen when conflict took root as a result of conspiracies in the Aragonese and Valencian countryside. So on that early spring day in 1583 when Cornejo confessed to the inquisitors, he told them that he had always led a Muslim life (que el ha hecho vida de moro), fasting during Ramadan, d­ oing the çala (ritual prayer; ṣalāt), and performing the ritual goado (ablutions; wuḍūʾ). He also admitted to having read the Qur’ān and “other books of the Moorish sect,” as well as books of sorcery (hechicerías), and to have observed the Muslim holidays (pascuas de moros) and taught ­children to read the Arabic language. Consistent with what the inquisitors saw as his obstinacy, Cornejo stated that he used to go to church to mock the priests, not believing the ­things they said. But he made more serious declarations that exposed his animosity ­toward Chris­tian­ity. He said that he had determined to kill some Old Christians but had not yet done so, and that he used to leave food and clothing out in the countryside for “those ­ whom he knew did not treat the Christians well,”17 hinting that he had prob­ably helped local bandits or the North African corsairs who periodically raided the Spanish coasts in search of booty and captives. Confessions like Cornejo’s were ­ not uncommon; the inquisitors were ­ well acquainted with the practices of the Moriscos. But his admissions were ­ certainly self-incriminating; ­ they revealed that Cornejo was most likely on the path of becoming an alfaquí, a religious leader in the Morisco community. The inquisitors took note and labeled him an “alfaquí and dogmatizer” during their sentence a few years ­later.18 Alonso Cornejo was initiated in the “Moorish ceremonies” at the age of twelve. He observed his first Ramadan u­ nder the guidance of Sucen, a clandestine alfaquí from the neighboring town of Gaibiel. Tulio Halperín Donghi has described how well-­to-do Moriscos who wanted to provide a solid Islamic education for their children ­ would send them off to live with an alfaquí.19 17. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 138v. 18. ​Ibid., f. 173v. 19. ​Halperín Donghi, Un conflicto nacional, 109.



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This was the case of young Alonso, who learned how to fast, pray, and read and write the Arabic language during his two-­year stay at the alfaquí’s home. But the alfaquís’ homes w ­ ere not the only schools available to young Moriscos. Cornejo described how the same alfaquí who had boarded him also received a salary from the aljama of Navajas, which paid him each month to teach all t­hose who wanted to learn religion and the Arabic language. A ­ fter completing his teaching duties, the alfaquí would lead prayer at one of the Moriscos’ houses, ­ where people ­ from neighboring villages and towns like Segorbe would come. Alonso recalled that Sucen had also taught and led prayers at his own u­ ncle’s home. When Sucen was not available, the alfaquí of Vall d’Uxó would travel the fifteen miles to “teach the ­children and all ­those who wanted to listen to the doctrine of the Moorish sect.”20 Navajas became a center for learning where many notables from Segorbe and well-­to-do Moriscos from neighboring towns used to meet.21 Those ­ were ­ the olden days, as Cornejo recalled, around 1575. The alfaquís ­were no longer teaching so openly for fear of the Inquisition; by the 1580s they went only to par­tic­u­lar homes to teach.22 A ­ fter completing his term at the alfaquí’s h ­ ouse, Cornejo went to Segorbe as a young apprentice to live in the home of several Morisco tailors. Was this apprenticeship part of the path to becoming an alfaquí? Bernard Vincent has noted that many alfaquís chose professions that would not arouse the suspicions of the religious authorities, such as butchers, barbers, or tailors— ­ professions that allowed them to continue carry­ing out some of the tasks of religious leaders, such as ritual slaughter and circumcision, and also the making of talismans.23 Young Alonso went to live with a Morisco tailor named Arzequi. During the more than three years that he lived and worked with his master, he continued to observe Ramadan and perform his religious duties. Cornejo recalled that his master used to beat his servants when they did not want to observe the fast.24 What Cornejo described was a tight-­knit community of neighbors who observed Islamic rituals in private but also collectively. For example, at the first sighting of the new moon of Ramadan, neighbors would alert one another, saying, “The foreigner is coming (Ya viene aquel forastero).” This was also a highly hierarchical society. Morisco notables played a central role in the fulfillment of religious duties, particularly with regard to the distribution of alms and charity. During the Muslim holidays of ʿĪd al-­Fiṭr

20. ​BHUV, var. 29/2. 21. ​Ibid., f. 152v. 22. ​Ibid., f. 148r. 23. ​Vincent, El río morisco, 68. 24. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 147v.

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(pascua de Ramadan), which marks the end of Ramadan, and ʿĪd al-­Aḍḥā (pascua mayor), or the festival of sacrifice, the wealthy Moriscos of Segorbe would give Cornejo pieces of cloth for him to craft clothes for the poor. In addition to their contributions, the notables would collect the offerings of other members of the community, and they w ­ ere in charge of distributing clothes to the less fortunate. In Segorbe, notables like Lorenzo Benazar, Gaspar Izquierdo, Miguel Marran, and Amet Alturi carried out the task.25 As we will ­ see, the careers ­ of the alfaquís were ­ intimately intertwined with the Morisco elites, the pillars of Morisco society.26

A Thwarted Journey: Morisco Emigration to Muslim Lands Throughout the sixteenth ­century the movement of Moriscos within the Peninsula was tightly regulated, and their departure to Islamic lands strictly forbidden. Moriscos’ attempts to emigrate to Muslim lands w ­ ere interpreted as a sign of apostasy, a crime punishable by the Inquisition. Choosing exile thus became an impor­tant form of re­sis­tance, especially during the second half of the ­century. ­These migrations required a ­great deal of cohesion, and they ­were pos­si­ble only through the tight networks of Moriscos inside and outside the Peninsula.27 During his confessions to the inquisitors, Cornejo recounted his three attempts to emigrate (only two of which are described ­here), offering a rare snapshot of the organ­ization of emigration expeditions in the Peninsula that made possi­ ble ­ the journeys of hundreds of Moriscos from Spanish shores to Muslim lands.28 His testimonies reveal the centrality of Morisco

25. ​Ibid., f. 148v. Benazar (Ibn Naṣr) belonged to a ­family of farmers, lessors, and merchants from Segorbe. For more on the Benazar and Izquierdo families, see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 85–86, 97–98. Marran and Alturi w ­ ere also Morisco notables from Segorbe. See Eugenio Císcar Pallarés, Moriscos, nobles y repobladores (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1993), 65. 26. ​For the role of alfaquís in Valencian Morisco society, see also Halperin Donghi, Un conflicto nacional, 106–10. For the most recent discussion of Valencian alfaquís in the Mudéjar and Morisco periods, see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 30–39. 27. ​Luis F. Bernabé Pons, “Notas sobre la cohesión de la comunidad morisca más allá de su expulsión de España,” al-­Qanṭara 29 (2008): 307–32. 28. ​For a discussion of Mudéjar emigration to Muslim lands, see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 21–22. Barceló and Labarta have published rich and detailed letters of Moriscos in North African lands. One of the documents is a letter from a Morisco living in Algiers; another one is a description of the city of Fez. T ­ hese texts should be read in light of Cornejo’s descriptions of emigration practices. See also Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 230–34, 241–43. See also Jorge Gil Herrera and Luis F. Bernabé Pons, “The Moriscos Outside Spain. Routes and Financing,” in The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: A Mediterranean Diaspora, ed. Mercedes García-­Arenal and Gerard Wiegers (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 219–38.



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notables to the execution of t­ hese journeys, and the prominent role of the alfaquís in transmitting information between both shores of the Mediterranean. Cornejo’s first attempt to travel to Algiers took place around 1574 or 1575, when he was fourteen years old. On this occasion, he was accompanied by his f­ather, Miguel Ángel, Sucen (the alfaquí of Gaibiel), Sucen’s son Ali, and his cousin Ali Cornejo. They all traveled to Vall d’Uxó, though none of them knew the exact details of the trip they w ­ ere to make. As Cornejo described, the organizers would communicate with one person in the group who would then notify the rest immediately before their departure. Cornejo l­ater found out that a certain merchant named Francisco had gone from Valencia to Barcelona, and from ­there he had taken some Moriscos to Algiers, bringing back with him news and letters. Cornejo’s confessions seem to coincide with the events that ­were occurring in Aragon at the time, discussed in chapter 4. Was this Francisco perhaps the renegade who came with Yūsuf/Yuçe Duarte, bringing back missives from the sultan and the governor of Algiers? It is very likely; the dates coincide exactly. Also, Francisco was an intimate friend of the Izquierdo f­amily of Segorbe, who w ­ ere organ­izing and financing the expedition.29 Thus, Francisco was surely in close contact with some of the leaders of the Aragonese conspiracy such as Gaspar Izquierdo, who was covering the cost of the trip in its entirety. Francisco, for his part, would charter the boats that would transport several Morisco notable families to Algiers; among them would be Izquierdo’s wife and d­ aughters. Moreover, Gaspar Izquierdo was the f­ather of Jaime Izquierdo, the Valencian Morisco discussed in chapter 4 who was one of the leaders of the rebellion and who was martyred in 1582. T ­ here is evidence, then, that exactly when the Moriscos ­were plotting the rebellion in Aragon and Valencia, members of the Morisco elite who ­were allegedly involved in the conspiracy ­were taking their families, and in par­tic­u­lar the female members, to safe haven in Ottoman North Africa. This trip, however, was l­ater thwarted by the denunciations of a Morisco from Vall d’Uxó named Marques.30 The group attempted a second trip two years ­later, sometime between 1577 and 1578. This time the Morisco notables Lorenzo Benazar and his cousin, the martyr Jaime Izquierdo, arranged the voyage and covered all costs. This was an impor­tant trip; the alfaquí of Gaibiel would be carry­ing some petitions for the Ottoman sultan, one on behalf of the Moriscos of Arévalo, in Castile, and another from Lorenzo Benazar and Jaime Izquierdo representing all the Morisco aljamas of the Kingdom of Valencia.31 The Moriscos’ missives, in 29. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 159r. 30. ​Ibid., ff. 138v and 159r–­v. 31. ​Ibid., ff. 139 r–­v.

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which they lamented the ill treatment they ­were receiving at the hands of the king of Spain and above all by the Inquisition, ­were similar to ­others that had reached the sultan before. According to one of the letters, the inquisitors burned the most educated among the Moriscos, and so “the light of the Muslims was waning.”32 Appealing to the eschatological sensibilities of Sultan Murād III, the Moriscos reminded the Ottomans that the time promised in their prophecies when their land would once again be in the hands of the Muslims was approaching, and so they pleaded with him to act promptly. But for a moment it seemed that this trip would have to be aborted. Upon reaching Vall d’Uxó, a Morisco told the group that they would have to go back home, since the ship had sailed straight past the arranged docking place. That eve­ning they all went to the home of a Morisco tailor and alfaquí named Turqui, where Cornejo was shown the supplications for the sultan. T ­ here they w ­ ere told that the ship had been forced to go to Cullera, twenty-­two miles south of the city of Valencia, and was waiting for the travelers in Carlet. This meant an almost forty-­four mile journey to the south. For this reason, and suspecting some sort of treason, Cornejo’s f­ather de­cided to return to Navajas. A few, however, did make the journey to Algiers: Sucen, for example, arrived in Algiers accompanied by Andrés Izquierdo. From t­ here he reached Constantinople and successfully delivered the Moriscos’ pleas to the sultan.33 Cornejo reported that he remembered having been told that upon receiving the Moriscos’ supplications, the sultan began to weep copiously and then gave the men encouragement, stating that “so long as he lived he would rid them from the captivity they had in Spain, and that all churches would [once again] serve as mosques.”34 Cornejo learned about this from two letters that the alfaquí sent, one to his sons and the other to Lorenzo Benazar and Jaime Izquierdo, upon his return from Algiers. Copies of this second letter w ­ ere made and distributed throughout Aragon. Cornejo’s brief account sheds light on some of the functions of prophecy for the Morisco community. When directed internally, prophecy was a discourse that allowed Moriscos to express, understand, and work through and transform their self-­image as a victimized group. Their situation became tolerable for them only when understood in a providential light. Prophecy, though, was also a discourse intended to arouse affective sensibilities—in this case, the sensibilities of a larger Muslim audience. Images of the imminent

32. ​Ibid., f. 139v. 33. ​Ibid., f. 160r. For a classic study on Morisco travels to Ottoman lands see Míkel Epalza, Los Moriscos antes y después de la expulsión (Madrid: Fundación MAPFRE, 1992), 280–88. 34. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 140r.



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eschatological waning of Islamic light in the Peninsula ­were sure to touch even royal hearts. Fulfilling the purpose of the Moriscos’ message, the Ottoman sultan (according to the alfaquí) was allegedly greatly affected by the Moriscos’ pleas and recognized their captivity. Apocalyptic discourse also served to give shape to Morisco po­liti­cal thought. The Moriscos recognized the Ottoman sultan as a just ruler who did not persecute his subjects for their religious beliefs and as someone who could protect his less fortunate Muslim brethren, unlike the Spanish king. By invoking the apocalyptic cycle of the restoration of Islamic rule in the Peninsula, the Moriscos inserted the Ottomans into the historical narrative of the community. In this apocalyptic cycle, then, the Ottoman sultan took on the role of the Mahdī, who w ­ ill inaugurate an epoch of universal justice.35 Prophecy also served as a diplomatic language through which Moriscos attempted to secure Ottoman mediation. The Valencian Moriscos’ deployment of prophecy transformed the discourse from an exercise in self-­pity to a tool of empowerment.36

“Guardians of Islam”: Morisco Notables and Alfaquís in Sixteenth-­Century Valencia Alonso Cornejo’s confessions reveal that prophecy was controlled and mediated by the alfaquís and by the Morisco elites.37 Before illustrating how t­ hese pillars of the community transmitted prophetic knowledge, a brief description of the two groups is merited. Eugenio Císcar Pallarés has pointed out that in most Valencian towns t­ here was one or a few well-­to-do Morisco families who played an impor­tant role in leading their communities.38 Their wealth and economic activities centered primarily on trade, owner­ship and cultivation of land, and raising livestock. They w ­ ere what Císcar Pallarés has called a “rural bourgeoisie” of merchants and landowners, an intermediate group between the peasantry of l­imited resources and the power­ful nobility. They thus w ­ ere representatives of their aljamas, effectively becoming mediators in the Moriscos’ dialogue with the nobility and po­liti­cal authorities.39 They ­were the ones who had the financial means to negotiate the edicts of grace, to pay bails, and to bargain in the collective interest. The authorities w ­ ere aware of 35. ​See chap. 2 for a related discussion. 36.  ​On this transformation, see, for example, López Baralt, “Crónica de la destrucción de un mundo”; and, more recently, see López Baralt, La literatura secreta de los moriscos. 37. ​Barceló and Labarta have also recently suggested that prophecies w ­ ere likely transmitted by alfaquís. See their Archivos moriscos, 74. 38. ​Císcar Pallarés, Moriscos, nobles y repobladores, 98. 39. ​Ibid., 97 and 102.

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the standing of the elites among the Moriscos and sought to win them over. In his 1561 report to Philip II, the inquisitor Gregorio Miranda wrote that “it would be necessary to send a comisario to scout the land and to uncover what was happening among the Moriscos and find out their intentions, and that he befriends the notables who govern them, for if they want, they ­will be able to calm the rest, and this they can do easily, knowing how to treat them.”40 T ­ hese notables who “governed” the Morisco communities at times took it upon themselves to or­ga­nize and finance collective clandestine emigrations to North Africa, as described above. More impor­tant, they had the means to negotiate with foreign powers and to ­settle on the sum that would be collected among the Moriscos in exchange for coming to their aid. The Morisco notables of Valencia dictated the direction of the po­liti­cal re­sis­tance, and the authorities w ­ ere aware of this—it was b­ ecause of them that Islam in Valencia continued to be tied to the wider Muslim world.41 A keen observer who became a staunch critic of the Moriscos, Juan de Ribera, archbishop of Valencia, remarked that “­those who are rich among them are the ones who have taken the place of the alfaquís, and thus they live with more liberty, and above all we know that if they found the occasion to go to Algiers, or to harm us in Spain, the money that they have would serve as arms against the Christians.”42 It was for this reason that the archbishop recommended that the authorities “make them poor (hazerlos pobres),” which would be “for our [Christian] spiritual and temporal benefit.”43 He suggested applying hefty pecuniary punishments that would fill the royal coffers and dissuade them from “performing [Muslim] ceremonies.” Ribera’s pragmatic assessment of the role of the Morisco notables points to an impor­tant phenomenon that took place over the course of the sixteenth ­century: some wealthy Moriscos took on the role of guardians of Islamic practice. They w ­ ere thus identified by the Christian religious authorities as using their wealth to further the cause of Islam in the Peninsula. And they did indeed take charge of keeping Islam alive in their com-

40. ​“Seria necesario embiase luego un comisario ya para que anduviese por la tierra y explorase lo que hay entre los moriscos y supiese sus intentiones y tomase amistad con los mas principales por quien se gobiernan, que si estos quieren son la mayor parte para sosegar los demas y esto lo pueden hazer facilmente, sabiendolos tratar.” Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión, 1:235. 41. ​On this connection, see Halperín Donghi, Un conflicto nacional, 119. 42. ​“Los que son ricos entre ellos, son los que an sucedido en lugar de los Alfaquies, y que asi biven con mas libertad y sobre todo sabemos, que si se ofreciese ocasión o de pasarse a Argel, o de damnificarnos en España, el dinero que tienen serian armas contra los cristianos.” Ibid., 372. For a study of Ribera and the Moriscos see Benjamin Ehlers, Between Christians and Moriscos: Juan de Ribera and Religious Reform in Valencia, 1568–1614 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). 43. ​Ibid.



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munities, furnishing organization, ­ albeit minimal, to the religious life of Morisco commoners.44 But wealthy Valencian Moriscos still turned to the religious figure of the alfaquí for his moral authority, especially in their po­liti­cal plans. The alfaquís’ social prestige, in turn, was strengthened by their association with the Morisco notables. The alfaquís, however, did not form a coherent group. Their function in the community, as has already been suggested, was quite varied. They served as butchers, talisman makers, circumcisers, teachers, jurisconsults, and at times morticians. They also presided over marriage ceremonies, led prayer (as imāms), gave the sermon during the Friday prayer ser­vice (khuṭba), and offered exhortatory preaching (waʿẓ). The Morisco alfaquís w ­ ere continuing some of the customary roles leaders had carried out during the Mudéjar period.45 While the primary role of the Mudéjar alfaquís was that of jurisconsult, acting as counselors or arbitrators in litigations between Muslims, they also instructed the community in religious m ­ atters, taught at the local school, and served as preachers in mosques. In fact, part of the alfaquís’ prestige and power derived from their role as preachers, and their activities had impor­tant consequences for the religious and po­liti­cal life of the community. During the Mudéjar period, and especially during the final years of the fifteenth c­ entury, when it became increasingly evident that the Kingdom of Granada would soon be lost, the alfaquís’ sermons took on a markedly po­liti­cal tone. It was they who collected funds around the Muslim quarters for the aid of the Naṣrid sultan.46 In the period a­ fter the forced conversions, the alfaquís still dominated the ritual landscape of the crypto-­Muslim Moriscos in Valencia, leading prayer and offering sermons, albeit in absolute clandestinity. Other Morisco communities of the Peninsula did not enjoy the same guidance. In Aragon, as William Monter has remarked, in the absence of professionally trained religious leaders, “the Moriscos bear an odd resemblance to the early Protestant movement with its famous slogan of the ‘priesthood of all believers.’ ”47 Yet the guidance of the alfaquís was highly valued among Moriscos. In fact, Aragonese Moriscos often requested the ser­vices of ­these religious leaders. In his confessions, Cornejo narrated a story of one of his friends, a young alfaquí named Prior, who was summoned by a Morisco notable of Zaragoza to instruct his ­house­hold on Islam. According to Cornejo, his friend was brought to the home of a rich merchant, and t­ here he was taken into a large room, where hidden

44. ​Halperín-­Donghi, Un conflicto nacional, 105. 45. ​See Miller, Guardians of Islam. 46. ​Meyerson, Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel. 47. ​Monter, Frontiers of Heresy, 213.

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b­ ehind some walls w ­ ere “books of the Qurʾān (libros del alcoran), and of the Jews [Torahs?], books of witchcraft, and other things ­ of sages.” With those ­ books Prior imparted lessons on religion to the o­ wners of the h­ ouse and other ­people who ­were pre­sent.48 T ­ hese libraries seem to have been popu­lar among Moriscos in the Kingdom of Aragon. A 1575 Inquisition trial against an Aragonese Morisco from the village of Brea named Juan Bello reveals that, in addition to the notables who could afford fine book collections, many custodians of t­ hese precious manuscripts w ­ ere the alfaquís. Bello confessed to have visited the home of an old alfaquí, where he was taken to a well-­furnished room with many books on shelves that wrapped around the walls.49 Cornejo explained to the inquisitors that “the good Muslim (Moro) seeks to have a Qurʾān in his home,” even if he does not know how to read. He stated that previously only the alfaquís collected and guarded Qurʾāns in their h­ ouses, but now one could find them in many homes “­because they ­were sold cheaply (porque los mercan baratos).”50 While Cornejo’s testimony suggests a “democ­ratization” of sorts of religious knowledge, the figure of the alfaquí continued to be central to the religious life of many Moriscos. This is evident from Cornejo’s assessment that “in the sect of the Moors t­ here is g­ reat merit (mérito) in performing the ceremonies with an alfaquí, more so than alone.”51 In fact, communal cohesion through prayer is the central theme of several extant Aljamiado manuscripts.52 In one, the angel Gabriel says to the Prophet Muḥammad that “one atacbira (al-­takbīr; Arabic for Allāhu Akbar) that reaches the believer with the imām is better than one thousand doblas (gold coins) that he offers as açadaca (al-­ṣadaqa, voluntary alms) to the poor. The angel also states that “one arraca (al-­rakʿa, prostration during ritual prayer) that the believer performs with the imām is better for him than if he ransomed a hundred thousand captives.”53

48. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 146r–­v. 49. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, ff. 259r–260v. Aragón was a bustling center for book production in the Iberian Peninsula. On Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture, see the introduction to this volume. Some of ­these libraries survived u­ ntil modern times, hidden b­ ehind walls or floorboards, and their discovery forms the basis of our knowledge about Aljamiado lit­er­at­ ure. The books and texts described in t­ hese testimonies are the manuscripts that we study ­today. 50. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 153v. For a most in­ter­est­ing description of the types of books an alfaquí might have possessed, see Ana Labarta and J. C. Escribano, “Las bibliotecas de dos alfaquíes borjanos,” Anaquel de Estudios Árabes 11 (2000): 355–67. 51. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 965, f. 145v. 52. ​This has been demonstrated by Nuria Martínez de Castilla in her study of Aljamiado manuscript T19. Nuria Martínez de Castilla, “Edición, estudio y glosario del manuscrito aljamiado T19 de la Real Academia de la Historia” (PhD diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2004). The manuscript itself is ­housed at BRAH. 53. ​Ibid., 521.



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Referring to the rewards of performing prayer communally, Gabriel’s statements grow progressively eschatological. For example, Gabriel addresses the Prophet, stating, “Yā (vocative) Muḥammad, anyone who dies for the çuna and aljama (ahl al-sunna ­ wa al-jamāʿa, ­ in this case the Muslim community), Allāh will ­ place on the Day of Judgment under ­ the shadow of the throne (alarxi, or al-­ʿarsh) with t­ hose who died in the B ­ attle of Badr.54 And on the Day of Judgment they w ­ ill be u­ nder the shadow of the throne with the prophets (anabíes, or anbiyāʾ), and the righteous ­ (salihes, or ṣulaḥāʾ), and those ­ who died in the path of God (fi çabili illahi, or fī sabīl Allāh),” that is, with the martyrs. These ­ passages echo Cornejo’s insistence on the rewards (méritos) of praying with an imām or alfaquí. Thus, at a moment when the cohesion of the community was threatened, prayer and the guidance of the religious leader could strengthen Morisco solidarity and commitment to the cause of Islam.

Guardians of Prophecy: Exhortatory Sermons in Valencia In addition to leading prayer, an impor­tant function of the alfaquí was to deliver sermons during communal prayer. Some of ­these sermons are extant in numerous Aljamiado manuscripts.55 Pedro Longás, who studied the religious life of the Mudéjars and Moriscos, explained that the sermon (khuṭba) had to precede the Friday noon prayer (ṣalāt) at the mosque, but the real­ity of Morisco ritual experience was prob­ably dif­fer­ent.56 It is very likely that crypto-­Muslim Moriscos instead held their prayers at night in private ­houses. Alonso Cornejo, in fact, describes the existence of itinerant preachers who delivered sermons in private ­houses. Analyzing several Aljamiado sermons, Longás described the khuṭba as made up of three parts: praise to God, prayers for the Prophet, and the recitation of exhortatory verses of the Qurʾān. ­There ­were, however, other sermons in addition to the ritual Friday khuṭba, which Longás classified as “moral sermons”—­exhortatory sermons that encouraged good deeds and works in general, as well as prayer, fasting, giving alms, abstaining from drinking wine, and so on—or “liturgical sermons,” which w ­ ere given on Fridays

54.  ​The Battle ­ of Badr (624 CE) was the first battle ­ fought by Muḥammad and the Muslims against the Meccans and Abū Sufyān b. Ḥarb. The b­ attle is referenced in vari­ous eschatological traditions as having been won by the Muslims with the help of an army of angels. 55. ​See María Jesús Viguera Molins, “Sermones aljamiados,” Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna 17 (1999): 759–64. 56. ​Pedro Longás, La vida religiosa de los moriscos, 2nd  ed. (Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 1998), 182–83. It must be noted that the khaṭīb could deliver paraliturgical sermons in the ambit of the liturgical Friday and canonical festival sermons; I thank Linda Jones for the clarification.

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and contained praise to God, a discussion of His attributes, the profession of faith, an exhortation to repent, and descriptions of Judgment Day. In addition to the highly ritualized khuṭbas, Aljamiado copies of which have survived, other sources of non-Morisco ­ provenance, such as inquisitorial trial records ­ and chronicles, suggest that the alfaquís engaged in other types of more informal preaching. This type of preaching can be identified with the popu­lar exhortatory sermons known as waʿẓ, impor­tant to community and politics in medieval al-Andalus ­ and the Maghreb.57 In contrast to the khuṭba, waʿẓ can be offered at any time or place.58 The popular ­ preachers (wāʿiẓ) who delivered ­these messages, usually guided their sermons by reciting the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, and centering on one theme. As one scholar has noted, reading from the Qurʾān in preparation for the sermon was intended to elicit an emotional reaction among the audience.59 This was especially impor­tant, as we w ­ ill see l­ater, with regard to the delivery of sermons that contained apocalyptic messages. Alonso Cornejo’s confession sheds light on the use of both modes of preaching among Moriscos. Moreover, his accounts suggest an adaptation of the strict ritual norms surrounding communal prayer and the delivery of sermons, which resulted in the blurring of the line between khuṭba and waʿẓ. Cornejo recalled that, while performing the ṣalāt with an alfaquí at the home of a Morisco in Segorbe one day, many Moriscos, among them many notables, went “to hear the doctrine of the alfaquí.” The ­women and men ­were in separate rooms when the alfaquí read from a book, and then they all prayed ­behind him.60 This scene is descriptive of a sort of majlis al-­waʿẓ, a communal gathering in which an exhortatory sermon was delivered. In this case the Moriscos specifically gathered to “hear the doctrine” of the alfaquí, to listen to his sermon and learn Islamic doctrine. His sermon was most likely guided by a theme pre­sent in the passages that he had selected to read from the Qurʾān. In this case, however, the delivery of the sermon follows the ritual place of the khuṭba; it is offered before the prayer. Cornejo also provided another example of a communal gathering in which a sermon was delivered. He recalled that on many nights the Moriscos of Navajas and Segorbe used to gather in one of the neighbor’s h­ ouses, and the alfaquí of Gaibiel used to lead prayer, and then afterward deliver “the alodba (al-­khuṭba) for them, which is like a sermon (el dicho alfaqui les hacia el alodba 57. ​Linda G. Jones, The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 58. ​B. Radtke and J. J. G. Jansen, “Wāʿiẓ (a., pl.wuʿʿāẓ),” EI2, 11:56–57. 59.  ​Linda  G. Jones, “Witnesses of God: Exhortatory Preachers in Medieval al-Andalus ­ and the Maghreb.” Al-­Qanṭara 28, no. 1 ( January–­July, 2007): 73–100. 60. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 152r.



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que es como sermon),” a­ fter performing the çala (ṣalāt). While Cornejo specifically identified the sermon as a khuṭba, the order in which it was delivered during the ser­vice does not follow the strict ritual practice, nor was it delivered in a mosque. Unfortunately, Cornejo did not offer any information about the content of t­ hese preachings, which would provide clues about what type of sermon was being delivered. Fortunately, though, both Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture and the rec­ords of the Inquisition are invaluable resources for reconstructing the content, manner, and context in which sermons ­were delivered. Another in­ter­est­ing example of an exhortatory preaching assembly—­in­ter­ esting ­ because ­ it enhances our understanding of the potential impact of t­ hese modes of preaching—is preserved in the rec­ords from a late sixteenth-­ century Inquisition trial of a Valencian Morisco named Diego de Arcos.61 While de Arcos’s case is not directly linked to the fabricated conspiracies of the 1580s, many of the witnesses who testified against him for performing Islamic rituals ­were part of Pérez’s ring of in­for­mants, including Pérez himself. Some time between 1575 and 1578; that is, during his early communications with the inquisitors of Valencia, Pérez confessed some damaging information concerning de Arcos’s Islamic practices. He talked about a secret meeting that took place in Xea de Albarracín, Teruel, a village at the border of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia. The year was 1577, the same year that Cornejo and his ­father, and the alfaquí laden with apocalyptic supplications for the Ottomans on behalf of the aljamas, attempted to cross over to Muslim lands, and the same year when, according to Cornejo’s story, the Ottoman sultan Murād III wept upon learning about the Moriscos’ plight and promised to help. According to Pérez, one eve­ning, forty-­five Moriscos from the area gathered to listen to sermons delivered by several alfaquís. The description of the meeting by one of the attendees resembles a majlis al-­waʿẓ. What reaches us ­today is a thirdhand account of the event, but the testimony still offers insight into the content of Morisco hortatory preaching. The opening sermon was reserved for an elder (sheikh), an alfaquí named Joan Alcaçim. The old man began his preaching by reading from a book in Arabic that he declared was the “alguacía de Muça Alí Çalem (the waṣīya of Moses), peace be with him.”62 He then read the following ḥadīth: “The Prophet Muḥammad was speaking to his companions when he began to cry inconsolably. When asked why he

61. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 549/1. This case has also been cited by Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de Dios, 179–82. 62. ​The prophet Mūsā (Moses) is a prominent character in Aljamiado lit­er­at­ ure. See Leyendas aljamiadas y moriscas sobre personajes bíblicos: Introducción, edición, estudio lingüístico y glosario, ed. Antonio Vespertino Rodríguez (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1983).

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wept, the Prophet responded that he was crying for “the Moriscos of Aragon, Valencia, and Andalusia, who would all be lost and would find themselves in g­ reat trou­ble, but they would be counted among the jamāʿa, the community (que serian de los de la gema), on account of the martyrdoms that they would endure at the hands of unbelievers.” The Prophet’s companions asked how they could be saved if they could not fast during Ramadan or “the seven days of the year,” nor do the ṣalāt, without which they could not be part of his sunna (pues que sin hellos no podian ser de su açuna—­al-­sunna wa al-­jamāʿa, “his community”). The Prophet responded that their situation was like living in captivity and that they would be saved by simply believing (in God and Islam). The alfaquí then encouraged the Moriscos to follow what the Prophet ordered, and he warned them against changing religions (si otra ley mudaban), assuring them they would go to gehennem (jahannam, hell). To this threat they all responded that even if the inquisitors burned 10,000 Moriscos each day, “they would never change their law (no mudarían de ley).”63 The alfaquí then read verses of the Qurʾān that spoke of Jesus and Mary, and verses that deny the divinity of Jesus and deal with his birth, as well as the announcement of Muḥammad’s prophethood and Jesus’s death. He warned the Moriscos against believing anything they ­were told about Mary’s virginity or that Jesus (Hiça, or in Arabic, ʿĪsā) was the son of God or died crucified, invoking visions of hell and punishment. When the old man had concluded his sermon, they all engaged in a discussion. A man stood up and stated that they should all know that the Moriscos of Teruel ­were good Muslims, to which they all responded affirmatively. Then he said that they lived as Muslims, and as such they wanted to die. They each stood up and kissed the hand of the old alfaquí, who touched their heads, saying, “May Allah give you risque [rizq, blessings].” Then the Moriscos of Albarracín, who had brought their own alfaquí, asked him to give a sermon.64 He began to read the Qurʾān and commented on the necessity of observing the Islamic precepts. The assembly was interrupted by some Old Christians, but all who w ­ ere pre­ sent agreed that they would die in defense of Islam, and swore before a Qurʾān never to denounce any Moriscos before the Christian authorities.65 This account offers a rare and invaluable glimpse of the live delivery of a sermon during an exhortatory preaching assembly. Both the content of the sermon and the context of its delivery allow us to picture the type of preaching that Alonso Cornejo must have heard from the alfaquís in Navajas and Segorbe, communities similar to the one in Teruel. Moreover, it enhances our 63. ​Ibid. See also Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de Dios, 180. 64. ​Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de Dios, 181. 65. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 549/1.



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understanding of the deployment, circulation, and reception of prophetic ḥadīths among the Valencian Moriscos. For this par­tic­u­lar majlis al-­waʿẓ the old alfaquí selected three texts to guide his preaching, of which only the content of the m ­ iddle and last sermon is known. The moralistic sermons are or­ga­nized progressively in order of importance, from prophetic to divine speech. The story of Moses is followed by the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad, ending with the word of God. The prophetic ḥadīth was the widely popu­lar narrative of the weeping Prophet, who prophesied the suffering of his last community on Iberian soil. It circulated among the Castilian Moriscos in the 1540s and during the Alpujarras revolt (it is also most likely the same apocalyptic ḥadīth discussed in chapters 1 and 2). If “divine and prophetic exhortation may be categorized as ‘overt acts’ of power that demand response and reaction on the part of the recipient,”66 then the image of an anguished Muḥammad weeping over the Moriscos’ vicissitudes must have induced tears in some of t­ hose pre­sent. In a similar way, visions of hell and paradise served to elicit strong emotional responses of grief and fear. The alfaquí’s se­lection of verses from the Qurʾān pertaining to the Islamic vision of Jesus and Mary, as well as his polemic commentary, served to remind the Moriscos about the Christian falsifications of Scripture and reflected anxiety over the pos­si­ble loss of Muslims to Chris­tian­ity.67 The alfaquí’s sermons seem to be aimed precisely at discouraging potential Muslim apostates. At a time of intense inquisitorial persecution, many Moriscos did choose to embrace the Christian faith, and so by invoking apocalyptic ḥadīths, the alfaquí aimed to explain to the Moriscos their situation of “captivity,” to reassure them that the trials ­ they were ­ facing had been predicted by the Prophet, and to promise them divine rewards for staying steadfast in their religion. The sermon achieved its intended effect: a communal oath to defend Islam and to follow the path of martyrdom concluded the assembly. Through their sermons the Valencian Morisco alfaquís served as intermediaries between the divine and members of the crypto-­Muslim community.68 Moreover, according to Linda Jones, preachers in medieval Iberia and the Maghreb employed sermons to “transmit the myths and values that shaped ­ the identities of their communities and to redefine the boundaries ­ that separated them” from Old Christians.69 In the tense context of late 66. ​Jones, “Witnesses of God,” 82. 67. ​See Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos. 68. ​Jones, “Witnesses of God,” 85. 69.  ​Linda  G. Jones, “The Boundaries ­ of Sin and Communal Identity: Muslim and Christian Preaching and the Transmission of Cultural Identity in Medieval Iberia and the Maghreb (12th  to 15th Centuries)” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004).

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sixteenth-­century Valencia, the invocation of prophecy in sermons served to create and/or strengthen Morisco Muslim identity. In sum, the Morisco alfaquís became guardians of the divine message, guardians of prophecy, and guardians of Islam.

Prophecy Contested: Popu­lar Responses to Apocalyptic Prognostications The picture that has so far been presented is one of a society or­ga­nized by Morisco notables and mediated by alfaquís. However, when looking at the reception and interpretation of apocalyptic messages at the popu­lar level, rifts and tensions within Morisco society emerge. The following episodes narrated by Alonso Cornejo to the inquisitors of Valencia shed light on what happened when prophecies ­were appropriated by ordinary Moriscos. During one of his confessions, Cornejo recounted an encounter the previous day with a Valencian Morisco named Habib Bolex. The two young men began to talk about the current situation in Valencia, when Bolex complained about the new arrests that King Philip II had ordered. More unsettling for him was the fact that Philip II was contemplating the expulsion of the Moriscos from the kingdom. Bolex’s dramatic assessment of the situation was not far-­fetched. Indeed, ­those ­were years of intense inquisitorial persecution; between 1580 and 1595, more than 1,600 individuals w ­ ere pro­cessed by the tribunal of Valencia.70 Also, the possibility of transferring the Moriscos from the Valencian coast to the interior had been proposed since a de­cade e­ arlier, and the extreme mea­sure of expelling them entirely from the Spanish kingdoms had been discussed in the Lisbon Juntas just the previous year, in 1582—an idea that was rejected by Philip II.71 Habib Bolex was well aware of current events; he knew about the secret truce negotiations that ­were being carried out with the Ottomans, and he added new details to the story. Expressing his wishful thinking, Bolex told Cornejo that peace negotiations w ­ ere taking place between Sultan Murād III and Philip II b­ ecause the sultan had captured a female relative of the king, as well as many nobles, and they would be handed over in exchange for t­hose Valencian Moriscos who w ­ ere in the Inquisition’s prisons. According to Bolex, the Ottomans demanded that “each one be allowed to live by their own law, and that the mosques be reopened, and that their arms be returned to them.”72 Then Bolex began to pronounce the following oracular utterances: 70. ​See García Cárcel, Herejía y sociedad, 96. 71. ​See Benítez Sánchez Blanco, Heróicas decisiones, 264–82. 72. ​BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 141v.



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“This year t­here s­ hall be no Christian left in all of Philip’s land in this kingdom, b­ ecause Don Antonio, the king of Portugal, w ­ ill come from one side, and the king of France, who is allied with the Ottomans, w ­ ill come from his [side], and they ­will all come from three sides and then ­here, ­those of this land [the Moriscos], we w ­ ill rise like rabid dogs, and t­ here w ­ ill be not one of their 73 men left in the w ­ hole land.” When asked how he knew all this, Bolex affirmed that an Ottoman Turk had arrived in his village with a man from Vall d’Uxó, saying many t­ hings of the sort. The men had assured the Moriscos that if it ­were not for the fact that the Morisco notables w ­ ere in prison, they would be “as f­ree as in Constantinople,” b­ ecause it was stated in their prophecies “that [the Moriscos] of this kingdom [Valencia] would rise against the king and the Muslims would lose, and that the arrests of Moriscos by the Inquisition are that loss, and they confirm it as being positive, and that they ­will then emerge as victorious and ­will have a Muslim king (y han de haber rey moro) in the land, but he w ­ ill rule for a short time, for thirty-­something years, and then the Christians w ­ ill win over the land, and blessed ­will be the ones who ­will leave the land and ­will be able to go to Muslim lands.”74 Bolex’s testimony sheds additional light on the transmission of apocalyptic prognostications among the Moriscos. In addition to the circulation of textual material, prophetic messages w ­ ere also brought to the Morisco communities of Iberia by people ­ traversing the Mediterranean. At the popular ­ level, the circulation of prophecies was intimately tied to the analy­sis of current news and events. This is, a­ fter all, an import­ant feature of apocalyptic prophecies. As Ottavia Niccoli reminds us, in the early modern period “prophecy seems to have constituted a unifying sign connecting nature to religion and religion to politics, and coordinating all the scattered shreds of a culture that in the end turned out to be an integral way of knowing, embracing observation of nature, po­liti­cal analy­sis, and religious reflection.”75 News about the imprisonments carried out by the Inquisition and the possibility of a general expulsion w ­ ere interpreted in an apocalyptic key and incorporated into the prophetic prognostications that circulated mostly orally, but also in written form. In fact, Bolex’s apocalyptic utterances echo the prophetic letters that the Morisco in­for m ­ ant Luis Moreno alluded to (see

73.  ​Note that the allusion to rabid dogs resonates with the pseudo-Isidorian ­ prognostications discussed in chap. 1, when the saint-­prophet speaks of the “Hagarene beasts” who w ­ ill come out of their caves to lead the kingdom into war. BHUV, var. 297/2, f. 141v. 74. ​Ibid. 75. ​Niccoli, Prophecy and P­ eople in Re­nais­sance Italy, xvi.

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chapter 4). Moreover, both Moriscos make reference to the arrival in Valencia in 1583 of Ottoman envoys, who came announcing prophecies about an imminent Franco-­Ottoman invasion that would occur in that same year. Read side by side, the two testimonies confirm the circulation of the same prophetic narrative, in oral and written form, in Valencia and Aragon around 1583. From Cornejo’s confessions it would seem that news of arrests and the threat of expulsion w ­ ere burning topics of conversation among Valencian Moriscos in 1583, and an animosity t­ oward the elite is apparent in t­ hese conversations. Cornejo was frequently asked by his coreligionists ­whether he had any information regarding the arrests; the Moriscos knew he had communicated with the inquisitors, although Cornejo usually managed to avoid giving an answer. During one of t­hose conversations, one Morisco was certain that Lorenzo Benazar and the other Morisco notables who were ­ in prison had confessed everything ­ and had implicated other Moriscos. According to this man, Philip II had provided Benazar with safe conduct (pasaje) to Ottoman lands as a reward for his confessions. The man reflected that the prisoners had acted foolishly by confessing, b­ ecause now they would all be expelled.76 Another Morisco also expressed animosity ­toward the notables: “May they be the ones to pay and not the rest.”77 When Cornejo responded that the inquisitors must have reasons to prosecute the notables, one of the men responded, “How could they not prove anything against them when every­thing is so crystal clear that it could not be other­wise, that Lorenzo Benazar and Marran want to do ­things that are not yet ordained by God to be fulfilled, b­ ecause they wanted to become kings of the land, and they had been writing to the Ottomans for over two years, and it would have been better for them to leave it ­until the time that God promised it should be fulfilled.”78 In the mouths of ordinary Moriscos, apocalyptic discourse also served as a vehicle for contesting authority—­the authority of both the notables and the alfaquís. The preacher’s authority, as Linda Jones has pointed out, resides in his role as liaison, translating for his audience mythic, authoritative discourse into concrete moral acts.79 But for t­hese Moriscos, the alfaquís had failed to interpret divine ­will correctly. Taking as an example the rebellion in the Alpujarras, where the alfaquís had encouraged the election of Hernando de Córdoba y Válor as king by citing prophecies, it is not unlikely that in their sermons the Valencian alfaquís, whose c­ areers w ­ ere intimately linked to the notables, also vouched for the Morisco leaders using the same discourse. The alfaquís

76. ​BHUV, var. 297/2, f. 143v. 77. ​Ibid., f. 157v. 78. ​Ibid., my emphasis. 79. ​Jones, “Witnesses of God,” 86.



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had misinterpreted the appropriate time and the notables had insisted on p­ recipitating the events, thus bringing about the persecution of the w ­ hole community. While Moriscos like Bolex interpreted this persecution in a providentialist light, for o­ thers it signified the failure of their leaders. Prophetic discourse itself was not being questioned; it was the co-­optation of this discourse by the notables that was being contested.

A Royal ­Future: Cornejo’s Horoscopes and Claims to Power On May 4, 1583, two months a­ fter he had begun confessing, Alonso Cornejo appeared before the inquisitors of Valencia and declared that ever since he could remember, his ­mother had told him that he was never baptized. One of his first recollections was when the alfaquí of Gaibiel, his teacher, went to his home looking for three ­people who had not been baptized and ten ­people who had never drunk wine. The alfaquí needed their help in retrieving a trea­sure that was hidden b­ ehind a wall in Gandía. The man took Cornejo with him and showed him two books on finding trea­sures using spells. Cornejo also remembered the time when he went with his m ­ other to see a Morisco named Çahat Yahude to have his genethliac chart cast.80 The man told him that he would be blessed (bienaventurado) in his life, b­ ecause he would become a g­ reat king. His horoscope, however, was not clear; t­ here w ­ ere also many t­ hings that threatened his salvation, and the signs revealed that he would not be a good Muslim. The astrologer, however, doubted ­those unfavorable signs. Upon hearing this, Cornejo’s ­mother said that the astrologer could not err and that it was most likely that her son would serve ­either the Ottoman sultan or “any king of that land [Islamic lands?]” b­ ecause he had never been baptized.81 In Cornejo’s confession t­ here is a quasi-­obsession with every­thing occult; he claimed to have sought and read books of witchcraft, talisman making, and trea­sure hunting, and he viewed horoscopes and prophecies as having g­ reat authority. This last confession is significant b­ ecause it offers clues to understanding Cornejo’s treacherous acts against his own community, discussed ­later in this chapter. Although we cannot judge Cornejo’s intentions, the revelations he described to the inquisitors raise several questions: Was he claiming to be outside of the Inquisition’s jurisdiction by stressing that he had never been

80. ​Astrology manuals are a common feature of Aljamiado manuscripts. See, for example, Luce López Baralt, Luisa Piemontese, and Claire Martin, “Un morisco, astrólogo experto en mujeres (Ms, Junta XXVI),” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 36 (1988): 261–76. 81. ​BHUV, var. 297/2, f. 157r–­v.

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baptized? This was exactly what the Moriscos of Vall d’Uxó had claimed ­little more than a de­cade ­earlier. This was likely no coincidence; one of the leaders of that community, Jaime Ayet, was Cornejo’s acquaintance.82 Or was he perhaps trying to convince the inquisitors about the sincerity of his conversion by citing the opinion of an astrologer who predicted that he would be a bad Muslim? Both possibilities are reasonable. At any rate, what is in­ter­est­ing about his declarations are his claims to power. Did he aspire to lead the Moriscos into armed rebellion? Were ­ Cornejo’s denunciations of the notables of Segorbe a personal response to his own claims to legitimacy? Was Cornejo challenging the authority of the notables and the alfaquís who supported them by referring to signs revealed in his horoscope?

Anatomy of a Rebellion: Conspiracy, Prophecy, and Forgery in the Gil Pérez Affair When in early January 1582 Gil Pérez began making declarations before the inquisitors of Valencia about a secret Morisco plan to take up arms in collusion with the Aragonese Moriscos, aided by the French, the Béarnese, and the Ottomans, the inquisitors already knew how to identify a conspiracy when they saw one. They had learned the difficult lessons of the rebellion in the Alpujarras scarcely a de­cade e­ arlier, and they w ­ holeheartedly believed t­here was the same potential in the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia. The Morisco shoemaker Gil Pérez, the character who dominates the following pages, exploited this knowledge to his advantage, managing to keep the Christian authorities busy for more than five years. His motivations are not transparent from the sources; t­ here is a mix of ambition—­for material gain and power—­ and antagonism t­oward the better-­off Moriscos. What is clear is that just as Pérez sought to exploit the inquisitors’ trust by fabricating information and proof of the Moriscos’ treason in exchange for a salary, the Inquisition, for its part, used the rifts and tensions within Morisco society to its advantage, effectively breaking Morisco solidarity.

The Making of a Morisco Rogue Gil Pérez was born around 1545 in the small village of Xea de Albarracín, Teruel, to an Old Christian f­ather and a Morisca m ­ other. It is not clear w ­ hether 82. ​Ibid., f. 144r–­v. For an in-­depth study of this episode, see Arroyas Serrano and Gil Vicent, Revuelta y represión en los moriscos castellonenses.



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Gil was baptized. In 1582 the inquisitors of Valencia requested that the parish books be checked to verify his baptism, yet t­ here w ­ ere no traces of the man in the rec­ords of Xea de Albarracín, Albarracín, or Teruel.83 Not much is known about his life before 1579, when he was already around thirty-­five years old. The only known fact is that in his youth, like other Morisco boys, Gil served in the h ­ ouse of the bishop of Segorbe.84 During this time he must have forged an acquaintance with Pedro Ramírez, an Old Christian young man who was raised in the bishop’s house ­ and would later ­ become dean of the cathedral of 85 Segorbe. It would be Ramírez to whom years ­later Pérez would offer some of his most damaging accusations against the Moriscos of Valencia. Although we find Pérez testifying to the inquisitors of Valencia as early as 1575, the best description that we have of him dates from 1579, when he was detained in the cárcel de los manifestados, a special prison in the heart of Zaragoza that ­housed ­people awaiting deliberation on cases pending against them in dif­fer­ent civil and religious tribunals. The case for which Pérez was awaiting sentence is indeed telling of the kind of man he was and of the kind of activities in which he had gotten involved during his adulthood, a­ fter he left the ­house of the bishop: he had been accused of forging official licenses (avia falseado unas liçencias de los diputados).86 The diputados (deputies) of Aragon w ­ ere the supreme representatives of the kingdom (vis-­à-­vis the king) whenever the Aragonese parliament, the Cortes, was not assembled. Thus, Pérez’s was a serious accusation, which already suggests that he was a con artist, fabricator, and a rogue. This characteristic appears to be a constant in his life: not even while in prison and awaiting his sentence did he refrain from engaging in all sorts of peculiar and deceitful activities. His swindles while in prison are thus revealing about his character, and they help give meaning to some of his later ­ machinations against the Valencian Moriscos. During his stay in jail, Pérez became acquainted with an Aragonese nobleman named Thomas de

83. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 553/27, f. 276r. 84. ​It was not uncommon for Morisco boys to spend time at the bishop’s h­ ouse. As Martín de Salvatierra, bishop of Segorbe, recalled in his 1587 memorial to the king: “I have endeavored, with softness and love, to host in my ­house some Morisco men and boys in order to better teach them the Christian doctrine.” BNM, Ms. 5785, f. 182v. “Parescer de don Martin de Salvatierra obispo de Segorve del Consejo del Rey nuestro Señor dado por mandado de su Magestad acerca del estado en que estan los moriscos del Reyno de Valencia y de la reformación e instrucción que se tracta de darles.” Also published in Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión, 1:612–33. 85. ​IVDJ, envío 1, vol. 3, f. 116v. 86. ​Ibid., Lib. 965, f. 26r. The accusation is not entirely clear, although it might be related to licenses given to Morisco deputies at the court. As was discussed in chap. 4, during 1575 the Moriscos of Aragon had sent representatives from the aljamas to the court to negotiate an edict of grace. Perhaps this was related to ­these deputies.

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Sanctesteban, who at first was so taken by the Morisco that he would offer him food and spend his time conversing with him. As Sanctesteban recalled a few years l­ater in a conversation with the inquisitors of Zaragoza, Pérez was a jolly-­natured man; he used to go about playing a small guitar and singing.87 Yet Sanctesteban soon discovered that Pérez was nothing but a rogue and a liar. The scoundrel used to trick other Morisco inmates, making them believe that he could mediate on their behalf before the inquisitors, when in fact he could not. In gratitude for what they believed was Pérez’s intercession, the Moriscos used to give him money, silver spoons, and other gifts. Pérez thus presented himself to Old and New Christians alike as a mediator between the Moriscos and the authorities. From Sanctesteban’s testimony we also gather that Pérez made g­ reat efforts to convince every­one that he had gained the full trust of the Moriscos, especially the Morisco notables. This would be of extreme importance less than a year l­ater, when he began accusing t­ hese notables of wanting to stage a rebellion. To support his accusations, he claimed to have infiltrated the tight circle of conspiring Moriscos. Sanctesteban recounted an odd yet illuminating episode that confirms the degree to which Pérez was in fact in close contact with the Morisco elites and emphasizes his animosity t­ oward them. On the day Thomas de Sanctesteban was to be released from prison, Gil Pérez approached the man and asked for a f­avor. Pérez wanted the nobleman to visit a wealthy Morisco in the city of Huesca named Gerónimo Çafar, and hand him a bill, for which Sanctesteban would receive 40 escudos. Sanctesteban agreed to visit the Morisco, and he successfully delivered Pérez’s note. Yet upon hearing the nobleman’s request, Çafar was infuriated and declared that he owed nothing to the Morisco rogue, refusing to give Sanctesteban any money. Annoyed, Sanctesteban reproached the Morisco notable for not trusting him, to which Çafar responded by showing him another note written by Pérez; this one stated that a man would come asking for money, but Çafar should assure that man that he would personally visit Pérez to deliver the money himself. Çafar was so exasperated that he went to the cárcel de los manifestados and sternly rebuked Pérez. Angered, Pérez vowed to bring ruin upon the Morisco notable. Shortly a­ fter this incident, Pérez accused Çafar and other Morisco notables before the inquisitors of requesting the edict of grace in 1575 as an excuse to bail the Morisco merchant Juan Compañero. This bizarre incident draws attention to some of the complicated and often apparently nonsensical schemes—or even games—­devised by Pérez, something that becomes apparent in his testimonies to the inquisitors. More import­ant, the incident places

87. ​Ibid.



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Pérez in close contact with some of the most prominent members of the Morisco community of Aragon, some of whom, such as Çafar, w ­ ere involved in the Morisco conspiracies discussed in chapter 4. This hints at Pérez’s antagonism toward ­ this group, at whom he directed his most serious accusations. Last, Pérez’s retaliation highlights an impor­tant recourse used by many early modern Spaniards for settling disputes: an accusation before the Inquisition.88 Pérez vanishes again from the inquisitorial sources a­ fter 1579. We do not know, for example, the outcome of his trial for fabricating prophecies. Was he condemned? Did he manage to evade the sentence somehow? We do know that between 1579 and 1582 he had sporadic contact with the Inquisition, since he testified against other Moriscos (such as Çafar). The inquisitors considered him a reliable source of information on suspicious Morisco activities.89 But u­ ntil 1582 he was operating not as a true Morisco spy for the Inquisition but as an intermittent in­for­mant. It was during that year that he became an undercover Morisco agent, disclosing to the Inquisition what seemed to be a full-­ blown Morisco conspiracy.

Narrating a Rebellion Plot The previous chapters have argued that the Morisco rebellion in the Alpujarras was a turning point in the way Moriscos plotted rebellion conspiracies and in the ways the Christian authorities identified and investigated them. Granada provided impor­tant lessons for Moriscos and inquisitors alike. The Moriscos took Granada as a model, albeit with caution; they did not want to repeat the same m ­ istakes, precipitating an uprising without the arrival of Ottoman aid. The inquisitors, for their part, insisted a­ fter the Alpujarras rebellion that any seditious conspiracy should be treated as a m ­ atter of faith. This, of course, brought up uncomfortable questions of jurisdictional competencies: Who would be in charge of investigating and prosecuting cases of treason against the Crown? The issue had already come up at the height of the rebellion in Granada, as is evident from a letter sent by the inquisitors of Granada to the General Council of the Inquisition in February 1569.90 In it inquisitor Álava explained that they had received information about one of the main leaders of the revolt of the Alpujarras, Farax ibn Farax, who was being held in custody in the Alhambra by civil authorities (specifically by the captain general

88.  ​See Jaime Contreras Contreras, Sotos contra Riquelmes: Regidores, inquisidores y criptojudíos (Madrid: Anaya and Mario Muchnik, 1992). 89. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, f. 191r. 90. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 2603/253, f. 1r.

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of the Alhambra, the count of Tendilla, Don Luis Hurtado de Mendoza). The inquisitors wanted to certify Farax’s identity, and for that purpose they wanted a man (an Old Christian who had been a captive in the Alpujarras and had seen Farax in person) to be admitted to the Alhambra to identify the prisoner. To achieve this, they needed the permission of the count of Tendilla. But to the inquisitors’ dismay, the count had not only declined; he also told them “not to meddle in that affair.” The inquisitors thus complained to the General Council that “this was not the time to deal with [jurisdictional] competencies or such ­things, but rather to find ­those responsible for the uprising.” They asked it to send an order to the count of Tendilla quickly, “­because e­ very day we receive information like this, and ­because if they do not level with us, we could miss good outcomes.”91 For the inquisitors of Valencia, however, the lessons of Granada ­were not simply a ­matter of jurisdictional authority; the rebellion in the Alpujarras had more immediate resonance for the conspiracy being investigated in the 1580s. For this reason one inquisitor of Valencia suggested that “it would be impor­tant to review the general and par­tic­u­lar cases that ­were prosecuted during the rebellion in Granada, to see if there ­ was concert ­between the Moriscos of that kingdom and ­these [Moriscos of Valencia].”92 The increasing encroachment of inquisitorial authority over m ­ atters pertaining to acts of treason against the monarchy might help explain why prophecy figured so prominently in the conspiracies investigated by the Holy Office. A letter written by the abbot of the town of Valldigna to the inquisitors of Valencia illustrates the procedure of the civil authorities in cases where ­there was suspicion of seditious activities: the captains, justicias (justices), and other officials who guarded the coasts would send all documents seized in cases pertaining to rebellion conspiracies to the civil authorities, remitting to the Holy Office only t­hose that w ­ ere of religious nature.93 In the two instances when civil authorities investigated what ­were believed to be rebellion plots during the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury, one in Valencia during 1570 and the other in Seville in 1580,94 ­there is no evidence of religious discourse: this is quite probably ­ not because ­ those ­ conspiracies lacked the religious (and

91. ​Ibid. 92. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, f. 58r. 93. ​Ibid.; Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión, 1:279. 94. ​On the rebellion in Valencia, see Catalá Sanz and Urzainqui Sánchez, La conjura morisca de 1570. On the rebellion in Seville, see Michel Boeglin, “Between Rumor and Re­sis­tance: The Andalucían Morisco ‘Uprising’ of 1580,” in The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, ed. Kevin Ingram (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 211–42; Bernard Vincent, “Le rumeurs de Séville,” in Vivir el Siglo de Oro: Poder, cultura e historia en la época moderna: Estudios en homenaje al profesor Ángel Rodríguez Sánchez (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2003), 165–77.



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maybe prophetic) ele­ment so characteristic of Morisco politics, but rather b­ ecause the documentation related to t­ hose ele­ments would have been sent to the Inquisition (and it, like much inquisitorial documentation, might have been lost). The Inquisition thus learned to identify t­ hose aspects of Morisco rebellion plots that would guarantee their authority over the ­matter. My point h­ ere is that it is likely that the inquisitors exploited the religious ele­ment—­ that is, the presence of prophecies—to secure their involvement in the investigation of conspiracies. Gil Pérez’s fabricated plot repeated many of the ele­ments that the Christian authorities, and in par­tic­ul­ar the Inquisition, had learned to identify in a Morisco rebellion scheme a­ fter having dealt with Morisco conspiracies for more than a de­cade. While Pérez’s testimonies ­were in­ven­ted, the structure of a Morisco conspiracy, as identifiable to his contemporaries, is pre­sent in his declarations before the inquisitors. The sections that follow analyze Pérez’s testimonies from two perspectives. First, I provide a description and analy­sis of Pérez’s testimonies themselves, which are guided by the ele­ments that defined a Morisco plot for both Moriscos and authorities. Pérez’s description offers an accurate picture of what a typical Morisco conspiracy looked like, and we can adopt it as a template to identify other late sixteenth-­century Morisco plots. The picture that emerges highlights the centrality of prophecy to any “credible” conspiracy of the time, w ­ hether in­ven­ted or not. Second, I follow with a discussion of some the prob­lems and limitations involved in the characterization of Pérez’s testimonies as “fabrications.” On May 6, 1581, the inquisitor general, Gaspar de Quiroga, wrote to the inquisitors of Valencia alerting them about the news that the General Council of the Inquisition had received about certain “Turks” who had arrived from Constantinople with letters for the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon. The inquisitors w ­ ere advised to be on the lookout and to graciously receive anyone who wanted to offer information.95 By July, the inquisitor general had received more concerning news: Joan Baptista Tassis, Spanish ambassador to France, had written to King Philip II on May 13, informing him about some sensitive information that had reached him concerning a Portuguese plot to send arms to the Moriscos of Valencia. The ambassador clarified that he warned the king not ­because the information was necessarily true but ­because it was common news in France.96 At Philip II’s request, the inquisitor general

95. ​AHN. Inq. Leg. 553/27, pt. 2, f. 3r, inquisitorial dossier against Gil Pérez. 96. ​Ibid., f. 5r.

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ordered the inquisitors of Valencia and Zaragoza “with all the diligence pos­ sible ­ to find out the truth, with such dissimulation and secrecy that by no means it should be known that we ordered it.”97 Once again, on December 20, 1581, the inquisitor general insisted that the inquisitors “uncover and find out with certainty, employing the necessary secrecy, skill, and diligence, if some Moriscos, Lutherans, or other persons of this kingdom have been in concert about any uprising.”98 By January  1582 the inquisitors of Valencia had found their man; on January 9 they wrote to the General Council informing them that a New Christian shoemaker from Albarracín named Gil Pérez, “who has testified on some occasions in this Inquisition and his testimonies have resulted in truth,” had made some declarations concerning the uprising.99 It is not clear ­whether the inquisitors summoned Pérez for questioning (given his prior contacts with them) or w ­ hether he spontaneously and voluntarily appeared in the Holy Office to offer his testimony. What we do know is that on January 8, 1582, Pérez began to testify that the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragón w ­ ere planning to stage an uprising. What Pérez offered during the following months is arguably the most complete surviving description of the anatomy of a “classic” Morisco conspiracy to rebel. The fact that he most likely in­ven­ted all the particulars should not necessarily lead us to disregard Pérez’s fabrication as a fraud and to hold that no conspiracies existed.100 Many details that Pérez offered voluntarily to the inquisitors ­were figments of his imagination; however, the richness of his detail and his descriptions of the organizational ­ elements ­ that constituted Morisco rebellion conspiracies, as we have seen throughout this book, w ­ ere not. Pérez or­ga­nized many ele­ments and made the connections between them clear, if at the expense of ­those who suffered unjust imprisonment as a result of his false accusations. In the end, though, what was most damaging for the ­people whom Pérez accused ­were not the testimonies themselves but that they ­were offered to an Inquisition that was all too ­eager to decapitate the Morisco community, so much so that it would accept testimonies even when in doubt of the veracity of the accusations. It is impor­tant that Pérez’s descriptions concur with what is known about other Morisco rebellions and conspiracies (see

97. ​Ibid., f. 4r. 98. ​Ibid., f. 8r. 99. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, f. 191r. 100. ​Some scholars argue that this documentation should not be taken at face value or used at all to illuminate Morisco history (e.g., Márquez Villanueva’s arguments discussed in chap. 4; Barceló and Labarta’s annoyance, in Archivos moriscos, with historians who insist on studying Morisco conspiracies). According to ­these scholars, not only must this case be declared false; the fact that it is false calls into question the idea that the Moriscos ever conspired in a significant manner against the monarchy.



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chapters 3 and 4), and that he drew a much more complete and vivid image than we have of t­ hose other plots. So even though Pérez’s plot was a fabrication, it was not one of the inquisitorial mind. It was the fabrication of a Morisco mind—and ­ what we have here, ­ reflected through Inquisitorial records, ­ is Pérez’s creation. To create it, he resorted to his insider knowledge as a Morisco, not to the Inquisition’s ste­reo­types. A ­ fter all, not only was he an insider who knew the Morisco notables he was accusing; he also had crucial knowledge that Alonso Cornejo had provided him with (see below). Cornejo had been at the center of the conspiracies that had taken place just a few years ­earlier, in the 1570s. Thus, when Pérez described a secret gathering of wealthy conspirators, it was b­ ecause he knew what they looked like (he had prob­ably been invited to such a meeting or had been informed about them). When he talked about the sermons of the alfaquís, he, as a Morisco, knew what was being said during t­hose homilies, since he had likely listened to many. When he fabricated his own prophecies, he did so by resorting to the same narratives as had ­those who interpreted and adapted prophetic texts, using the same language, the same ele­ments, and the same topoi. In this sense t­here is no doubt that Pérez’s prophecies w ­ ere truly a Morisco production. The fact that Pérez did not act out of fear (on the contrary, he seemed to be challenging the power of the Inquisition almost as much as he was harming the authority of the Morisco notables) should deter us from thinking that his was the forced testimony of a “victim” of the Inquisition. He was not being controlled by the inquisitorial pro­cess; on the contrary, he seemed to master it to his advantage. What we are presented with is a f­ ree and utterly in­de­pen­dent Morisco voice: as f­ree and in­de­pen­dent as was pos­si­ble at the time. Pérez created his narrative for an inquisitorial, not a Morisco, audience. One of the puzzling aspects of this story, however, is that from early on ( June 1582), the inquisitors expressed serious doubts about the veracity of the information and documents produced by Pérez. They nonetheless continued to use the accusations to question and then jail the most prominent members of Valencian Morisco society. The first t­ hing that Pérez declared to the inquisitors of Valencia was that one September eve­ning in 1581 he had ­stopped in Calanda, Aragon, on his way from Zaragoza, to see a Morisco notable named Adam Monferrix. T ­ here he saw eight or nine p­ eople reading a prognostication written in the Aragonese language, which stated that “in the year [1583] all prophecies would end, and all the Moriscos of Aragon would rise, aided by the Muslims (Moros) and French Protestants (luteranos).”101 They then discussed the possibility of engaging in

101. ​BHUV, var. 28/3, f. 48r.

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armed rebellion and concluded that it could be done once they had secured Ottoman aid. From his very first testimony, Pérez made prophecy a central ele­ment to the anatomy of his conspiracy. In fact, of the twelve testimonies that Pérez offered to the inquisitors of Valencia and Zaragoza during 1582, he mentioned prophecies on eight occasions.102 The second essential ele­ment in any rebellion plot was fluid communication with North Africa, through the sending and receiving of letters. Pérez told the inquisitors about a letter that the Aragonese Moriscos had received from a Morisco notary from Villafeliche named Joan Chico, who was in France at the time. According to Pérez, Chico informed his coreligionists that the French Béarnese had agreed to send men to fight in the uprising of the Valencian and Aragonese Moriscos. The Aragonese quickly dispatched the letter to the Valencian notables Lorenzo Benazar, Rubayte, Cherrin, and Miguel del Ala (Lala), heads of the Morisco re­sis­tance in Valencia. Inserting himself at the epicenter of the plot, Pérez told the inquisitors that a meeting had been scheduled for mid-­January in Foz, Aragon, to discuss preparations for the uprising and that he had been summoned to attend. Another key aspect of a Morisco conspiracy, again duly exploited by Pérez in his fabrication, was the leading role of the notables. The inquisitors knew that in the past Morisco notables had or­ga­nized rebellion plots, and while Pérez had disclosed their organ­ization in Valencia, they wanted to know who was b­ ehind the conspiracy in Aragon. Pérez stated that that the Inquisition had already imprisoned some of them, and he implicated the three sons of Gerónimo Çafar, the Morisco notable from Huesca whom Pérez had vowed to destroy just a few years e­ arlier. He also pointed to other Morisco notables from Zaragoza and other Aragonese towns (Morés, Gotor, Burbaguena, and Daroca). He declared that the heads of the plot in Aragon w ­ ere Juan de Albariel and Miguel Xarquino, who had been negotiating a new edict of grace at the court of the king. Pérez commented that since the Moriscos had not been able to negotiate the terms that they wanted, “they are determined to take this path [armed re­sis­tance]; since the Inquisition burns them and sends them to the galleys, they want to die defending their law, in order to protect themselves.”103 H ­ ere Pérez again resorted to his native knowledge of Moriscos’ plotting practice and introduced to his testimony another impor­tant ele­ ment of Morisco politi ­ cal ­ culture: martyrdom. According to Pérez, the Moriscos had exhausted all their resources. Now, as a last mea­sure, they ­were

102. ​Ibid., BL, Egerton Ms. 1511, ff. 9r–30v. 103. ​BHUV, var. 28/3, f. 49v.



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willing to die as martyrs defending Islam. The inquisitors of Valencia took note and informed their colleagues in Zaragoza. A year l­ater, in June 1583, all the Moriscos accused by Pérez appeared in the auto de fe celebrated in the marketplace of Zaragoza.104 Unfortunately, all their dossiers have been lost, so we cannot know their testimonies, which would have undoubtedly cast much light on the alleged conspiracy. Throughout their interrogation, the inquisitors addressed ­every single point that the inquisitor general had entrusted them to investigate. They asked Pérez w ­ hether the Moriscos had arms, to which he responded affirmatively, and ­whether they had received news about the coming of Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha’s armada to North Africa, ­whether they rejoiced over it, and ­whether ­there was any communication between the Moriscos and the former governor of Algiers. Pérez responded that the Moriscos displayed joy whenever the armada was in Algiers and that three Moriscos of Aragon had gone to Algiers with letters; two had stayed ­there, and one had returned with some corsairs bearing letters, but he did not know exactly what the “embassy” was for. As was to be expected of a true Morisco conspiracy, the Granadan Moriscos played an impor­tant and active role, often as agents who could move easily from one point to the other. Moreover, the Granadan Moriscos had good connections in the widespread Granadan diaspora (all over the Peninsula, as well as in North Africa, Anatolia, France, and elsewhere). A ­ fter their defeat and humiliation, they could be expected to be quite militant in the Morisco cause. Pérez mentioned the existence of one Morisco named Çerron from Granada who was living in Villafeliche and who usually accompanied Moriscos to France. The man had gone to Constantinople and had recently returned from Mecca, and he regularly brought letters from France, Algiers, and Constantinople for the Moriscos of the Crown of Aragon. Pérez offered his help in arresting the man if the inquisitors ordered it. The inquisitors told their in­ for m ­ ant that if he ever had any information about the uprising, he should share it with the Holy Office, for which he would be generously rewarded.105 From then on, Pérez became a paid agent of the Inquisition. Two months ­after his first appearance before the tribunal of Valencia, Pérez went to Aragon, where he testified before the inquisitors in the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza. T ­ here he repeated some of his original statements and declared new ­things. Pérez stated that among the Morisco notables who had gone to Madrid to negotiate the edict of grace w ­ ere Lorenzo Benazar of Segorbe,

104. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 989, ff. 33r–41r. 105. ​BHUV, var. 28/3, f. 50r.

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a Granadan Morisco merchant living in the Castilian town of Pastrana, and the Aragonese leaders Juan de Albariel and Miguel Xarquino. As Pérez had stated in Valencia, frustrated by the outcome of the conditions of their petition, the Moriscos had agreed to take up arms and defend their religion, and to or­ga­nize this they settled on a meeting that would take place in the Aragonese town of Foz-­Calanda, to which Pérez had been summoned. Pérez and a Morisco named Adrian de Gali went to Segorbe to discuss the details of the upcoming meeting with the leader Lorenzo Benazar. The in­for­mant told the inquisitors that pre­sent at the gathering w ­ ere also several Morisco notables, as well as Çerron, the Granadan Morisco courier. ­There, Çerron delivered two letters that, according to Pérez, he [Çerron] had carried hidden in the ­soles of his shoes, one in Arabic and two in Castilian. In the letters, which ­were remitted from Algiers, the Morisco notables Andrés and Miguel Izquierdo of Segorbe, and Joan Chico of Villafeliche, complained that the Moriscos had not sent the 100,000 gold ducats they had promised to cover the costs of the armada. Pérez stated that the letter also related many prophecies of Muḥammad that circulated in North Africa, according to which they w ­ ere certain that if every­thing went as planned, Muslims would be lords of Spain.106 The Morisco leaders in Algiers also chided their Peninsular brethren for not following through with their promise of money and ­horses to the prince of Béarn. Pérez also told the inquisitors that the Moriscos pre­sent at the gathering had met a few nights ­later to respond to the letters. Çerron ­later took the letters to the Valencian town of Alcudia de Veo, and t­ here he was supposed to deliver them in Aragon, but was arrested, as we w ­ ill soon see, with the help of the Morisco in­for­mant. Pérez and Alonso Cornejo followed Çerron to Alcudia de Veo, and t­here Pérez attended another secret meeting in which an alfaquí was called to lead prayer and deliver a sermon.107 As already described, the alfaquís ­were impor­tant actors and po­liti­cal representatives of the Morisco community, key ele­ments in the difficult task of maintaining the group’s morale. Pérez exploited that ele­ment in this testimony, describing what could well have been the typical role of an alfaquí in a Morisco conspiracy (it certainly mirrors what we already knew about the issue). According to his testimony, the alfaquí took out a prophecy that was written in Arabic that stated, among other t­hings, that it was necessary for them to revolt that year, b­ ecause first they would all be lost and then they would find remedy. As part of his hortatory sermon, the alfaquí recounted a story about a conversation between

106. ​Ibid., f. 56v. 107. ​Ibid., f. 57v.



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Muḥammad and the angel Gabriel. He said that while they ­were “walking by a place where t­ here w ­ ere some precious stones, they began to take some of them, and Muḥammad said that he who took some stones would regret it, and he who did not take any would also regret it.” The Prophet was asked the reason ­behind his statement, to which he responded that “­those who took only some would regret not having taken more, and t­ hose who had taken none would regret not having taken any.” According to Pérez, the alfaquí interpreted this parable, asking his audience to visualize how their situation could be comparable to what he had just related. He stated that t­ hose who took stones w ­ ere like t­hose who w ­ ere determined to rebel, and t­hose who did not take stones were ­ like the ones who decided ­ not to, “because ­ he who rebelled would regret not having done so sooner, and he who did not rebel would regret not having done so at all.”108 Seconding the alfaquí’s words, Adrian de Gali said, “It is my belief that u­ ntil now we have erred in wasting so many words; rather, we should put them into practice, for our aldin (religion, al-­dīn) o­ rders us to do so, b­ ecause ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib did not stand looking around when he defeated the unbelievers.”109 The alfaquí’s sermon had served its purpose; before the gathering had concluded, they all resolved to take up arms. The exact details of the gathering may be in­ven­ted, and the Moriscos’ eagerness to rebel might have been exaggerated to achieve Pérez’s intention (which was to alarm the authorities about the immediacy of a revolt). But the tone and color of Pérez’s description undoubtedly come from his knowledge of Morisco po­liti­cal and religious culture. The idea that their religion commanded them to fight the infidel is echoed in another testimony offered by Pérez, one allegedly pronounced by another Morisco. In a meeting similar to the one described above, a Valencian Morisco leader named Rubayte told his coreligionists that in recent years the Scriptures ­were “tightening” or coming true (que se iban apretando las scripturas); prophecies w ­ ere coming to an end, and that “seeing that the law called each one to his own salvation, and given the bad deed that had been done against Izquierdo [who had been martyred] and ­others, our strength has been doubled, as has our intention [to rebel].”110 Throughout his depositions Pérez painted a vivid picture of ­those conspiratorial meetings. In his accounts he highlighted the centrality of the alfaquís in the preparatory gatherings. In the two months that Pérez spent in the Kingdom of Aragon investigating what he told the inquisitors w ­ ere the Moriscos’ 108. ​Ibid., f. 99r. 109. ​Ibid., f. 94r. 110. ​Ibid., f. 98v.

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dealings with the French and the Béarnese Huguenots, he claimed to have been pre­sent at several gatherings that w ­ ere also attended by Aragonese Morisco notables and headed by t­ hese religious leaders, gatherings like the one described above. He especially recalled one of ­those lively meetings presided by an alfaquí named Gallego. The Morisco in­for­mant described Gallego as “a ­great alfaquí, who made herçes (talismans, ḥirz) that made p­ eople invisible if they w ­ ere to be arrested by the Inquisition.”111 The alfaquí also recited prayers for them and read their ­futures by casting four beans, “two female and two male,” a grain of salt, and charcoal; he spoke to them in Arabic; and forecast auspicious and inauspicious outcomes to the questions they posed. Pérez described how the alfaquí used to read ­people’s ­f utures by casting seven grains of wheat or barley, using salt and charcoal. ­After divining the ­future of some of the thirty attendees who had gathered that eve­ning in Villafeliche, Gallego then proceeded to pray and deliver his sermon. After ­ concluding the exhortatory preaching, a man named Marcaz was brought to dance and celebrate, “­because the Turk had communicated with the king of France and the prince of Béarn, and b­ ecause their prophecies augured sure victory to them.”112 Of course, no conspiracy could be effective without solid financial support. Pérez explained to the inquisitors that the Moriscos w ­ ere collecting money through all the aljamas to cover part of the costs of the Ottoman armada and the Béarnese venture. He described how the Moriscos “sold their pearls,” contributed all they could, and used some of money collected as alms for the poor. Notables like Gaspar Izquierdo allegedly left some of their patrimony to the cause in his w ­ ill, and w ­ idows like that of the martyr Jaime Izquierdo donated money to avenge her husband’s death. According to the Morisco in­ for­mant, the money that was destined for the prince of Béarn would be delivered during the town fair of Sariñena, in Aragon. For this occasion, Pérez claimed that the prince of Béarn, dressed as a merchant and accompanied by some Béarnese knights, would come to scout the land and meet the Morisco notable Joan Chico, who was their main contact with the French.113 Pérez assured the inquisitors of Zaragoza and the dean of Segorbe that he would personally go to Sariñena to attempt to intercept the transaction in order to help the inquisitors obtain the bounty. The inquisitors, for their part, ­were very much interested in getting hold of that money. Again, even if the exact details 111. ​Ibid., f. 79r. For several examples of instructions on how to construct herçes, as well as samples of talismans from Valencia during the same period, see Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 277; for an edition of a magic and talismanic manual in Aljamiado, see Labarta, Libro de dichos maravillosos. 112. ​Ibid. 113. ​BHUV, var. 28/3, f. 61r.



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are false, this description gives us an idea of how the funds to or­ga­nize a true rebellion could have been gathered. And again, it grants the testimony some credibility: neither the Béarnese nor the Ottomans would be willing, in Pérez’s fictitious plot, to help the Moriscos without remuneration. Last, the international connections across Eu­rope and the Mediterranean and the implications of the Morisco plan ­were ingrained in Pérez’s fabrication. When asked by the inquisitors of Zaragoza to disclose the plan of the Moriscos of Aragon, Pérez said, “Don António of Portugal and the prince of Orange have made an agreement with the Moriscos in Morocco.” Pérez also stated that it had been arranged by some Portuguese merchants and Granadan Moriscos, and that the prince of Béarn had met with the king of France “and asked him to fulfill his word, which he offered when he [the prince of Béarn] married his [the king of France’s] ­sister [Margaret of Valois], to give him men in order to take Navarre.” He also assured the inquisitors that the king of France had coordinated with the Moriscos of Aragon so that they would participate in this campaign, and that they had vowed to mutually support each other. Finally, ­ Pérez stated that for the Valencian campaign they awaited the Ottoman armada, which would come from Algiers.114 Like many Morisco contemporaries, Pérez was well acquainted with the popu­lar news that quickly spread throughout Eu­rope concerning the activities of the claimant to the Portuguese throne, Don António, prior of Crato. News about Don António’s support at the French court seems to be conflated with the rumors about Murād III’s proposal to form a multiple alliance with the king of France and the queen of E ­ ngland to support the prince of Orange in Flanders.115 Indeed, Portugal and Flanders w ­ ere still two of the king of Spain’s biggest worries. In his narrative of the rebellion plot, Pérez placed the Moriscos at the center of international opposition to Philip II, on par with power­f ul enemies of Spain (e.g., France, ­England, the Netherlands, Morocco, the Ottomans, the loyalist Portuguese). Pérez’s account also brings to mind the image that the political sector of the Moriscos previously studied in this book tended to have of themselves: victimized but well connected, central actors in the po­liti­cal and religious history of the world rather than a marginal minority.

A Forgery Uncovered Over the course of his depositions before the inquisitors of Valencia and Aragon, Gil Pérez constructed his story of a Morisco rebellion plot following a 114. ​Ibid., f. 65v. 115. ​Rodríguez Salgado, Felipe II, 172.

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preexisting narrative of Morisco conspiracy. Yet he was aware that simply accusing the usual suspects would not convince his audience; he had to support and corroborate his story with oral and written testimonies. Alonso Cornejo and a host of other witnesses would stand by Pérez’s story: many of them confessed to having been present ­ at the Morisco gatherings, to have seen the Moriscos pledge money for the cause, and to have read the letters from the Ottomans. W ­ hether voluntarily or through coercion, all t­ hese witnesses participated in the construction of a narrative that might seem plausible in the ears of the inquisitors. Exactly why they participated in Perez’s scheme is difficult to assess from the documentation, although the fact that they did suggests that t­here w ­ ere deep fissures within Morisco society that Pérez was exploiting to his advantage. Pérez bribed Moriscos who might have been at the margins of the New Christian society, many of whom are described as thieves and drunkards,116 but he also sought out witnesses whose testimonies would seem trustworthy to the inquisitors. For example, attempting to enlist a Morisco named Lorenzo Polo, who had testified many times to the Inquisition against his Morisco neighbors, Pérez promised that he had some very impor­tant business that he thought Polo would be interested in, and assured him that the king would do them g­ reat f­ avors. He explained that every­thing would be done so meticulously that even if every­thing ­were his invention, no one would ever be able to prove it. He told Polo that he would demonstrate how the Moriscos of Valencia had held three or four meetings that year, and that the meetings had taken place b­ ecause they wanted to rebel against the king. He also explained that he would prove this with feigned letters.117 And so, to further bolster his accusations, Pérez furnished letters purportedly sent by Morisco notables living in North Africa, and forged responses to them from the Moriscos of Valencia and Aragon. While the inquisitors took Pérez’s claims very seriously—­they ­were being pressured by the inquisitor general to uncover what was believed to be an imminent Morisco uprising—­just a few months a­ fter the Morisco in­for­mant had begun testifying, the inquisitors began to express doubts about his character and the veracity of his claims. The manner in which the letters ­were produced, and the way they reached the inquisitors’ hands, reveals Pérez’s intricate maneuverings. One of the ­things that tipped off the inquisitors about Pérez and Cornejo’s fraud was the testimony offered on June 22, 1582, by a man named Jaime Arcis, who voluntarily appeared before the inquisitors of Valencia and declared that during the previous September, Pérez had shown up in the town of Murbiedro (Sagunto) 116. ​BHUV, var. 29/2. 117. ​Ibid., ff. 39r–45r.



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seeking a scribe. That eve­ning, ­after much convincing, Arcis went to see Pérez, and together they went to a secret alcove, where he wrote two copies of a letter in Castilian that Pérez dictated to him. Following l­egal prescription, Arcis began by drawing a cross at the top of the page. He recalled that Pérez quickly smeared the cross with his fin­ger and asked him to proceed. When he was finished, he noticed that the letter had not been dated or signed. Arcis assured the inquisitors that although he could not recall the exact wording of the letter, he remembered that it mentioned that the Moriscos had pledged several thousand ducats, and also that some churches would be sent on fire on Holy Thursday.118 A ­ fter writing the letters, Pérez made him swear never to mention what had happened in that room. When producing his letters, Pérez included details that corroborated beyond a doubt the testimonies that he had offered the inquisitors. Pérez made sure that the inquisitors would get a hold of the letters, which would back up his story. One of them, addressed to the aljamas of Aragon, stated that a­ fter pleading with the Ottomans and the French to come to their aid, the Valencian and Aragonese Moriscos had not kept their word; they had not sent 100,000 gold escudos to cover the costs of the armada. The letter complained that if Lorenzo Benazar and the o­ thers had kept the promise they made in Madrid to burn all the tribunals of the Inquisition to avenge the death of Jaime Izquierdo, Aragon and Valencia would already be in Ottoman hands. The letter admonished the Moriscos to take up arms on Good Friday, but first they w ­ ere encouraged to burn down as many churches as pos­si­ble and to set fire to the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza. In ­these new insurrection plans they would be assisted by the North Africans, the French, the Béarnese, and even the Portuguese, who would communicate with the Granadan Moriscos living in Pastrana. The forged letter also contained a most original prophecy that illustrates some in­ter­est­ing aspects of the inventiveness of Pérez and the ways in which he appropriated and reformulated dif­fer­ent Iberian prophetic traditions with his potential audiences in mind. The letter closed with a prognostication made by the Prophet Muḥammad that stated that when the letters P and A ­were joined (the texts specifies that P stands for “Portugal” and A for “Aragon”), they would all “live u­ nder one lord and one shepherd.”119 This prophetic account is outside the Islamic apocalyptic corpus; t­ here is no such prophecy in e­ ither Islamic apocalyptic material or in Aljamiado prophetic writings and other testimonies that contain Morisco apocalyptic narratives. It is an in­ven­ted account 118. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 553/27, ff. 81r–89v. 119. ​Ibid., f. 271r.

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directed ­toward a Christian audience; in this case, it was specifically produced to appeal to inquisitorial sensibilities. Pérez adapted a well-­known Morisco (and Mediterranean) apocalyptic narrative, that of the shepherd who would unite humanity u­ nder one law, and invoked the recent u­ nion of the Crowns of Portugal and the rest of the Iberian kingdoms, giving it a local flavor by specifying the Kingdom of Aragon, perhaps in an attempt to appeal to his Valencian public. He chose as a prophetic sign the u­ nion of the Crowns, an event that would surely elicit intense emotions among his listeners. In more than one instance, the shock of the u­ nion of Portugal and the Kingdom of Aragon was elaborated in the form of prophecies. This event, which was the result of the defeat and death of the Portuguese monarch Dom Sebastián at Alcazarquivir (Wādī al-­Makhāzin), created such commotion in Portugal that many resorted to the belief that Dom Sebastián was hidden (encoberto) and would return at the End Times to restore the Portuguese Empire.120 Similarly, Pérez had responded to the event by transforming it into the subject ­matter of a prophecy. The presence of the ­union of the Crowns in Pérez’s prophecy also sheds light on the potential reaction of alarm experienced by the New Christian community in Spain. As with most prophetic discourse, in his reformulation of the prognostication Pérez deliberately left the element ­ of the shepherd open to interpretation. The union ­ could signal that Christians, Muslims, and Jews would all live u­ nder “one [Christian] lord and one shepherd,” or it could be taken to mean that the event was sign that the final apocalyptic b­ attle would take place, and that a Muslim ruler would become the universal emperor of the End Times. The second set of letters, which w ­ ere purportedly Morisco responses to letters sent from Algiers, w ­ ere in fact written by Alonso Cornejo in Arabic.121 In the fabricated responses the Moriscos acknowledged having received the letter from Çerron, the courier, and made reference to all the meetings they had held to read the missives and discuss the plans, naming the p­ eople who were ­ present ­ at each gathering. While they rejected the idea of burning 120. ​The lit­er­at­ ure on Sebastianism is vast. For a recent treatment, see Luís Filipe Silvério Lima, O império dos sonhos: narrativas proféticas, sebastianismo, e mesianismo brigantine (São Paolo: Alameda, 2010); Early Modern Messianism and Millenarianism in Iberian Ameri­ca, ­ Spain and Portugal, eds., Ana Paula Torres Megiani and Luís Filipe Silvério Lima (Leiden: Brill, 2016). See also García-­Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, 269–74. 121. ​Copies of the Arabic letters w ­ ere made by the Jesuit priest Jerónimo de Mur and appended to Alonso Cornejo’s inquisitorial dossier (BHUV, var. 29/2, ff. 126r–130v). A translation of the Arabic letters, made by Mur, as well as copies of the Castilian letters, was included in Pérez’s trial rec­ord (AHN Inq. Leg. 553/27, ff. 366r–374r). An additional copy is found in the book of letters from the Valencian inquisitors to the Supreme Council (AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, ff. 202r–206r). The two Arabic letters have been translated into Spanish by Barceló and Labarta, Archivos moriscos, 273–75.



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churches, they agreed to collect the necessary funds and to take the money to Sariñena in Aragon, where it would be given to the French envoys. They also confirmed that the Moriscos of Aragon and Valencia ­were determined to take up arms, provided that they received the much needed aid. The letter also mentioned the se­lection of Pérez as the messenger of the Valencian Moriscos in Aragon. Fi­nally, to give verisimilitude to the letter, news was relayed to one of the receivers, Andrés Izquierdo, about the passing of his aunt Jayrūna. Pérez knew that to give credence to his account, he had to produce written evidence that would support his claims. Pérez’s signature, which is preserved in many of his testimonies to the inquisitors, evidences the fact that he could barely write in Castilian. While Cornejo satisfied their need for an Arabic scribe, he could not write in Castilian ­either; evidence for this includes his signed testimonies in which he writes his name in Aljamiado. For this reason they had to hire somebody who could write letters in Castilian. As the letter explained, it was written in Castilian rather than Arabic so that his coreligionists in Aragon, who had lost their use of the Arabic language, could understand them. The manner in which the inquisitors obtained the letters shows the ­g reat lengths to which Pérez went to deceive his audience. His confidence in the effect that the letters could produce is testimony of the value placed on the written word, perhaps especially by the Moriscos. During his first deposition, Pérez mentioned the existence of a Granadan Morisco who served as messenger between the Peninsular Moriscos and their brethren in North Africa—­the abovementioned Çerron. Pérez assured the inquisitors that he went by many other names, and that his real name was Domingo Muzquin. According to Pérez, the man was a servant to Joan Chico, and for that reason he had been entrusted with bringing the missives to the Aragonese and Valencian Moriscos. Pérez had managed to get a warrant from the inquisitors of Valencia to arrest this alleged accomplice. For this he contacted the dean of Segorbe and the officials in the town of Caudiel and told them to be on the lookout for Çerron. He told the inquisitors that he and Cornejo would be accompanying the man on his journey to Aragon, where he was supposed to deliver the rest of the letters to the Morisco notables. As can be reconstructed from the documentation, this was the moment when Cornejo began to collaborate with Pérez.122 Thus, Pérez insisted, the authorities could arrest the man, seizing the letters that he was carrying. ­ Being a 122. ​Pérez and Cornejo knew each other before they started collaborating in the scheme. Cornejo confessed to the inquisitors that he had met Pérez a few years prior, when they w ­ ere both imprisoned in the jail of Segorbe between 1579 and 1580. Pérez was likely sent to jail a­ fter spending time in the cárcel de los manifestados, convicted of forging licenses. Cornejo’s crime is unknown. Cornejo saw Pérez a few years l­ater in Valencia, right around the time Pérez began to offer testimo-

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shoemaker, Pérez easily and skillfully hid some of the letters he had just forged in the s­ oles of a pair of shoes, and gave them to Çerron to wear. The rest he hid inside a jug that the man was carry­ing. On their trip to Aragon, Pérez told the man that they would change routes, and upon arriving to Caudiel, Çerron was immediately arrested and his possessions seized. The dean of Segorbe had thus found the much-­sought-­after letters from Algiers, and the Valencian response. Pérez had managed to deceive the authorities, or so he thought. As has already been discussed, the appearance of Arcis (the scribe) aroused the suspicions of the inquisitors only a few months ­after the impor­tant discovery of the letters with Çerron’s arrest. Fi­nally, as has already been mentioned, to back up his accusations against the Moriscos, Pérez suborned, intimidated, and coerced witnesses into giving false testimonies before the Inquisition. Pérez and Cornejo intimidated witnesses by threatening to accuse them before the Holy Office for their Islamic practices if they did not make statements confirming their story. Pérez also intimidated one witness by telling him that the Moriscos w ­ ere planning to take up arms, and when they did, they would suffer the same fate as the Moriscos of Granada, who had been expelled from their land. Pérez assured the man that this would be the only way to “save his ­house­hold,” since “­those who confessed about the plot would not be driven out of their h­ ouses.”123 Both men also promised witnesses money and gifts if they testified on their behalf.124 Their machinations went so far as to getting a man drunk before making his declarations to the inquisitors. While convincing him and rehearsing his testimony, the two rogues gave the man enough wine so that he was intoxicated by the time they took him to testify before the inquisitors. T ­ here he confessed to having been pre­sent at the gatherings of the Moriscos, to having seen the letters and heard them read. They w ­ ere sure that the man would not dare change his story when he realized the next day what he had done.125 What Pérez and Cornejo did not count on was that one of ­those witnesses, a Morisco from Teruel—­the abovementioned Lorenzo Polo—­would betray them, uncovering their plot and confirming the inquisitors’ suspicions.126 It is not clear exactly when, but sometime in 1582, Polo, who had initially testified nies to the Inquisition. This is most likely how Cornejo got involved in Pérez’s scheme. BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 166r. 123. ​Ibid., var. 29/2, f. 22v. Note Pérez’s references to the events in Granada. This seems to confirm that he was thinking of the episode of Granada when constructing his story before the inquisitors. 124. ​Ibid. 125. ​Ibid., Inq. Leg. 553/27, f. 348r. 126. ​Ibid., var. 29/2, f. 169v.



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before the inquisitors that the Moriscos had pledged money and that he had heard that they wanted to take up arms, recanted his testimony and confessed that it was all lies that Pérez and Cornejo coerced him into telling.

A Strategic Fabrication When it was apparent to Gil Pérez and Alonso Cornejo that their deceit had been uncovered, the two men cast lots to find out what their fate would be. Seeing that their f­ uture was inauspicious, they determined to leave the Kingdom of Valencia, taking Pérez’s wife, Mari Rosa, with them, disguised as a man. They would first head t­oward Castile, then down to Seville, and from ­there into Portugal. From Portugal they would go to Fez, where they could live anonymously. According to a witness who testified in March 1584, Pérez had stated that their intention was to walk from Fez to Mecca: So that t­ here we can obtain p­ ardon for the g­ reat sin that we have committed, falsely accusing our blood, and t­here in the “house of Mecca” the alfaquís w ­ ill take pity on us, b­ ecause t­ hose of us who go from this land are received with ­g reat piety. ­There they ­will lead us into the ­house and w ­ ill offer us penitence in whichever way we deserve, and they w ­ ill command us to fast for a month, or two, or three, [and during] Ramadan, and this ­will be our penance, and ­after we leave they ­will receive us with such piety ­after seeing what we have done and that we have come from so far, and t­here they [usually] provide sustenance to t­hose who are married, so that they can live well, and ­those who are unmarried, if they are of age, they take them in as sons, so we w ­ ill not see ourselves in so much trou­ble as we do in the land of the enemies.127 This fascinating account of Pérez and Cornejo’s i­magined f­ uture adventures bears striking resemblance to the expiatory value of pilgrimage to Mecca in the Aljamiado text Las coplas del alhichante de Puey de Monçón (Poem of the Pilgrim from Puey de Monçon).128 As the poem explains, the act of performing the pilgrimage (ḥājj) is in essence propitiatory, for it is an obligation that consumes all wickedness in the person who makes the journey.129 Moreover, anyone who reaches the blessed city of Mecca, with its gates of blessings

127. ​Ibid., var. 29/2, f. 23v. 128. ​See Las coplas del peregrino de Puey Monçón: Viaje a la Meca en el siglo XVI, ed., Mariano de Pano y Ruata (Zaragoza: Tipografía de Comas Hermanos, 1897). 129. ​“Qu’es un devdo prençipal / Que consume todo mal / Al que hace tal viaje.” Ibid., 36.

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(albáraca) and its walls, which embody piety, has earned p­ ardon.130 While the notion of propitiatory acts is expressed in many ḥadīths—­for example, the idea that performing the minor pilgrimage (ʿumra) atones all sins committed before or ­after the ḥājj131—­both examples raise a number of questions about the Moriscos’ understanding of Islamic and Christian doctrine concerning penance for sins. Might t­hese notions of p­ ardon and penitence reveal a sort of hybrid understanding of Catholic contrition and Muslim kaffāra (expiation of sins)? Or rather, did the testimony offered by the Morisco Lorenzo Polo the younger of Perez’s pilgrimage dreams—­which coincidentally cast Pérez as an apostate or practicing Muslim—­reveal Polo’s own religious understandings? ­After all, he belonged to a ­family that systematically attempted to demonstrate their sincere conversion to the Catholic faith by offering testimonies to the inquisitors against their Morisco neighbors in Teruel.132 The answers to t­hese questions are difficult to ascertain. However, Polo’s testimonies to the Inquisition suggest that, at least in their dealings with the inquisitors, many Moriscos w ­ ere able to adapt their language to make it comprehensible to a Christian audience.133 Gil Pérez and Alonso Cornejo ­were accused of committing the crime of heresy and apostasy against the Catholic faith, and of being “alfaquís and dogmatists of the sect of the Moors.” With the testimonies of more than forty Old and New Christian witnesses, Pérez and Cornejo w ­ ere found guilty of “obstructing the f­ree and right exercise and ser­vice of the Holy Office”; of falsely testifying against and accusing many p­ eople of the crime of high treason (lesa maiestatis divina et humana); and of persuading, inducing, and bribing witnesses to swear falsely in the tribunal of the Inquisition.134 On account of their testimonies twenty-­three Moriscos w ­ ere arrested and pro­cessed by the Inquisition. At the completion of their trial, Pérez and Cornejo appeared in the auto de fe that was celebrated in Valencia on Sunday, April 9, 1587, nearly five years a­ fter Pérez had begun to testify. They ­were both given life sentences to serve in the galleys of the king and ordered to pay damages to the ­people they had falsely accused. The case of Pérez pres­ ents an int­er­esti­ng example of the “exceptional normal.”135 It sheds light on aspects of Morisco prophecy that have hitherto 130. ​“Que sus puertas son albáraca / Y sus paredes piedad; / Sus tejados claredad / Y ella toda es bendiçión, / Pues cualquiere que á ella vá / Tiene ganado el perdón.” Ibid., 76. 131. ​Christian Lange, “Expiation,” Encyclopaedia of Islam. 3rd ed. Online (Leiden: Brill). 132. ​Ibid.; Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de dios, 174, 236–36. 133.  ​Polo’s declarations were ­ confirmed by the confessions of Mari Rosa, Gil Pérez’s wife, who confessed that her husband had cast lots and intended to go to North Africa. See BHUV, var. 29/2, f. 99r. 134. ​Ibid., f. 2r; f. 1r. 135. ​On the idea of the exceptional normal, see Edoardo Grendi, “Micro-­analisi e storia sociale,” Quaderni Storici 35 (1977): 506–20; Giovanni Levi, “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Peter Burke (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 113; Carlo Ginz-



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been unexplored. Pérez was in many ways an average Morisco who was well versed in Islamic religious knowledge, and he was an active participant in Morisco society, someone who was in contact with Morisco notables and peasants alike. In other ways, however, he can also be seen as an exceptional Morisco who, most likely for personal gain and as a result of his resentment ­toward the Morisco elites, chose to offer entirely fabricated information to the Inquisition about his Morisco counter­parts. Studying his fabrication allows us to look around the edges of the traditional image of the crypto-Muslim ­ Morisco pre­sent in inquisitorial sources and Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture, an image that has been crystallized to the point of essentialism in modern historiography. Historical narratives of Morisco rebellions and seditious conspiracies have tended to operate within a binary model that opposes Morisco resisters against Morisco “collaborators.”136 This, in turn, has been taken to mean “au­then­tic” versus “inauthentic” Moriscos—a­ model that the Moriscos themselves and their contemporaries invoked when referring to a buen moro (good Muslim) and a mal moro (bad Muslim), and that modern historiography has sometimes taken at face value. It defines t­ hose who w ­ ere inside or outside Morisco society and, ultimately, who was a true Morisco and who was not.137 According to this paradigm, Pérez would be viewed as an outsider, a “bad Muslim” who collaborated with the Christian authorities against t­hose au­then­tic Moriscos who had held steadfast to their old religion, resisting conversion and integration into Christian society. To be sure, Pérez did not follow the path of many of his fellow Moriscos. Nonetheless, he was a Morisco just like the o­ thers. What his actions cast light on is what might be called a Morisco strategic consciousness. As a Morisco, Pérez was very aware of the narrative that he needed to deploy to reach the ears of the Inquisition, and he used this to his advantage. Drawing from his sophisticated knowledge of Morisco society and exploiting the interpersonal relations that he had forged with some members of the Morisco elite, Pérez constructed a story that could be convincing to Moriscos and inquisitors alike. As has been discussed throughout the chapter, this narrative was composed of certain fixed ele­ments that had characterized e­ very Morisco conspiracy. One of t­hose essential ele­ments was the presence of prophecy, both in oral and in written form. Once prophecy was identified, by

burg, Threads and Traces: True and False Fictive, trans. Anne C. Tedeschi and John Tedeschi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 213. 136. ​A critique of the use of the term collaborationist is presented in chap. 2. The most recent example of the use of the term colaboracionista is in Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de dios, 183–91. 137. ​For a balanced discussion of the prob­lem of “good” and “bad” Moriscos, see Carrasco, Deportados en nombre de Dios, 183.

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the Moriscos and the inquisitors, as an impor­tant part of e­ very conspiracy, Pérez had to make it figure prominently in his depositions. Pérez set the tone by vividly portraying the contexts in which prophecies w ­ ere deployed to the Moriscos: exhortatory preaching sessions. He provided detailed narrations of the sermons preached by the alfaquís and their interpretations of prophetic messages. He also offered the voices of ordinary Moriscos commenting on the apocalyptic messages. For this he drew on his knowledge of Islamic—or rather, Morisco—­theology and apocalyptic narratives. In this sense, Pérez’s accounts are faithful descriptions of Morisco religious and po­liti­cal practices that would have been recognizable to his coreligionists. But the audience that Pérez wanted to convince most was not made up of his coreligionists. It was the inquisitorial authorities to whom Pérez would direct the apocalyptic messages that he had meticulously constructed. While offering the inquisitors prophetic accounts that he had most likely heard while attending religious gatherings, he also adapted the prophetic discourse to make the messages recognizable to his Christian public, as with the prophetic message of the ­union of Portugal and Aragon. Pérez’s manipulation of prophetic discourse draws attention to an impor­tant issue that has not been addressed: the question of authorship of prophetic texts. It is in this sense that Pérez’s case is an example of the “exceptional normal.” His case forces us to consider something that is often overlooked, perhaps b­ ecause of its obviousness: that in the case Aljamiado apocalyptic prognostications and in Pérez’s forged prophecies, what is presented as divine discourse is ­after all the same oracular exercise. Pérez’s case illuminates the pro­cess of invention of Morisco apocalyptic oral and written texts. Prophecies w ­ ere produced and deployed at par­tic­ul­ar moments to satisfy a par­tic­u­lar agenda, with a par­tic­u­lar public in mind. While Aljamiado prognostications might seem more “au­then­tic” than Pérez’s fabricated prophecies, both are persuasive discourses intended to capture the attention of an audience and to convince them of the truth of the prophetic message. Pérez was not trying to convince the inquisitorial authorities that the prophetic messages he was offering them w ­ ere necessarily true, but he wanted to make them believe that apocalyptic prognostications w ­ ere power­ ful enough to move Moriscos to armed re­sis­tance. Ultimately, this case reveals prophecy to be not just an identity myth, or a preparatory discourse, but rather a strategic fabrication. This leads us to a second issue that must be addressed: the notion of authority in the deployment of prophetic discourse. As has been shown, in Valencian Morisco society the alfaquís and the notables had exclusive control over religious and, more specifically, prophetic discourse. It was through their sermons that the alfaquís disseminated the hortatory oracular messages whose



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target was primarily Moriscos. Through their deployment of prophecy the alfaquís became defenders of Morisco culture and creators and definers of a particularly Muslim way of being a Morisco. T ­ here is not much difference between the way Pérez and the alfaquís viewed and used prophecies: both recognized the instrumentality of prophecy as an effective discourse of persuasion. Their audiences and ends, however, w ­ ere quite dif­fer­ent. Nonetheless, they both drew from preexisting models of Morisco prophetic discourse, adapting and reworking its context to pre­sent their messages as au­then­tic. With his fabrications Gil Pérez attempted to reor­ga­nize the hierarchy of transmission of divine wisdom by hijacking the mono­poly on prophetic discourse that the alfaquís, and the notables backing them, had managed to secure. Pérez’s assumption of the role normally reserved for alfaquís can be construed as a contestation for control of the symbolic resources of the Morisco community. Yet as was shown in the discussion of Alonso Cornejo’s confessions, Pérez was not the only Morisco who was challenging the authority of the notables and religious leaders. For example, the Morisco who criticized the actions of the notable Lorenzo Benazar and his associates for attempting to enthrone themselves as kings of the Moriscos without divine dispensation was also questioning the hierarchy that the notables and the alfaquís backing them w ­ ere attempting to secure. The deployment and contestation of prophecy by all Moriscos—­Gil Pérez, the alfaquís, and the Morisco community at large—­reveals a pro­cess occurring deep within Morisco society, a fragmentation of the Morisco social structure precipitated by the intense persecution exercised by the Inquisition in the second half of the sixteenth ­century. While the very existence of Pérez and other ele­ments of Morisco society who chose to disclose to the Christian authorities the Islamic practices of their fellow Moriscos already points to the existence of fissures in the Morisco community,138 analyzing the prophetic ele­ment in their testimonies reveals exactly what kind of drama was playing out in Morisco society: the existence of a po­liti­cal agenda that differed from that of the notables. It is for this reason that Pérez’s case should not be cast aside as merely a bizarre example that says nothing about Morisco conspiracies. Only by reintegrating Pérez into Morisco society without classifying him as “inside” or “outside” the community or as an “au­then­tic” or “inauthentic” Morisco, can we recover a true image of the challenging historical juncture at which the Moriscos found themselves. They individually de­cided how they wanted to play the cards they had been dealt.

138. ​In Deportados en nombre de Dios, Carrasco analyzed Morisco denunciations of their correligionists to the Inquisition as a symptom of fractures within Morisco society.

Ch a p te r 6

Prophecy as Diplomacy The Moriscos and Henry IV of France

Sometime in September 1602, a group of Moriscos from Valencia and Aragon set out on a diplomatic mission to solicit assistance from King Henry IV of France (r. 1589–1610) in order to stage an insurrection against the Spanish monarchy. As previous chapters have made evident, Moriscos had engaged in forms of diplomacy that appealed to a collective religious identity, particularly when beseeching their brethren in faith across the Mediterranean ­after their forced conversion to Catholicism. But as their communication with Henry IV shows, their appeals ­were not ­limited to Muslim rulers. This chapter traces ­these communications between the French and the Moriscos—­starting in the ­middle of the sixteenth ­century and extending into the early seventeenth c­ entury—­and captures the moment of agony when the Moriscos ­were banished from their homes and sent off to unknown lands with the expulsion decrees of 1609 and 1610. Focusing on the final attempts of some Moriscos to resist the exclusionary mea­sures of secular and inquisitorial authorities alike sheds light on the forms of symbolic communication that Moriscos employed as part of their po­liti­cal and diplomatic practices. As po­liti­cal brokers for their communities in the Iberian Peninsula, Morisco notables sought to appeal to the goodwill of stronger po­liti­cal actors in the Mediterranean by transmitting messages of mutual interest. Given that apocalyptic idioms w ­ ere a common currency in the po­liti­ cal culture of the early modern Mediterranean, the Moriscos appealed to 214



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prophecy as one such idiom of mutual understanding. Ultimately, what was at stake was the Moriscos’ recognition of the multiple po­liti­cal discourses employed by rulers of their time (Muslims and Christians alike), and their attempts to reclaim t­ hose discourses for their own po­liti­cal endeavors. What is remarkable about the cases discussed in this chapter is that in the age of permanent resident ambassadors representing states—­what is commonly believed to be the central site of diplomatic exchanges—­Moriscos fashioned themselves in their politi ­ cal ­ dealings as non-state ­ interlocutors on an equal footing.1 While it is impossible to know w ­ hether t­hese Moriscos coupled their diplomatic endeavors with claims of sovereignty in any form, it is clear that they saw themselves as legitimate po­liti­cal actors on the Mediterranean stage.2 This chapter first traces the communications between the Moriscos of Aragon and the French Huguenots of the region of Béarn during the period that followed the Alpujarras revolt (1568–71). At the time, the inquisitors of Aragon and the Supreme Council of the Inquisition w ­ ere investigating all movements across the northern border, and t­ hese contacts between Moriscos and Huguenots set the stage for the Morisco rebellion plots of the early seventeenth c­ entury that w ­ ill also be discussed in this chapter. The last Morisco voices of resistance—­found in a number of inquisitorial sources—­demonstrate that, ­until the very moment of the expulsion, Moriscos held hopes, fueled by prophecies, that someone would come to their aid in staging an uprising against the Spanish monarch.

Early Contacts with French Protestants The interactions of Aragonese Moriscos with the French, particularly the French Huguenots, w ­ ere not a new occurrence. During the rebellion in the 1. ​For new perspectives on medieval and early modern diplomacy, see, for example, John Watkins, “­Toward a New Diplomatic History of Medieval and Early Modern Eu­rope,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38, no.  1 (2008): 1–14; and Isabella Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict: Italian Diplomacy in the Early Re­nais­sance, 1350–1520 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 2. ​Recent scholarship has recognized the multiplicity of actors that participated in diplomatic exchanges in the early modern period, from merchants to interpreters, and other intermediaries. See, for example, Early Modern Diplomacy, Theater and Soft Power, ed., Nathalie Rivère de Carles (London: Palgrave, 2016); Noel Malcolm, Agents of Empire; E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-­Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012); Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Some Afterthoughts,” in The Brokered World: Go-­Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770–1820, ed. Simon Schaffer, Lissa Roberts, Kapil Raj, and James Delbourgo (Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in the History of Science, 2009), 429–40; Mercedes García-­Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

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Alpujarras, as the Granadan Moriscos w ­ ere attempting to establish contacts with the Ottomans, the Aragonese w ­ ere communicating with Henry IV’s ­mother, Jeanne d’Albret (r. 1555–72), the queen of Lower Navarre. An alliance with the French Protestants would surely reap potential military benefits for the Moriscos. Louis Cardaillac has examined Morisco views about and relations with Protestants, uncovering in their writings a potential religious interest on the part of Moriscos, who saw commonalities between the Protestant Christian understanding of religious doctrine and their own. In this sense, Moriscos saw an alliance with Protestants as a form of religious polemic that would leave the Catholic Church isolated.3 As Cardaillac explains, confronting the same e­ nemy, and sharing religious sensibilities, Moriscos and French Protestants ­were driven to similar postures regarding the Catholic Church and the Spanish monarchy.4 Thus, fearful of a Morisco alliance with the enemies of the Spanish monarch, and with the Wars of Religion (1562–98)  raging across the Pyrenees, the inquisitors swiftly investigated the rumors. Around December 1574, the Aragonese Inquisition detained a man from Béarn called Francisco Nalias, a resident of the Aragonese town of Cariñena, and questioned about his comings and goings ­ in southern France and Aragon.5 He reported to the inquisitors that he was returning from his homeland to re­unite with his wife in Spain when some Huguenots had ­stopped him and taken him to Pau. He confessed to having been interviewed in Pau by a certain Baron d’Arros, who entrusted him with the task of getting in touch with the most prominent Moriscos of the Kingdom of Aragon about their plans to take up arms.6 The Moriscos had been communicating with the French Huguenots since the rebellion in the Alpujarras, and more recently they had sent an embassy to the queen of Navarre to request her aid.7 D’Arros told Nalias that two Aragonese Moriscos had come to negotiate with him in his capacity as lieutenant general of Béarn. He wanted to inform t­hose Moriscos, through Nalias, that they would have to pay ten or twelve thousand escudos, as they had promised the queen years e­ arlier, in exchange for military aid. D’Arros assured Nalias that they would “go to Spain and . . . ​take the land and recover 3. ​Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos, 120. 4. ​Ibid., 121. 5. ​AHN, Inq. Leg. 4529/2, and Lib. 988, ff. 352r–­v. This document was briefly mentioned by Cardaillac in Moriscos y cristianos. However, the document has hitherto never been analyzed in its proper po­liti­cal and social context. 6. ​The document mentions a certain Baron de Ros. It is likely that the man being referred to is Bernard d’Espalungue, Baron d’Arros, lieutenant general of Béarn to Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre. See Louis Alexandre Expilly, Dictionnaire géographique, historique et politique des Gaules et de la France (Paris, 1762), 282. 7. ​Inq. Lib. 4529, f. 1.



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Navarre.”8 Upon his return to Spain, Nalias relayed the information to a Morisco he had met in Alfamén, a village in Aragon, named Lope de Arcos. The news about the dealings of the Moriscos with the French “heretics,” coupled with the cele­brations over the loss of Tunis and La Goleta, confirmed to the inquisitors of Zaragoza the ill ­will of the Moriscos, and their intentions to “harm Christendom.” In March 1575 the inquisitors sent their own spy, Juan Claver, to the border with Béarn. The man provided information about the movements of the Huguenots in southern France.9 In May of the same year Lope de Arcos confirmed to the inquisitors Nalias’s testimonies regarding the Moriscos’ intentions to take up arms. On May  17, while the inquisitors Diego de Haedo and Cristóbal Roche attended their morning hearing in the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza, de Arcos was brought out to testify. ­After being suspended from the ceiling (known as garrucha torture) naked and with his hands bound b­ ehind his back, he began confessing. He stated that he had encountered a Frenchman one day in Alfamén. The man gave him a message from the “Lutherans” (French Huguenots) stating that if the Moriscos desired to stage a rebellion, they would come to their aid. De Arcos was supposed to relay the message to the wealthiest Moriscos of the towns of Almonacid de la Sierra, Villafeliche, Sabiñán, and Niguella, who, as leaders of their communities, would then negotiate with the Moriscos of their respective towns.10 In addition to the French and Morisco forces, de Arcos claimed that the Ottomans would join forces to ensure victory. De Arcos confessed ­under torture that the Moriscos in charge of writing the letters to the Ottomans and the French ­were an old man from Almonacid de la Sierra known as El Zarco (“the blue-eyed ­ one”); Juan López, a very wealthy Morisco merchant from Villafeliche; Hernando Hadary, from the town of Sabiñán; and a man named Ángel, from Niguella, who had died a few months e­ arlier. When the men w ­ ere discussing the amount they had to pay to the French, the Moriscos objected that the sum that the French w ­ ere requesting was far too high, but that they would be willing to negotiate. De Arcos also confessed that the Ottomans had already promised to send help to the Aragonese Moriscos.11 There ­ is no doubt that his confessions must be approached with caution, especially since they ­were extracted ­under torture. However, as w ­ ill become clear, t­hese contacts between the Aragonese Moriscos and the French Protestants cannot be denied. Not only are they alluded to in French sources, l­ater developments also confirm the existence of an ongoing plot.

8. ​Ibid. 9. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 963, ff. 222r–223v, 228r–229r. 10. ​Ibid. 11. ​Ibid., Inq. Lib. 988, f. 353r.

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In September 1576 the inquisitors of Zaragoza wrote to the inquisitor general requesting that an auto de fe be held ­because “in addition to the expense that the Holy Office w ­ ill have to absorb b­ ecause [Nalias and de Arcos] are poor,” Nalias was chronically ill, and they w ­ ere afraid he would not live through the winter. More impor­tant, the jails needed to be emptied in order to arrest more Moriscos involved in the plot.12 In the following months the inquisitors w ­ ere busy arresting, imprisoning, and interrogating local leaders. Nalias and de Arcos did not appear in an auto de fe ­until 1578. Their sentence was read in the marketplace of Zaragoza: public lashings and a life sentence in the galleys of His Majesty without pay. Given the condition of their health, they most likely did not survive such the lashings. The Morisco leaders of Almonacid de la Sierra, Villafeliche, and Sabiñán w ­ ere handed over to the secular authorities and burned at the stake. While the Aragonese Moriscos’ attempts to establish contacts with the Huguenots w ­ ere unsuccessful in the 1570s, they did not give up on their hopes of attaining military and logistical assistance from t­hose whom they saw as allies against a common ­enemy.

The Last Conspiracies (1600–1609) On May 14, 1600, the Spanish Council of State wrote to the viceroy of Valencia, Juan Alonso Pimentel de Herrera, count of Benavente, to request any and all information regarding contacts between the Moriscos of that kingdom and France. On July 16 the count responded that he had made the appropriate inquiries and had not found any information regarding the Valencian Moriscos and the French, but that he did know for sure that the Moriscos maintained close communication with the Ottomans. He also mentioned that if t­ here ­were any contacts with the French, they ­were likely through the mediation of the Aragonese Moriscos. A ­ fter meeting on August 10 that year to discuss the viceroy’s report, the Council of State concluded that the ­matter required immediate attention, the Moriscos “being domestic enemies in such ­g reat number and ultimately Spaniards of whom t­ here should be no doubt that they would execute their ill intention on what­ever occasion, in order to advance their cause, as the experience in the Kingdom of Granada showed.”13 Rumors

12. ​Ibid., Inq. Lib. 936, f. 343r. 13. ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 2636. Published by Janer, Condición social de los Moriscos, 277–78: “siendo estos enemigos caseros en tan gran número y en fin españoles de quien no se puede dudar que ejecutarán su mala intencion en cualquiera ocasion que se ofrezca para mejorar su partido como lo mostró la esperiencia de lo del Reyno de Granada.”



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about a Morisco conspiracy continued ­until the following year, when on January 28, 1601, the Council of State met once again on the m ­ atter, this time to discuss an aviso (report) sent from Tetuán, in North Africa, by a ju­nior officer who had been taken captive. The man claimed that the Moriscos ­were trying to stage a revolt, and that to this end they w ­ ere corresponding with the king of Morocco as well as the Ottomans in Algiers.14 The Moriscos had indeed been communicating with the Saʿdī sultans of Morocco, especially Mawlāy 15 Zaydān (r. 1603–27), to request their aid in “reconquering al-Andalus.” ­ The failed outcome of ­these po­liti­cal contacts notwithstanding, the conspiracies of the early seventeenth century ­ had devastating consequences for all Moriscos in the Iberian Peninsula. According to all contemporaneous writers chronicling the expulsion of the Moriscos from the Spanish kingdoms, which took place between 1609 and 1614, King Philip III (r. 1598–1621) and his Council of State arrived at the fateful decision by citing the treachery of the Moriscos and making this conspiracy central to their decision-­making pro­cess.16 B­ ecause the negotiations between the Moriscos and King Henry IV of France between 1600 and 1605 are the most commented on, but also the least understood, it is worth examining them in detail. The events w ­ ere first discussed by the famous apologists of the expulsion Jaime Bleda and Marcos de Guadalajara in their seventeenth-­century pro-­expulsion chronicles, and following t­ hese chronicles they are often cited by scholars.17 The chronicles explain that in 1602 the Morisco communities of Valencia appointed five leaders from among the wealthiest families of the kingdom to or­ga­nize a rebellion against Philip III.18 According to Bleda, who claimed to have had access to state and 14.  ​AGS, Estado, Leg. 2636. Janer, Condición social de los Moriscos, 279. See also Jaime Bleda, Crónica de los moros de España (Valencia, 1618), 994. 15. ​See, for example, the plans of Moriscos to enlist the help of the Saʿdī ruler of Morocco Mawlāy Zaydān (Muley Zidan), and of the Ottoman sultan Aḥmed III (r. 1603–17) in a Muslim takeover of the Iberian Peninsula, as can be reconstructed from AGS, Estado, Leg. 2639. This text has been studied in Hossein Bouzineb and Gerard Wiegers, “Tetuán y la expulsión de los moriscos,” in Tiṭwān khilāl a­ l-­qarnayn 16 wa 17 (Tétouan: Université ʿAbd al-­Malik al-­Saʿdī, 1996), 73–108; Bernard Vincent, “La conspiración morisca. ¿Proyecto o fábula?,” Estudis 35 (2009): 115–29; Mercedes García-­Arenal Rodríguez, “The Moriscos in Morocco,” in García-­Arenal and Wiegers, Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, 286–328. 16.  ​The expulsion decree promulgated on September  22, 1609, characterizes the Moriscos as “stubborn,” “heretical,” “apostates” who have “harmful intentions” and seek to “harm and subvert p­ eople of our kingdoms through their envoys and other ways.” For an En­glish translation, see “Decree of the Expulsion of the Moriscos [of Valencia] 1609,” in Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History, ed. Jon Cowans (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 145–48. 17. ​Bleda, Crónica, 924–29; Guadalajara y Javier, Memorable expulsión, pt. 2, ch. 8; Gaspar Escolano, Segunda parte de la década primera de la historia de la insigne y coronada ciudad y reyno de Valencia (Valencia, 1611), bk. 10, ch. 42. 18. ​For some of the most impor­tant works, see Danvila y Collado, La expulsión de los moriscos españoles; Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión; Janer, Condición social de los moris-

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inquisitorial documentation concerning the affair, the names of the Valencian Morisco representatives w ­ ere Alonso Albaya from Vall de Segó (a valley between Valencia and Castellón), Joachim Malchic from Bechi (a few kilo­ meters south of Castellón), Juan Barri from Segorbe (further inland), and Pedro Cortes and Lamberto (also known as Miguel Alamín), both from Alaquas (a few kilo­meters west of the city of Valencia). According to ­these chroniclers, the group, led by Miguel Alamín, established contact with a Frenchman from the border town of Saint-­Jean-­Pied-­de-­Port named Pascual de Santisteban, or Saint-­Estève, who was a scribe by profession. Santisteban was well acquainted with Spanish affairs, as he had served as spy in France for the king of Spain. On this occasion, however, he would be working for the French king Henry IV. Santisteban had been sent across the Pyrenees to investigate a large gathering of the Spanish king’s galleys on the northern Iberian coast, and he had learned that the ships ­were destined for Algiers. Santisteban thus came to serve as liaison between the Moriscos and the king of France. Santisteban returned to France to relay the Moriscos’ plans to King Henry IV via the governor of Navarre and viceroy of Béarn, Jacques Nompar de Caumont, duc de La Force. It appears that the king had initially received the Morisco proposition enthusiastically, a surprise given that Spain and France had signed a peace in 1598 at Vervins. However, on September 2, 1602, he entrusted the duc de La Force to send a trustworthy and experienced man named Monsieur de Panissault to accompany Santisteban back to Spain in order to survey the situation. According to Jaime Bleda’s account, as Santisteban and Panissault w ­ ere on their way to Valencia in early 1603, Santisteban met a friend, an En­glishman named Thomas Oliver Brachan, who, upon learning about the Moriscos’ plans, wrote a letter to inform an el­derly Queen Elizabeth about them. Both men seized the opportunity and, altering their plans, traveled to E ­ ngland and allegedly spoke with the queen’s secretary of state Robert Cecil, who expressed interest in the enterprise. Elizabeth, however, died a few weeks l­ater in March, quashing all hopes of a three-­pronged intervention against Philip III: the En­glish through Galicia, the French through the Pyrenees and Navarre, and the Moriscos from within Iberia. While t­ here is no doubt that the chroniclers’ animosity t­ oward the Moriscos led them to emphasize what they interpreted as the Moriscos’ treacher-

cos; Henry Charles Lea, The Moriscos of Spain (Philadelphia: Lea B ­ rothers, 1901); Gregorio Marañon, Expulsión y diáspora de los moriscos españoles (Madrid: Santillana Ediciones Generales: Taurus, 2004); Domínguez Ortiz and Vincent, Historia de los moriscos; Harvey, Muslims in Spain; Youssef El Alaoui, “The Moriscos in France a­ fter the Expulsion: Notes for the History of a Minority,” in García-­Arenal and Wiegers, Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, 239–68.



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ous intentions, the Council of State seems to have been on the lookout for such communications with the French. This is evident from numerous papers that w ­ ere sent to and from the Council. For example, on January 4, 12, and 22, 1603, Juan Bautista de Tassis, count of Villamediana, who a few months ­later would become head of postal communications for all of Philip III’s kingdoms, wrote to the Council of State informing it about the Moriscos’ plans “to favor ­ the king of France.”19 Tassis was especially sensitive to the issue, since he had fought against the Moriscos of Granada during the Alpujarras revolt. The Council of State responded that it seemed that the Moriscos’ promises to the king of France should not increase the Spanish authority’s concerns about the Moriscos b­ ecause for many years the French had circulated such rumors: “It was understood by every­one that Your Majesty [Philip III] is not in trou­ble, ­because if it ­were true, they would not publicize it.”20 “But the ­matter is so grave and the remedy so difficult,” the memo continued, “that on the one hand it should not be forgotten, and on the other, the difficulties of t­ hese times do not permit [us] to carry out the resolution of what has been discussed at length, and less so to execute it.”21 The resolution discussed at length was likely the decision to expel the Moriscos from the Spanish kingdoms.22 The Council of State also mentioned news that had recently arrived from Milan concerning a Morisco from Toledo who was involved in the conspiratorial affair. It recommended that the Inquisition investigate the man’s whereabouts, as well as ­whether he had been away from the kingdom and, if so, for how long—­and thus the Inquisition and Council of State began working together to gather information on the rebellion plot. To get back to the events as narrated by Bleda, Guadalajara, and also the historian of Valencia Gaspar Escolano, Santisteban returned from ­England to France and met t­ here with Panissault. Both men then arrived in late November 1603 in Valencia, where they found that the Moriscos ­were still determined to rebel. The two men met with several ­others and learned that the Moriscos w ­ ere promising to enlist two hundred thousand men to the cause and w ­ ere certain of their impending victory b­ ecause their alfaquís (religious leaders) “assure[d] them that they would be redeemed by the king of France.”23 The Frenchmen returned to meet with the duc de La Force; this time accompanied by the Morisco representative Miguel Alamín, who informed the governor

19. ​AGS, Estado, Francia, K. 1426 (A. 37). 20. ​Ibid. 21. ​Ibid. 22. ​See Benítez Sánchez-­Blanco, Heróicas decisiones. 23. ​Escolano, Segunda parte.

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of Navarre of his coreligionists’ w ­ ill. In the following months, the diplomatic network continued to expand. On Santisteban’s last visit to the Kingdom of Valencia, before being arrested by Valencian authorities, he came with the En­glishman Brachan, who had been entrusted by Secretary of State Cecil to inform the Moriscos that they should seek support from the rebels in Flanders.24 In what had become an international and interconfessional coali­ ­ tion, a group of sixty-­six syndics, or representatives of the Morisco communities of Valencia, and twelve Algerian “Turks” met in Toga, Valencia, to agree on a resolution. Santisteban, representing France, was also pre­sent at the meeting, where the attendees discussed staging the rebellion on Holy Thursday of the following year. According to Bleda, they named Luis Azquer king of what would be the Muslim Kingdom of Valencia. ­Because Azquer was an elder, his guidance and wisdom was crucial for the Moriscos, but it would be his nephews, Jaime and Francisco Saba, merchants from Alberique, who would lead the kingdom to rebellion.25 Panissault returned to France excited about the possibilities of this large-­scale enterprise. However, in the meantime, a Valencian Morisco, claiming to have been inspired by a miraculous healing granted to him by Our Lady of Montserrat, sought absolution for his sins by confessing to a priest about his former Muslim practices and t­ hose of his coreligionists. His confessions led to the scheme’s uncovering, and the plan was subsequently aborted. The man’s confessions underscore the weakness of the Moriscos’ structure for carry­ing out the conspiracy, which could easily be infiltrated by inquisitorial agents acting as a po­liti­cal police. By 1608 most of the p­ eople involved in the plot had been arrested by the Inquisition or the local authorities. A year ­earlier, in 1607, at the age of eighty-­ five, the would-be el­derly king of the Moriscos, Luis Azquer, appeared with his wife, Ángela Azquer Gordo, in an auto de fe, accused of using a h­ ouse in their village as a mosque.26 Their nephew Jaime Saba was in the Inquisition’s jails in 1608, accused of having participated in the meeting in Toga in 1605.27 Miguel Alamín and Pascual de Santisteban w ­ ere tried by the secular authorities rather than the Inquisition. Alamín was charged with the crime of lèse-­ majesté, and Santisteban was accused of treason. Both ­were sentenced to death by hanging, and Alamín’s body was to be dragged through the city of Valencia tied to a h ­ orse’s tail and quartered.28

24. ​Ibid. 25. ​Barceló and Labarta, Archivos morisco, 106–7. 26. ​Ibid., 106. 27. ​Ibid., 107. 28. ​Bleda, Crónica, 928.



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It seems, however, that the Spanish authorities w ­ ere still concerned about the possibility of Moriscos’ seditious activities, as is evident from diplomatic correspondence between Italy and Spain. On October 28, 1607, Don Alonso de la Cueva y Benavides, Spanish ambassador to Venice, wrote to King Philip III informing him of intelligence that was circulating in the Venetian Republic concerning two Moriscos of Granada who ­were in Constantinople plotting “damaging things ­ against the Royal Crown of Your Majesty and against Christendom.”29 According to the ambassador’s dispatch, the Moriscos also claimed to be negotiating with the sultan of Morocco, Mawlāy Zaydān.30 In previous letters to the Council of State, de la Cueva had also warned about further communications between the Moriscos of Aragon and Henry IV.31 Writing in cipher, the Council of State responded with an order for de la Cueva to disclose every­thing he knew regarding information that the king of France had communicated to Monsieur de Jacob, ambassador of Savoy at the French court, about “dealings with the Moriscos of Aragon.”32 The information must have alarmed the Council of State, since two years l­ater the m ­ atter of the Moriscos’ contacts with France was still being considered. On October 14, 1609, the Council of State wrote to de la Cueva acknowledging the receipt of three letters in which the ambassador offered additional intelligence about the two Moriscos.33

Prophecy as Diplomacy: The Moriscos and Henry IV Much doubt has been cast on the conspiracy of 1602, not in small mea­sure ­because the seventeenth-­century chroniclers, whose brazen antagonism ­toward the Moriscos made their arguments questionable, invoked it as justification for the expulsion. The incident might even be dismissed by scholars t­oday as another example of inquisitorial paranoia—­were it not for the fact that the letter delivered by the Morisco representatives to Henry IV was preserved and

29. ​AGS, Estado Leg.1352, f. 471r. 30. ​For negotiations between the Moriscos and Mawlāy Zaydān, see n. 15 above. 31. ​See, for example, AGS Estado, Leg. 1928, doc. 334; Leg. 1352, doc. 152. 32. ​AGS Estado, Leg. 1928, doc. 334, f. 758v. See Pompone de Bellièvre and Nicolas Brulart de Sillery, Lettres, memoires, et negotiations de messieurs de Bellievre et de Sillery contenant un Journal concernant la Negociation de la Paix Traitée à Vervins l’an 1598, entre Henry IV. Roi de France; Philippe I. Roi d’Espagne, at Charles Emanuel, Duc de Savoye (La Hayne: Chez Jean van Duren, 1725), 1:82; Richard de Bury, Histoire de la vie de Henri iv, roi de France et de Navarre (Paris: Chez Saillant, 1766), 2:108. 33. ​AGS, Estado Leg. 1928, doc. 334.

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commented upon by the duc de La Force in his memoirs.34 And while the Moriscos’ pleas to the French king might seem surprising, the way they expressed their supplications is even more striking. To convince Henry IV to lend military and logistical support for their enterprise, the Moriscos’ letter assured the French monarch of victory by citing apocalyptic prognostications or prophecies (prophéties) that predicted military success. While scholars have noted de La Force’s memoirs in connection to this plot, the Morisco letter has yet to be analyzed.35 Only by placing this letter in the wider context of Morisco rebellion conspiracies and their Mediterranean networks can we understand the centrality of apocalyptic discourse in the po­liti­ cal culture of that sector of Morisco society that strongly identified as Muslim. In the context of this chapter, Morisco po­liti­cal culture should be understood as the po­liti­cal culture of t­ hose Moriscos who identified as Muslim, which included a substantive part of the elites from the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, as well as the syndics, or the leaders of the aljamas. For t­ hese Moriscos, apocalyptic prognostications and prophecies became a diplomatic language of sorts through which they were ­ able to communicate with more power­ful agents in the Mediterranean—­including the French monarch and the Ottoman and North African sultans—in a language that they deemed mutually comprehensible. In forging such an international and interconfessional alliance, this shared language of prophecy that could be understood by all parties proved crucial. The letter, reproduced by de La Force and addressed to Henry IV, is not dated. However, it must have been received sometime in or before September 1602 (it is preceded in de la Force’s memoirs by a letter to him from Henry IV, who asks his minister to look into the m ­ atter and ascertain w ­ hether the Moriscos ­were serious in their rebellious intents, as well as discover the means at their disposal to carry out the po­liti­cal proj­ect). As the king noted, assessing this information was as crucial to the good outcome of the Moriscos’ enterprise as it was to the preservation of his own reputation. The original

34. ​Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques de Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duc de la Force, Maréchal de France, et de ses deux fils, les Marquis de Montpouillan et de Castelnaut (Paris: Charpentier, Libraire-­Éditeur, 1843). 35. ​Jacques Nompar de Caumont’s memoirs, personal papers, along with the memoirs of two of his sons remained unpublished ­until the nineteenth ­century, when they ­were collected and ordered by the Marquis de La Grange. Since he was married to a descendant of de La Force, La Grange had access to the f­amily archive. In his introduction, La Grange explains that he has published the documents as he found them, without editing or altering them in any way. The archive of the Caumont La Force ­family is ­housed at the Archive Nationale Pierrefitte-­sur-­Seine, France. The analysis ­here is based on the Morisco letter as it appears in the Memoires published by La Grange.



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language of the missive is equally unknown—­whether it was written in French, or translated from Arabic or Spanish—­since de La Force only offers a French version. It is, however, likely that the letter was sent in French, and that Santisteban, a scribe, collaborated in its rendition. A close reading of the letter illustrates the place of apocalyptic discourse in the diplomatic proj­ect of ­these Moriscos. The letter narrates the vicissitudes of the Morisco communities of Granada, Valencia, and Aragon over a hundred years, since their forced conversions at the beginning of the sixteenth c­ entury through the early years of the seventeenth c­ entury. It proposes the implausible plan to hand over the Kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia to the French king in exchange for much-­needed arms. Purporting to represent all the Moriscos of the Kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, Castile, Granada, and Catalonia, the letter was signed by a certain Hamete Musrif (or Mushrif ), from the Valencian town of Segorbe. The Morisco’s surname indicates that he was a prominent member of his community, which brings up an in­ter­est­ing dimension, namely, the existence of regional and class differences.36 For example, while the letter seems to have been written by a Valencian, and it identifies the plights of the Valencians, the Aragonese (or tagarinos), the Granadans, the Castilians (or mudegales, Mudéjares), and Catalonians, ­there seems to be a consciousness of common descent and of a group identity as brethren in faith. With regard to class differences, the status of the Morisco leaders of their communities, the so-­called syndics, is invoked as guarantee of the orga­nizational power of would-be collaborators.37 A common accusation that Christian writers often hurled at Morisco leaders was that the wealthiest members of the Morisco community w ­ ere b­ ehind the seditious activities of the Moriscos and that, with the assistance of the alfaquís, t­ hese wealthy members w ­ ere responsible for secretly teaching Moriscos about Islam and, more impor­tant, for spreading apocalyptic ideas among Morisco commoners.38 Luis Mármol Carvajal and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza launched similar accusations in their

36.  ​Fn. 1, p.  341, of the 1849 edition of Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques reads: “Hamete Musrif [sic] de Segorbe, qui s’intitule un des Mosarifes, c’est-­à-­dire gentilhomme de la nation.” The editor took “Mushrif ” to be another form of the appellative sharīf (pl. shurafā’), meaning “descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad.” However, it most likely refers to his position or profession as overseer or superintendent. For more on the shurafā’ among the Moriscos, see Mercedes García-­ Arenal, “Shurafā in the Last Years of al-­Andalus and the Morisco Period: Laylat al-­mawlid and Genealogies of the Prophet Muḥammad,” in Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Socie­ties: The Living Links to the Prophet, ed. Kazuo Morimoto (London: Routledge, 2012), 161–84. 37. ​For example, “Des Syndics, gens considérables et auxquels on peut se fier parfaitment,” and “ils ont également leurs Syndics qui les gouvernent, qui sont les principaux de la nation.” Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques, 342 and 344. 38. ​For a similar argument, see Mármol Carvajal, Historia. See also the discussion in chap. 5.

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chronicles of the Alpujarras revolt. The structure of this planned insurrection was the same as we saw in the uprising in Granada and subsequent rebellion plots: the notables acted as leaders, while the commoners w ­ ere necessary, albeit uncertain, militants, and prophecy was the discourse that concentrated and coalesced the call to action. Moreover, prophecy was, as we have seen, a discourse that could be employed internally to rally ­people around a common vision or cause. Yet, as will ­ become apparent shortly, prophecy was also a language that could be deployed outside the Morisco community when attempting to negotiate with rulers like Henry IV of France. The letter opens with an invocatio by the Moriscos as His Majesty’s “loyal slaves (esclaves de cœur),” who “pray to God for [his] preservation and victory” and who are willing “to die, g­ reat and small” on his behalf and in his royal ser­vice.39 The letter then narrates the history of Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, tracing their lineage back to ­those Muslims who lived in the time of Mawlāy Yaʿqūb al-­Manṣūr.40 Summoning a historical memory frequently invoked in attempts to negotiate with Christian and Muslim authorities alike, the letter narrates the fate of Muslims in the Peninsula during the age of Christian dominance, which led to the conquest of Granada in 1492.41 It mentions the terms of the Capitulations of Granada, as they w ­ ere known, following the surrender of the kingdom in 1492 and their breach soon after, ­ before detailing the forced conversion of Muslims, their persecution by the Inquisition, the expropriation of their property, the erasure of their culture, the revolt of the Moriscos of Granada between 1568 and 1570, their dispersion throughout Castile, and their desperation over their situation.42 It is h­ ere that the letter makes one of its central po­liti­cal claims: while the Moriscos have always been good subjects, the Catholic Spanish monarchs “have not kept their word (les Rois n’ont rien gardé de leurs paroles).”43 Morisco loyalty (often called into question by Christian authorities) is invoked numerous times in the letter as a defense strategy, and this was not the first time Moriscos had made the claim in their po­liti­cal arguments. Another example is the case of the nobleman and representative of the Granadan Morisco community Francisco Núñez Muley,

39. ​Mármol Carvajal, Historia, 341. 40. ​Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-­Manṣūr was the Almohad ruler between 1184 and 1199. He defeated the Castilian king Alfonso VIII at the B ­ attle of Alarcos in 1195, taking the title al-­Manṣūr bi-­llāh, “victorious by God.” 41. ​See, for example, Núñez Muley, Memorandum for the President; van Koningsveld and Wiegers, “Appeal of the Moriscos”; Monroe, “Curious Appeal to the Ottoman Empire”; Temimi, “Une lettre des morisques de Grenade.” 42. ​Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques, 341–42. 43. ​Ibid., 342.



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in his 1567 memorandum to the Royal Chancery of Granada. After ­ the Morisco inhabitants of the kingdom ­were threatened with a ban that stripped them of all markers of Arab identity—­including use of the Arabic language, clothing, and baths—­the Morisco representative wrote to the secretary of the Royal Chancery to defend their privileges and customs. He argued, “The natives of this kingdom have been obedient in all that the king and his ministers have ordered,” and when they r­ ose against the king, it was “in support of the signed word of Their Highness with respect ­ to the capitulations that 44 ­were executed.” For ­those Moriscos, the Capitulations ­were a contract signed between victors and vanquished, and one that the Moriscos w ­ ere willing to honor so long as their new overlords kept their word. A similar challenge is extended in an Aljamiado jofor attributed to St. Isidore of Seville titled the Plaint of Spain. Charging again Spain’s unjust ruler, St. Isidore purportedly warned about God’s chastisement in the following manner: “Woe to you, Spain, for you stole the gates of your cities, and you broke their liberties. [You are] the breaker of ­things you swore, and your governors are thieving wolves without kindness. Their office is haughtiness and grandeur, and sodomy and lechery, blasphemy and apostasy, pomp and boastfulness, and tyranny, thieving and injustice.”45 Echoing the languages of rights and privileges, St. Isidore characterized Catholic po­liti­cal authority, embodied in the figure of Spain, not only as tyrannical but also as an authority that does not keep its word, breaks pacts, and curtails its subjects’ liberties. Returning to the letter to the French king, as did their Christian counter­ parts in the Spanish kingdoms and throughout Eu­rope, the Moriscos invoked the contractual language of rights and privileges in their claim that the Spanish monarchs, particularly Philip III and his f­ather, w ­ ere unjust rulers.46 Moreover, the “tyrannical Inquisition” stripped them of their money and property, and made the Moriscos suffer. At the heart of the m ­ atter was a question of good governance. The diplomatic missive centered on a key issue: to inquire about the ­will of the king of France, “since we want him as our king and protector, that he may offer us assistance and do us the f­avor of delivering us from the tyranny of Spain (de nous deliverer de la tyrannie d’Espagne).”47 Following

44. ​Núñez Muley, Memorandum, 73. 45. ​BNP Ms. 774, ff. 298v. My translation is based on the edition of the Aljamiado text by Sánchez Álvares, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 248. A full translation of the text is included in app. 7. 46. ​Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques, 343. “C’est ainsi que le Roi d’Espagne nous a fait beaucoup d’injustices et nous en fait chaque jour, ne se bornat pas à ne point nous maintenir nos fors et privileges, que les Rois ses prédécesseurs accordèrent à nous du Royaume de Valence, et à ceux d’Aragon” (my emphasis). 47. ​Ibid.

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the prevailing contractualist language of early modern Euro ­ pean ­ politi ­ cal ­ thought, for t­ hese Moriscos a tyrant king was one who did not keep his word, one who did not uphold his subjects’ liberties and privileges. Thus, according to their contractual paradigms, if the sovereign broke po­liti­cal pacts his subjects could consider themselves liberated, f­ree to reor­ga­nize themselves as a commonwealth or to choose another lord more to their liking. Much like the Catalonians nearly forty years l­ater in 1640, the Moriscos offered themselves freely as loyal subjects (“slaves”) to the king of France, who was expected to uphold the terms of the po­liti­cal contract represented by the Capitulations.48 This contractual foundation resonates with ele­ments from other contemporaneous po­ litical ­ discourses. For instance, there ­ are traces of the language of arbitrismo (the practice of documenting and denouncing prob­lems within the body politic) and of reason of state (interest), both of which w ­ ere at the root of early modern diplomacy. Thus, the Moriscos also made the situation a matter ­ of concern for the French monarch, arguing that “Spain” needed Henry IV of France ­because it was exhausted (épuisée) and “poorly governed day by day (mal gouvernée de jour en jour).” If diplomacy as a practice of negotiation expresses the language of common interest, then the Moriscos w ­ ere certainly appealing to the French monarch by suggesting not only that it was to Spain’s benefit to have him as monarch, but also that he would be able to “take revenge against his enemies, with God’s f­ avor (se vengera de ses ennemis avec la faveur de Dieu).”49 The historian of religions Bruce Lincoln reminds us that “religious claims are the means by which certain objects, places, speakers, and speech-­acts are invested with authority.”50 In that vein, to infuse the Moriscos’ diplomatic venture with authority, the letter cites prophecies that augured a victory for the French king and his troops. Seeking to provide sacred warrants for their speech act, the Moriscos wrote to Henry IV: “And we find in our prophecies that we ­shall be succored at the hands of the king of France, that God would act according to His power, and that his Royal Majesty s­ hall not doubt that with His [God’s] favor, ­ he [Henry IV] will ­ obtain victory.”51 Yet the king’s troops would not have to fight alone, for, as the letter asserts, in Valencia alone ­there ­were sixty thousand ­house­holds ready for ­battle, along with forty thou-

48. ​For a translation of the letter sent by the municipal council, or Concell de Cent, of Barcelona to King Philip IV, see Cowans, Early Modern Spain, 158–60. 49. ​Nompar de Caumont, Mémoires authentiques, 345. 50. ​Bruce Lincoln, Authority: Construction and Corrosion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 112. 51. ​Ibid., 343: “Et comme nous trouvons dans nos prophéties, que nous devons ȇtre secourus par les mains du Roi de France, que Dieu le fasse comme il en a le pouvoir, et qu’aussi sa Royale Majesté ne doute point qu’avec sa faveur elle ne remporte la victoire.”



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sand from Aragon, a few thousand more from Castile and Catalonia, and even Christians and Jews, who would join the French side.52 Valencia would be effortlessly won “if his Royal Majesty f­avors us with some men who are well-­ versed in m ­ atters of war, and some arms such as harquebuses and cannons.”53 Once the city is taken, the letter continues, help w ­ ill come from Dénia, with its good seaport. The Christians of the city ­will flee, thinking that it is the Ottoman fleet (la flotte turque). Once again appealing to the persuasive power of prophecy, the letter certifies that “every­thing w ­ ill have a good outcome with God’s ­favor, as our prophecies bear testimony.”54 Through their invocation of prophecy, the Moriscos attempted to grant an unambiguous degree of certainty to their diplomatic enterprise. What prophecies might the Moriscos have been referring to? They w ­ ere likely citing their jofores, some of which indeed included the French. In several jofores the presence of the French or “Lutherans” (Huguenots) is usually accompanied by the figure of the Ottomans. Inquisition sources also show the presence of the French in the Moriscos’ apocalyptic imagination. One prophecy foretold “the coming of the King of the East and King of the West to the aid of this island of Andalusia.”55 If we take the “King of the East” to mean the Ottomans, given their protagonism in many Morisco prophecies, then it is not implausible to interpret the “King of the West” as the king of France. For example, consider the Aljamiado rendition of John of Rupescissa’s prop­ hecy: “And know that ­because of the pressures of the king of France ­there w ­ ill be no fewer b­ attles; rather, they w ­ ill increase, and the p­ eople w ­ ill say, ‘Peace, peace!,’ but it ­will not be time for peace. And due to the ­great and terrible tribulations, ills, and tempests that ­will fall from the sky, the Turks ­will subjugate the Christian­peoples.”56 Echoing the same sentiments, several Moriscos confessed to the inquisitors of Aragon in 1576 that the Ottomans and French Protestants would come “to win over this land so that they [the Moriscos] could live as Moors [Muslims].”57 Another prognostication foretold that “the Turk will ­ come and disembark in Barcelona . . . ​and the Lutherans [French Huguenots] 52.  ​Ibid., 345: “Et d’autres nations qu’il y a en Espagne, qui sont de la Religion du Christ et d’autres de la Loi de Moїse, se rangeront du parti de la France.” 53. ​Ibid. 54. ​Ibid.: “et tout ira à bonne fin avec la faveur de Dieu, selon que nos prophéties en rendent témoignage.” 55. ​Castillo, Sumario y recopilación, 3:86–90. 56. ​For the above-­cited prophecy, see BNE, Ms. 5305, ff. 61r–67v. For an edition of this text, see Wiegers, “Jean de Roquetaillade’s Prophecies.” The prophecies of John of Rupescissa w ­ ere popu­lar among Moriscos, and they mentioned them in their confessions to the inquisitors. See, for example, AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 361r. 57. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 988, f. 361v.

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w ­ ill come from the other side [presumably through the Pyrenees] . . . ​to ruin Christendom ­  .  .  .  ​[so that] each could live by their own law.”58 Imagery of a Franco-Ottoman ­ takeover of the Iberian Peninsula was commonplace in Morisco apocalyptic texts, and numerous Inquisition sources suggest that Moriscos w ­ ere familiar with t­ hese apocalyptic narratives.59 The arrival of their long-­awaited savior in the garb of the Ottoman sultan must have seemed less and less likely to t­hose Moriscos who attempted to secure military aid in the early seventeenth c­ entury. Finding their liberator in Henry IV, one who would allow them to live “by their own law” as Muslims, was now more of a possibility. Henry IV, a­ fter all, had proved to be a tolerant ruler t­ oward other religions in the wake of the Edict of Nantes in 1598.

Henry IV as Messianic Ruler Prophecy was particularly apt as a language of diplomacy when dealing with monarchs with universalist aspirations such as Henry IV. In their letter to him, the Moriscos appealed to the French king as a messianic deliverer who would liberate the Iberian Peninsula from its corrupt and pernicious rulers, thus establishing justice and order in the world. The prophecies circulating in France and the rest of Eu­rope that cast Henry IV as a second Charlemagne are well known. Henry’s conversion to Catholicism in 1593 drew intellectuals like Giordano Bruno to “canvass a universal solution for the prob­lems of politics and religion in a holy alliance of Pope and French king, which would bring in a new Age of Gold.”60 In Paris, old oracles, including t­hose of Nostradamus that predicted the arrival of the second Charlemagne, were ­ gathered around the figure of 61 Henry. In writings like t­ hose of Sire de Chavigny, Henry was identified as the much-­awaited Last World Emperor who would inaugurate “a better reign and a sweeter season (une regne meilleur et une saison plus douce).”62 Thus, the search for a monarch who would unite the world in peace and justice was still ongoing in Henry’s time. This implied a hope that could, in Marjorie Reeves’s words, “still be focused on an international, rather than a national goal.”63

58. ​Ibid., 352v. 59. ​See also AHN, Inq. Lib. 915, f. 530v. 60. ​Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the L­ ater M ­ iddle Ages: A Study on Joachimism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 385. See also Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 333. 61. ​Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, 385. 62. ​Ibid., 386. 63. ​Ibid., 386–87.



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Henry seems to have been well aware of his mission. His prime minister, the duke of Sully, wrote in his memoires, printed in 1638, “The vast and flattering expectations which the astrologers agreed in making him conceive, were ­ almost always present ­ to his mind.”64 Sully qualified his assessment by noting that despite Henry’s enthusiasm for such prognostications that cast him in an auspicious light, he discussed them only with his closest associates. ­Whether or not Henry intended to use this discourse to his advantage, Sully’s writings shed further light on the apocalyptic climate of late sixteenth-­and early seventeenth-­ century France.65 What seems certain is that the French king was sensitive to messianic discourse such as that deployed by the Moriscos. When the Moriscos wrote their letter to Henry seeking his support, it is likely that they ­were cognizant of ­these prophecies that cast the French king as a universal monarch. ­After all, prophecies traveled as quickly and as widely around the Mediterranean as did reports of current po­liti­cal events, and the Moriscos w ­ ere not impervious to this information. As was discussed in chapter 3, during the Ottoman conquest of Tunis and La Goleta in 1574, the Moriscos celebrated around towns and villages in the Kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon and hoped that the Ottomans would send the awaited-­for aid. They w ­ ere convinced that the moment had arrived when the Ottomans would fi­nally come to their rescue. Yet while the presence of the Ottomans in Morisco apocalyptic prognostications is not all that surprising, what is truly fascinating in this case of the Moriscos’ letter to Henry IV is that it points to a trove of Morisco apocalyptic-­prophetic material that included the possibility of a non-­Muslim redemptive figure.66 In this sense, Morisco prophecies, which drew from a corpus of apocalyptic ḥadīths (sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad), as well as re-­elaborations of well-­known medieval Christian prophecies, had to be renegotiated when they ­were adapted to fit a language of diplomacy directed ­toward a non-­Muslim king. This was possi­ ble ­ because ­ prophecy is formulaic, universalizing, and highly adaptive to dif­ferent ­ contexts. The following section records ­ the reaction of Moriscos in the Kingdom of Aragon to the expulsion of their coreligionists in Valencia, and it underscores the continued relevance of the very prophecies that had failed them a few years, and also de­cades, e­ arlier.

64. ​Charlotte Lennox, ed. and trans., The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully: Prime-­Minister to Henry the ­Great, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: J. Maxwell, 1817), 1:13. 65. ​For an excellent discussion of early modern French apocalypticism, see Denis Crouzet, Les guerriers de Dieu: La vio­lence au temps des trou­bles de religion (v. 1525–­v. 1610), 2 vols. (Seyssel, France: Camp Vallon, 1991). 66.  ​For a classic treatment of the subject, see Louis Cardaillac, “Le Turc, suprȇme espoir des morisques,” in Actes du Premier Congrès d’Histoire et de Civilisation du Maghreb (Tunis: Impr. Al-­Asria, 1979), 1:37–46. For a recent treatment of the Ottoman as an element ­ in Morisco prophecies, see Green-­Mercado, “Mahdī in Valencia.”

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A Final Plea On September 22, 1609, Philip III issued the expulsion decree banishing the largest Morisco community in the Iberian Peninsula, the New Christians of the Kingdom of Valencia. In his decree, the king justified the extreme mea­ sure in the following terms: But realizing that t­hose of this kingdom [Valencia] and of that of Castile w ­ ere continuing in their harmful intentions, and given that I have heard on sound and true advice that they w ­ ere persisting in their apostasy and perdition and w ­ ere seeking to harm and subvert p­ eople of our kingdoms through their envoys and other ways, and wishing to fulfill my obligations to assure the preservation and security particularly of that Kingdom of Valencia and of its good and faithful subjects, given that its dangers are more evident, and wishing for the heresy and apostasy to cease, and having had entrusted to our Lord, and trusting in his divine f­ avor concerning ­matters related to his honor and glory, I have resolved that all of the Moriscos of that kingdom be expelled and sent to the land of the Berbers.67 The Valencian Moriscos w ­ ere, according to the king and his council, treacherous subjects who looked to harm the republic. ­Whether or not ­these threats w ­ ere real, or simply wishful thinking or po­liti­cal plots that would never see the light of day, the expulsion was presented within and without Valencia as necessary and just, for the safety of the kingdom. In the first stage nearly 118,000 Moriscos w ­ ere banished from their homes and sent to North Africa. Initially the expulsion was not meant to include the Morisco subjects of the rest of the Spanish kingdoms. In fact, as Colás Latorre has shown, scarcely four days before the edict of expulsion was announced in Valencia, Philip III wrote to the Aragonese viceroy Tomás de Borja, also archbishop of Zaragoza, in an attempt to allay his concerns about the fate of the New Christians of Aragon, assuring him that the expulsion affected only the Moriscos of Valencia.68 But by May 29, 1610, when all the other Moriscos of the Spanish kingdoms w ­ ere en route to North Africa, the king announced the banishment of the Aragonese and Catalan Moriscos, giving them only three days to get their affairs in order before exile. By September more than 22,000 Moriscos ­were on the French border, waiting to be transported to Tunis.69

67. ​Cowans, Early Modern Spain, 146. 68. ​Gregorio Colás Latorre, “Nueva mirada sobre la expulsión de los moriscos aragoneses y sus consecuencias,” Chronica Nova 36 (2010): 15. 69. ​Ibid., 16.



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The testimonies of several Moriscos who appeared before the inquisitors of Zaragoza between 1609 and 1611 preserved in the case summaries (relaciones de causas de fe) crystallize the final moments of agony of the Moriscos of Aragon. Seeing the inevitability of their expulsion from their native land, some still held on to the hope that the Ottomans would come to save them. A fifty-­five-­year-­old Morisco named Miguel Royo Çuiço confessed that he firmly believed in the Ottomans’ help b­ ecause “­there was a sūra (chapter) in the Qurʾān that stated that Christians could not have power over p­ eople who believed in Allāh.”70 Moreover, news of the Morisco expulsion from Valencia traveled quickly. Royo also told the inquisitors that a Morisco from Valencia had come to his village, telling them that the Moriscos in Valencia had taken up arms and gone up a mountain convinced that the Ottomans would come to their aid. Indeed, the Moriscos of the mountainous Muela de Cortes region of Valencia had taken up arms scarcely a month a­ fter the edict of the expulsion was announced, naming two Morisco kings in two dif­ferent ­ locations and pillaging villages and churches in the area. The rebellion was swiftly contained, its leaders executed, and ­those who had resisted sent on ships to North Africa.71 In the Kingdom of Aragon the Moriscos w ­ ere bracing themselves for the same fate as their Valencian coreligionists, and sought to arm themselves in preparation for the final struggle. ­ Isabel de Quellar, a twenty-six­ year­ old ­ Morisca of Gelsa, in Aragon, attempted to convince the inquisitors that she had always lived as a good Christian, and that b­ ecause the viceroy had given her permission, she should be allowed to stay in Aragon. Unfortunately for her, someone testified against her that she “lived as a Moor” and practiced the ceremonies of the sect of Muḥammad in the com­pany of o­ thers of her generation; she was duly imprisoned. She confessed that all Moriscos in the lands of their seigneurial lord lived as Muslims. The Moriscos of her village had also publicly declared that when the time for their expulsion came, they would come back so quickly that they would find the fire they had left in their ­hearths still burning, and that they would return to kill all the Christians. Isabel also stated that before the expulsion was announced, men, w ­ omen, and

70. ​AHN Inq. Zaragoza, Lib. 991, f. 68r. For fatwas on emigration, see P. S. van Koningsveld and G. A. Wiegers, “The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars in the Light of a New Source,” Al-­Qanṭara 17 (1996): 19–58; Miller, “Muslim Minorities”; Jocelyn N. Hendrickson, “The Islamic Obligation to Emigrate: al-­Wansharīsī’s Asnā al-­matājir Reconsidered” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2009); María del Mar Rosa Rodríguez, “Simulation and Dissimulation: Religious Hybridity in a Morisco Fatwa,” Medieval Encounters 16, no. 1 (2010): 143–80. 71. ​A copy of a letter sent by the Marquis of Caracena to Philip III, at AGS, Estado, Leg. 217, describes the rebellion in ­g reat detail. See also Janer, Condición social de los moriscos, 321–26.

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c­ hildren had fasted for twelve days, not eating throughout the day u ­ ntil “seeing the first star” (la salida de la estrella), so that God would save them by sending the Ottomans with their armada. Fi­nally, she told the inquisitors that the Moriscos would gather at night in ­houses to “perform Moorish ceremonies,” and that they encouraged one another to have faith because ­ they would surely regain their houses ­ and take vengeance against the Christians.72 Another Morisco named Juan de Bolea, who was sixty years of age, confessed that the Moriscos of Aragon and Catalonia ­were determined to take up arms against the Christians, and that with the aid of the Ottomans they would be  victorious.73 Similarly, a thirty-four­ year­ old ­ Morisco named Francisco L ­ uengo reportedly stated that the Ottoman sultan was g­ oing about Valencia mounted on a white h­ orse and that the king of Spain did not have the forces to contain him. Luengo also said that “the newly converted w ­ ere Muslims (que eran moros los nuevos convertidos),” and had always lived as such, and that it would have been better to have never been baptized, b­ ecause they would not be subject to the Inquisition, which “make[s] us do what we w ­ ouldn’t do 74 if we w ­ ere not baptized.” The conviction that they would receive Ottoman help was echoed by many Moriscos, including one thirty-­two-­year-­old named Alexandre Mecot, who claimed that some letters from the Ottoman sultan had been read in his h­ ouse with other Moriscos, and that one letter encouraged them to be in good spirits “­because all the sufferings they would endure would be small, because ­ their hardships would bring freedom (que todo el travajo que avian de padecer seria poco porque su falta les daria libertad),” and that they should stay confident in “the Turk (el Turco),” who would not forsake them.75 ­Until their very last days in the Iberian Peninsula, the Moriscos never 72. ​AHN, Inq. Zaragoza, Lib. 991, f. 157v: “Isabel de Quellar nueba conbertida vezina de Xelssá de 26 años hiço información ante el Regente deste reino para no yr con los demas moriscos de la expulsion de que habia vivido como buena xpiana y en virtud de la tal ynformacion el vissorey la dio liçencia para que se quedasse y despues fue testificada que vivia como mora y haçia rictos y çeremonias de la seta de Mahoma en compañia de otros de su casta y generación. fue presa y confesso en la primera audiencia que havia vivido como mora y hecho rictos y çeremonias de la secta de Mahoma desde que hera de hedad de seys años asta que fue presa por el Sto. oficio y pidio ser reconsiliada y dijo que todos los moriscos de su lugar vivian como moros y publicamente deçian quando fueron expelidos que havian de bolber a matar a los Xpanos viejos con tanta brevedad que allarian ençendido el fuego que dejaban en sus casas y que antes que se hiçiesse el pregon de la expulsion abian ayunado hombres y mujeres y niños doçe dias no comiendo en todo el dia asta salida la estrella para que Dios los salbasse y trujesse al turco con su Armada para socorrerlos y que se juntavan de noche en las cassas del consejo a haçer çeremonias de Moros y se animavan vnos a otros que tubiesen buen animo y esperanças seguras que con breuedad bolberian a cobrar sus casas y atomar bengança de los xpanos.” 73. ​AHN, Inq. Lib. 991, f. 15v. 74. ​Ibid., f. 39r. 75. ​Ibid. ff. 54v–55r. For similar confessions, see AHN, Inq. Lib. 991, ff. 47v, 69r, 69v, 70v, 73v, 95v, 96r, 141r.



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gave up hope of receiving help from the Ottomans, the North Africans, or the French. In the insurrection plans of the second half of the sixteenth c­ entury, the Moriscos ­were not only convinced that the Ottomans and French Protestants would come to their aid, as their prophecies promised; they also directly invoked prophecies when addressing the two Mediterranean powers. One of the defining features of the persuasive power of prophecy as a medium for diplomacy is its versatility as a discourse that can be at once local and global, communal and universal—in other words, its capacity to be directed both internally and externally. When directed internally, prophecy was a discourse that called on the Morisco population to actively resist the pro­cess of conversion and assimilation to which they ­were subjected. Prophecies ­were invoked most often in the context of social mobilization, and they offered an alternative model for Moriscos to challenge the existing order and proj­ect onto the near f­ uture their desire for the reconstruction of their society on a novel pattern: at times this sought the reestablishment of Islamic rule in the Peninsula and at other times it expressed the Moriscos’ desire to be allowed to “live by their own law.” Prophecies ­were capable of shaping Morisco society and of (re-)creating a community, a community of believers in Islam.76 Furthermore, prophetic discourse made the appeal to a non-­Muslim external power, such as the French monarch, palatable for Moriscos, and it provided divine sanction for the necessary—albeit ­ questionable—recourse ­ to assistance from outside the ­imagined religious community. A rather dif­fer­ent but equally impor­tant manifestation of the persuasive power of prophecy was its capacity to be directed outside the Morisco community. As the Morisco letters to the Ottomans and French suggest, prophecy served as a diplomatic language for Moriscos attempting to secure external mediation and mobilization. ­These discrete internal and external dimensions regarding prophecy among Moriscos notwithstanding, the Moriscos’ deployment and circulation of apocalyptic prognostications in the context of rebellion points to a more intertwined understanding of the logic of prophecy as a religious and a po­liti­cal discourse. The presence of prophecy in their diplomatic negotiations implies that the Moriscos believed that the language of prophecy was mutually intelligible to t­ hose of other religious faiths. This was pos­si­ble b­ ecause prophecy was a common feature of social life and po­liti­cal culture, from Iberia to Central Asia. What is most remarkable about the early modern period is the extent 76. ​­Here I draw from Bruce Lincoln’s idea of discourse as capable of mobilizing “novel social formations by evoking previously latent sentiments of affinity.” Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 174.

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to which rulers and ruled alike resorted to an apocalyptic and prophetic discourse and worldview to navigate the uncertainties of their time. Apocalyptic discourse served, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam has pointed out, as the symbolic and ideological basis of empire building.77 The Moriscos w ­ ere aware of this fact, and they attempted to use it to their advantage. In their diplomatic dealings with power­ful Mediterranean actors, the Moriscos placed themselves at the center of that imperial competition, thus casting themselves as the vanguard in the final b­ attle of the End Times.

77. ​See Subrahmanyam, “Turning the Stones Over.”

Epilogue

This book has traced a distinctly apocalyptic narrative of Morisco history as it was lived and experienced by crypto-­Muslim Moriscos throughout the sixteenth ­century. It has shown that many Moriscos articulated their po­liti­cal aspirations in the form of apocalyptic prophecies that promised a po­liti­cal victory of Islam in Iberia, and within the framework of a divinely ordained and impending end of time. Apocalyptic expectations ­were pre­sent in Iberia among Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike throughout the m ­ iddle ages, but it was particularly from the fall of Granada in 1492 (which signified the effective end of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula) and the Spanish Muslims’ forced conversion to Catholicism between 1501 and 1526, that this apocalyptic paradigm took force and became central to the identity and politics of a significant number of Moriscos. In their interpretation, the conquest of Granada was seen as a cataclysmic event.1 Reflecting on the event some de­cades l­ater, a young Morisco author known as Mancebo de Arévalo wrote that with the conquest of Granada the Iberian Muslims had “ended up in the hands of the enemies” b­ ecause of “their sins.” To him, “it

1. ​For a discussion of apocalyptic prophecies favorable to the Catholic Monarchs produced by Muslim converts to Catholicism in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, see Eulàlia Durán, “La cort reial com a centre de propaganda monàrquica: La participació morisca en l’exaltació messiànica dels reis católics,” Pedralbes: Revista d’història moderna 13, no. 2 (1993): 505–14. 237

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was very clear that it was a celestial punishment.”2 Following the subsequent pro­cess of forced conversion, this providentialist interpretation was expressed explic­itly in several apocalyptic jofores. One of them reads: “when the wheel of fifteen hundred and one [1501] turns, then the ­people of Spain ­will be so afflicted and so cursed that they w ­ ill not know where to go nor what w ­ ill happen to 3 them.” Many of those ­ who steadfastly held to the faith of their ancestors, practicing it in secret, contested the trauma of conversion, acculturation, and persecution, by deploying prophecies like this one, that presented a f­uture in which the Iberian Peninsula would once again be ruled by Muslims. Yet, as it is well known, the conclusion of this “divinely ordained” history was not the restoration of Islam in the Peninsula. The rebellions and the seditious plots w ­ ere e­ ither crushed by the royal armies or disrupted by the inquisitors. Neither the Ottoman fleet nor the French or Protestant armies ever arrive in their support, as their prophecies promised. On the contrary, alarmed by the rumors of crypto-­Muslim conspiracies, and in an attempt to distract the public’s attention from an unpop­ul­ar truce with the Dutch, in 1609 Philip III decreed the expulsion of the Morisco population of Valencia, and l­ater from the rest of the Spanish kingdoms, from their ancestral homeland. Between 1609 and 1611, the royal government transferred and displaced between 300,000 and 500,000 baptized Spaniards of Muslim descent, whose final destinations w ­ ere the lands surrounding the Mediterranean basin. All in all, the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain remains one of the greatest human ­ tragedies of the early modern Mediterranean. As discussed throughout this book, e­ very major event of their history as a community in the Iberian Peninsula acquired meaning for the Moriscos only when understood as part of a divine plan. How did they react to this trauma, a­ fter almost a c­ entury of dreaming about apocalyptic deliverance? As a conclusion to this book, and as a way of testing the enduring power of the kind of providentialism that has been its main focus, this epilogue analyzes several narratives in which Moriscos continue to view their expulsion as one of the major events in the history of humanity. As we s­ hall see, t­ here was a shift in the way Moriscos understood and wrote about this final episode in their history. Reflecting upon their experience of banishment from Iberian soil, the attitude of Moriscos writing from exile was not one of mere resignation; rather, they understood the expulsion as an affirmation of divine predilection. Philip III’s resolution to expel the Moriscos of Valencia was met with acts of re­sis­tance, yet not by all. Some ­were certainly willing to defend their com2. ​Narváez Córdova, Tratado [Tafsira] Mancebo de Arévalo, 311. 3. ​BnF Ms. 774, f. 290r. See appendix VI.

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munities and land with their own lives, as they had done for more than a c­ entury. O ­ thers saw the catastrophe as part of God’s plan. The chronicler of Valencia Gaspar Escolano captured a riveting speech purportedly delivered by a Morisco alfaquí. While Spanish writers like Escolano interpreted Morisco apocalypticism as a sign of heresy and apostasy, they also cast light on the ways the Moriscos themselves viewed this trying moment for their communities. When the time came for the Moriscos to decide ­whether they should fight till the b­ itter end or embark on the road to exile, an alfaquí of Alberique, Valencia, purportedly delivered this incisive message to his coreligionists: “You know well, my f­amily and companions, that our Qurʾān forbids us from resisting the fate that God has reserved for us: and without a doubt, ours is to be taken to the lands of North Africa, where we can better serve Him [God] without guise, as [we do] in Spain.”4 The alfaquí warned the Valencian Moriscos against getting involved in an uprising which, according to him, would be to go “against fate and against God’s ­will.” ­After explaining the current situation with King Philip III, the alfaquí concluded his message by saying: “What are we stalling for, if h­ ere defeat is forced, and t­here, in the lands to which our Prophet calls us, victory is guaranteed? They are taking us to a land flowing with milk and honey: let us follow the lots that have been drawn and let us leave from this captivity in which they hold our bodies and our souls.”5 Indeed, the Qurʾān provides ample evidence to believers that every­thing is predetermined according to God’s w ­ ill and encourages the faithful to place their trust in God.6 Although the Moriscos w ­ ere disadvantaged to the point of defeat, the alfaquí encouraged his coreligionists not to lose hope, and, more impor­tantly, to trust in God and His plan for them. This reminds us of the idea of forbearance (ṣabr) pre­sent in the martyrdom discourses in Aljamiado lit­er­ a­ture discussed in chapters 2 and 4. The alfaquí’s speech further stresses the inevitability of providence. The Moriscos listening to this address could also take comfort in his words, which echoed the Qurʾānic injunction in Sūra 5 (The ­Table): “O you who believe, remember God’s blessing to you when a ­people intended to stretch their hands ­towards you. He restrained their hands from you. So fear God. Let the believers put their trust in God.”7 Yet while God protects his people ­ against their enemies, believers should never go against his ­will and should fear him.

4. ​Escolano, Segunda parte, 1877–79, my translation. 5. ​Ibid. 6. ​For more on the idea of forbearance and trust in God, see Scott C. Alexander, “Trust and Patience,” EQ, 5:378–85. 7. ​Sūra 5 (The­Table):11.

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The alfaquí concluded his address to the Moriscos of Valencia in a tone that struck a strong eschatological resonance. He called on his fellow Moriscos not to resist God’s plan, assuring them that the Prophet Muḥammad was calling them to go to the lands of Islam where they would be rewarded for following the divine w ­ ill. By comparing North Africa to the paradisiacal garden with flowing rivers of milk and honey, the alfaquí made his strongest and final statement. By alluding to the sacred geography of paradise, the abode of the souls of the righ­teous a­ fter death, the spiritual leader was equating the expulsion of the Moriscos with Judgment Day, and the Moriscos as God’s chosen ­people who would reap the rewards of their obedience to God. ­After having suffered abuses by their enemies, their bodies and souls would be liberated from captivity, and they would inhabit the land of the virtuous, the paradise reserved for ­those who have patience and act according to God’s ­will. The journey to the Moriscos’ Promised Land was not without its perils, however. Countless ­were robbed at sea and thrown overboard by ruthless seamen, many died of hunger, and o­ thers w ­ ere mistreated upon reaching the 8 coast of North Africa. A gripping testimony is preserved in a letter of an exiled Morisco to a Christian neighbor in Spain. This letter was published by the apologist of the expulsion Marcos de Guadalajara in 1613. While its veracity is difficult to ascertain, most of its ele­ments are reproduced in other Morisco sources, and therefore it is worth discussing ­here. The letter was purportedly written by a Granadan Morisco named licenciado Molina, whose honorific indicates that he had completed higher education. Molina wrote on July 25, 1611, merely a year ­after the Moriscos of the Kingdom of Castile had been banished from their lands. In his letter he purportedly narrated to an Old Christian friend and patron the adventures and misfortunes of his expulsion from Spain.9 The Morisco recounted that, after ­ being forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula through the port of Cartagena, he and other Moriscos from Extremadura landed in Marseilles, where they had initially been well received by French authorities before being taken to be spies of the king of Spain and brutally attacked and robbed. Seeing the ill treatment that they had received in France, the Moriscos determined to go to Leghorn, where they discovered that the Italians only wanted to exploit them by forcing them to work the land. 8. ​We find similar descriptions of vexations suffered by Jews during their expulsion in 1492 in several Jewish narratives. See Joseph Ha-­Kohen, The Vale of Tears. (Emek Habacha), trans., David Luzzatto and Harry S. May (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972); Joseph Ha-­Kohen, The Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph Ben Joshua Ben Meir, the Sphardi, trans. Friedrich Bialloblotzky, (London: Published for the Oriental Translation Fund of ­Great Britain and Ireland by R. Bentley, 1835). I thank John J. Martin for pointing out the striking parallels in the Morisco and Jewish accounts. 9. ​The expulsion decree of the Moriscos of Castile was proclaimed on July 10, 1610.

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They once again embarked on an ominous journey, this time to Muslim lands. Molina was one of the fortunate ones who did not die at sea and managed to reach Algiers. He recalled that on his arrival in the North African city, he consulted some prophecies that spoke about the Moriscos’ ­bitter fate. He described them to his friend in the following manner: Do not think that it has been the hand of the king of Spain that has banished us from his land, for it has been Divine inspiration,­because­here I have seen prognostications that are more than a thousand years old, which mention what has happened to us and what will ­ happen, and that God would take us out of that land, and for this God would place [the idea] in the heart of the king and his counselors, and that a large number of us would die at sea and by land: in sum, every­thing that has happened to us. But God would bear in mind the slightest affront, and He would send a king who would conquer the w ­ hole world with only the Word of God, against whom no wall or artillery would be effective. And I saw another prognostication by an astrologer from Valencia, which has been brought from ­there this year.10 This Morisco concluded his heartfelt letter from exile by encouraging his Christian friend to read the prophecies of St. Isidore of Seville, which according to him also predicted the apocalyptic event of the expulsion. Just like the alfaquí of Valencia, in his moving testimony the Granadan Morisco described the expulsion as part of God’s plan: He had saved the Granadan Morisco and his coreligionists from having to continue living in the land of the infidels, leading them to Muslim lands where they could be f­ree to live by the religion of their forefathers. Also like the alfaquí, for Molina even the most dire hardships endured by the Moriscos should be understood as part of God’s plan. This reminds us of the jofor transmitted by a certain ʿAlī ibn Jābir al-­Fārisī that stated Christians would burn the Muslim’s mosques and turn them into Churches, but that then God would “move the hearts of the Muslim kings,” and the Ottomans would come with countless ships to the aid of their brethren, resulting in the return of “al-­dīn (religion) of al-­Islām” in Sicily, Majorca, Ibiza, and the Peninsula.11 Similarly, for licenciado Molina, because ­ God was merciful and compassionate He would send a messianic king, a Mahdī, to avenge the injustices committed against His community. As God’s chosen p­ eople, the Moriscos appear in this prophetic vision at the center of the unfolding of 10. ​Guadalajara y Javier, Prodicion y destierro delos moriscos de Castilla, hasta el valle de Ricote (Pamplona, Nicolas de Assiayn, 1614), ch. 12. My translation and emphasis. 11. ​BnF Ms. 774, f. 283r.

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the history of mankind. In ­these final events that presaged the destruction of the last Iberian Muslims, prophecy offered a means for expressing an alternate real­ity: the expulsion understood not as a defeat, but as a key event in providential history. Together, the alfaquí’s speech and Molina’s letter to his friend, two sources preserved and disseminated in Christian chronicles, suggest that during their expulsion some Moriscos continued to interpret their history within an apocalyptic paradigm, and thus the event of the expulsion was seen as an event that signaled the End Times. While Molina’s testimony is close to the Morisco understanding and uses of prophecy while living in the Iberian Peninsula, the alfaquí’s message to his coreligionists suggests a competing understanding of the events that would take place at the End Times. For him the Apocalypse no longer signaled the restoration of Islam in the Peninsula, but rather the Moriscos’ deliverance in Muslim lands. As we ­shall see, other Morisco sources suggest a paradigm shift from an apocalyptic-­prophetic mode, to a providentialist interpretation of their pre­sent. I ­will return to this idea shortly. For now, let us analyze the idea of the expulsion as divine inspiration. The notion that God had inspired the king consistently appears in Christian sources, and almost always in the mouth of a Morisco. Let us recall the words of the Morisco Ricote to his neighbor Sancho in the second part of Don Quijote, when he declares, “It seems to me it was divine inspiration that moved His Majesty to put into effect so noble a resolution.”12 Cervantes was a keen observer of his society, and was surely aware of providentialist explanations for the expulsion. Interestingly, King Philip III himself expressed this very idea in a letter to his ambassador in Rome. The expulsion of baptized Christians and their banishment to the lands of “infidels” was a contested issue in Eu­ rope. As if attempting to convince Pope Paul V not only of the necessity of the enterprise of the expulsion, but also of its legitimacy, the king wrote on September 16, 1614, that “wise and venerable” persons had agreed to the expulsion because ­ the Moriscos “secretly followed the sect and law of Muḥammad, they established frequent intelligence with the Moors of North Africa, and they conspired to rebel.”13 This was, of course, the justification put forth in his expulsion decree. But what is remarkable about this letter is that in his attempt to win over the hearts of the papal court in the face of 12. ​Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, eds. Florencio Sevilla Arroyo and Antonio Rey Hazas (Alcalá de Henares: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos, 1993), pt. 2, ch. 54, my translation. 13.  ​For a recent analysis ­ of the relations between the Spanish monarchy and the papacy surrounding the expulsion of the Moriscos, see Stefania Pastore, “Rome and the Expulsion,” in García-­ Arenal and Wiegers, Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, 132–55.

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mounting criticism Philip III stated, “It was Divine Providence that powerfully assisted and illuminated me, and gave me the resolve to execute it.”14 Not only did the king himself use a providentialist discourse for diplomatic and po­liti­cal purposes; the very same chroniclers of the expulsion who placed this providentialist explanation in the mouths of Moriscos also cited prophecies of Joachim de Fiore and St. Isidore to cast the king in a messianic light.15 Yet Philip III was not the only Iberian king who claimed divine inspiration when justifying the banishment of his subjects. A ­ fter the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, Isabel I of Castile explained the decision in similar terms to a group of prominent Jews. According to an anonymous Hebrew source written scarcely three years a­ fter the expulsion, the queen had said: “Do you believe that this comes upon you from us? The Lord hath put this t­ hing into the heart of the king.”16 The anonymous writer noted that the queen was most likely inspired by Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is a stream of ­water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he w ­ ill.”17 The Spanish monarchs’ invocation of divine intervention to justify controversial decisions is certainly a reflection of a providentialist mode in early modern Spanish politi ­ cal ­ culture.18 Similar providentialist responses to exile and expulsion among Christians, Muslims, and Jews highlight a shared understanding of history, and a common intellectual, religious, and po­liti­cal language between all three religious groups in the context of the early modern Mediterranean. We have hitherto examined this providentialist explanation of the expulsion through Christian and Jewish sources. It is fitting to end this book with the voices of several Morisco refugees in North Africa that express this very sentiment. In his Kitāb Nāṣir al-­dīn ʿalā al-­qawm al-­kāfirīn (The Supporter of Religion against the Infidel, ca. 1637), 14. ​Cited by Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión, 2:399. 15.  ​For an analysis ­ of the expulsion treatises and the uses of medieval prophecies to present ­ Philip III as a messianic Last World Emperor, see Grace Magnier, “Millenarian Prophecy and the Mythification of Philip III at the Time of the Expulsion of the Moriscos,” Sharq al-­Andalus 16–17 (1999–2002): 187–209. 16. ​Jacob R. Marcus, ed., The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook: 315–1791, revised edition by Marc Saperstein (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1999), 61. 17.  ​ The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New Revised Standard Version with The Apocrypha, 3rd ed., Michael D. Coogan, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 929 HB. 18. ​For religious and providentialist discourses of the Spanish Monarchy see for example Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, “Iglesia y configuración del poder en la monarquía católica (siglos XV–­XVII). Algunas consideraciones,” in Etat et Eglise dans la genèse de l’Etat moderne, eds., Jean-­Philippe Genet and Bernard Vincent (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 1986), 209–16; José María Iñurritegui Rodríguez,  La gracia y la república. El lenguaje político de la teología católica y el “Príncipe cristiano” de Pedro de Ribadeneyra (Madrid: UNED, 1998); María del Pilar Manero Sorolla, “Sor María Jesús de Ágreda y el providencialismo político de la Casa de Austria,” in La creatividad femenina en el mundo del barroco hispánico: María de Zayas, Isabel Rebeca Correa, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, eds., M. Bosse, B. Potthast, A. Stoll, Vol. 1, (Kassel: Ed. Reichenberger, 1999), 105–26.

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Aḥmad b. Qāsim al-­Ḥajarī chronicles his diplomatic travels through several Eu­ ropean ­ cities as envoy of the Saʿdī sultan Mawlāy Zaydān Abū Maʿālī, in charge of negotiating the release of Morisco prisoners ­after the expulsion. Reflecting on his condition of being a Morisco forced to emigrate, al-­Ḥajarī described his experience in the following manner: One of the blessings that Exalted God bestowed upon me was that He made me a Muslim in the land of infidels, ever since I was aware of myself, through my blessed parents—may ­ the Exalted God have mercy upon them—­and their guidance. God had created in my heart a longing to leave the lands of al-Andalus ­ in order to emigrate to the Exalted God and His messenger and to enter the land of the Muslims. God realized [this] purpose and [fulfilled this] wish and brought me to the City of Marrakesh in Morocco. Twelve years l­ater the Exalted God released the Muslim Andalusians who were ­ [still] living in [al- ­ Andalus] under ­ the oppression and injustice of the Christians, when the Sultan of the country called Philip III, ordered all of them to leave his country. For al-­Ḥajarī, as for his coreligionists in Valencia and exiled in Algiers, the expulsion had been an act of God, and it was understood as a liberation from captivity. Al-­Ḥajarī had been able to leave the Iberian Peninsula years before the expulsion, though, as he explains, not entirely of his own ­free ­will. Rather, God Himself had moved his heart to emigrate, just as God had also placed the idea of expulsion in the heart of the Christian king in order to liberate His ­people.19 Like al-­Ḥajarī, another Morisco exile, this time writing in Tunis, interpreted the expulsion as a divine act. In his 1635 account of the Morisco expulsion titled al-­Anwār al-­Nabawiyya fī Ābāʾ Khayr al-­Barīya (The Lights of Prophethood in the Ancestors of the Most Noble of the Created Beings), Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ b. Muḥammad al-­Andalusī narrated his personal story as a child living in the Iberian Peninsula, where he attended Christian school during the day and his f­ather taught him the Arabic language and Islamic religious princi­ples in the eve­nings. He lamented the ill treatment that the Moriscos had received by some of their Muslim ­brothers in North Africa, who saw them as bad Muslims by virtue of having lived among infidel Christians for such an extended period. Like al-­Ḥajarī, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ described the pro­cess of fleeing the Peninsula before the 1609 expulsion as God 19. ​Aḥmad b. Qāsim al-­Ḥajarī, Kitāb Nāṣir al-­dīn ʿalā’l-­qawm al-­kāfirīn [The supporter of religion against the infidel], eds., P. S. Van Koningsveld, Q. al-­Samarrai, and G. A. Wiegers (Madrid: CSIC, 1997), 61–62.

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having “inspired [their] hearts to flee.”20 But his discussion of the expulsion is more dramatic, and it mirrors the descriptions offered in all the sources analyzed up to now. Thus, he wrote, “This is ­g reat mercy and an evident benevolence from our generous God, who changed the hearts of the ­enemy, and effected this g­ reat protection by His bounty, almighty and praiseworthy.” The expulsion of the Moriscos is thus understood as a manifestation of divine compassion and kindness ­toward his ­people. Elaborating on the idea of the Moriscos’ privileged position in God’s eyes, which merited His compassion and protection, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ continued: “It cannot be denied that this is a ­g reat ­matter above the usual. For we had been in ­g reat exigency in our religion, livelihood, and wealth. Praise be to the God of the heavens and the earth who, if He decides on an action, says, ‘Be,’ and it is. What a marvel [this action was] and how g­ reat the blessing and how glorious this benediction and how beautiful and ­g rand his grace! For nothing like this action had been heard of from the beginning of the world till its end. T ­ here is no doubt that the liberation was the benevolence to all the prophets and messengers, on them all His prayer and peace.” In Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ’s account, the Moriscos are placed at the center of providential history, and their plight and liberation are singular in the history of humanity. More impor­tantly, God’s benevolence t­oward the Moriscos can be understood only as a reward for their continued loyalty and allegiance to His religion.21 The providentialist interpretation of the expulsion is also captured in a text written by an anonymous Morisco author, also living in Tunis, titled Tratado de los dos caminos (Treatise of the Two Paths). In a power­ful account of the expulsion, this Morisco refugee gives thanks to God, “who took us out from among t­hose heretical Christians, and from seeing the heresies that we witnessed each day, and e­ very day hatred grew in their hearts.” He then begins to narrate the terrifying conditions Moriscos endured in the jails of the Inquisition, where they ­were left in “a dark cell, as dark as their ill intentions, where for following the truth they would be left ­there for many years, while they [the inquisitors] consumed their property that they l­ater sequestered.”22 He states that day and night the Moriscos prayed to their lord that He “would take us

20. ​Translated in Nabil Matar, Eu­rope through Arab Eyes, 1578–1717 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 197. For a full translation into Spanish of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ’s text, see Lotfi Aïssa, Mouhamed Aouini, and Houssem Eddine Chachia, eds., Entre las orillas de dos mundos. El itinerario del jerife morisco Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ de Murcia a Túnez (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2017). 21. ​For analyses of this source, see Matar, Eu­rope through Arab Eyes; and Aïssa et al., Entre las orillas de dos mundos. 22.  ​ Álvaro Galmés de Fuentes, ed., Tratado de los dos caminos (Madrid: Instituto Universitario Seminario Menéndez Pidal, 2005), 202.

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out of so much tribulation and danger, and we desired to see ourselves in the land of Islam . . . ​and with this we sought out the way to leave, and all roads ­were difficult, ­until the power­ful lord, through his mercy, placed in the heart of Philip III and in ­those who ­were his counselors, [the idea] that he should banish us from his kingdom ­under pain of death; and . . . ​and He brought us to the land of Islam, praised be His divine greatness.”23 This anonymous account of the journey is far more positive than the other accounts presented thus far, perhaps in an attempt to underscore the significance of divine intervention in the ­whole enterprise, for as the author ­later states: This w ­ hole account, dear friends and b­ rothers, I have brought in order to explain that our having come to Islam has been a miraculous deed of God, b­ ecause [when we did not] pay attention to His power and w ­ ill, we saw the difficulties in our attempts to flee; for He facilitated it by a not so easy path, [but] t­here is no doubt that we are favored by His divine greatness, as w ­ ere the c­ hildren of Israel, and they, having saintly prophets before them, and us, just by being [part of] his blessed umma of his dearest, [it] was enough to give us the mercy and niʿma (blessing) [that] He gave us; and thus we, who witnessed it, have a g­ reat obligation of being grateful night and day; and ­those who ­didn’t see it, ­will see it too with such good information, and are even more grateful, for they w ­ ere the ones who would be most affected if they w ­ ere born t­ here [in Iberia] . . . . ​And it is advisable to have a heart firm in the greatness of God, for He took us out of so many hardships and brought us where we could publicize (publicásemos) His holy law, and He honored us with such goodness, let us trust in His mercy, which is sure sign that He has reserved for us His holy glory and repose a­ fter so many persecutions that we endured—­for He does not offer them save to His dear ones—­ and He w ­ ill permit, with divine pity, that they [their hardships] w ­ ill be discounted from the faults and sins that we commit for no reason; that seeing that every­thing comes from His hand, we w ­ ill see that, as absolute Lord and Creator of His creatures and governors, He has their hearts in His hand, and He d­ oesn’t send them to injure us, save for the disobedience that we have in committing them [the sins].24 This anonymous Morisco writer clarifies for us the Moriscos’ need to see their final catastrophe in a providentialist light. Their plight, which had befallen them ­because of past disobedience, was not in vain. Through their continued 23. ​Ibid., 206. 24. ​Ibid.

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allegiance to Islam while living in the Iberian Peninsula they ­were able to purge their sins and ­those of their progeny. God had ultimately recognized the Moriscos as the umma that they so desperately strove to be part of, showering them with blessings, not only in this life, but also in the hereafter. Throughout their history in the Iberian Peninsula, Morisco elites and religious leaders appealed to prophecy in order to galvanize support for their proj­ ects of resisting the pro­cesses of forced conversion and acculturation imposed by the Catholic authorities. In this pro­cess, apocalyptic discourse was ultimately aimed at creating a strong Muslim community out of a fractured one. This was evident in chapter 1, when the crypto-­Muslim Moriscos of Arévalo and Toledo infused young Agustín de Ribera’s visions with a decisively Islamic message; in chapter 2, when the Morisco elites attempted to draw adherents to their cause by citing prophecies during the rebellion in the Alpujarras; and in the conspiracies of Aragon and Valencia of the post-­Alpujarras period discussed in chapters 3 to 6. The po­liti­cal theology pre­sent in Morisco apocalyptic narratives, through which this fractured Morisco community would be reconstituted, or constructed anew, included as its cornerstone the restoration of Islamic po­liti­cal rule in the Iberian Peninsula. The prophecies mentioned by Agustín, the Granadan Moriscos’ revival of Umayyad rule, and the Morisco calls for an Ottoman military intervention ­were all framed within an eschatological schema of loss and restoration; a schema that fits seamlessly into a medieval Iberian apocalyptic framework. The apocalyptic temporal framework operating for t­ hese Moriscos was what Bruce Lincoln has recently called “recursive”; that is, it includes “a highly valorized past understood to have been catastrophically reversed in the present, ­ but soon to be restored.”25 This framework was elaborated by the Morisco elites to reverse their pre­sent situation of displacement by alluding to a mythical or idealized past that was inflected by the interests of t­hose very elites deploying them. In the hands of the non-­elites, however, this apocalyptic framework could become progressive, or revolutionary, whereby “the oppressive pre­sent and its reversal in the near f­uture could be accomplished not through a gradual pro­cess of evolution and reform, but rather by radical, violent, and/or super­natural leap.”26

25. ​Bruce Lincoln, Apples and Oranges. Explorations in, on, and with Comparison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 140. 26. ​Ibid. In a response article to several reviews of his book Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), which might also be read as a semiautobiographical reflection on his intellectual trajectory, Bruce Lincoln recalls that religious discourses, which he considers to be conservative in nature, pre­sent a mythic past as the sacred ideal t­ oward which t­ hose in the pre­sent should aspire. Conversely, he observes that millenarian visions and messianic claims can be understood as radical attempts to change the estab-

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Yet when the po­liti­cal proj­ect of t­hese Moriscos ultimately failed, ending in their banishment from their lands, Moriscos did not resort to their usual apocalyptic prophecies that promised a politi ­ cal ­ change in the present ­ and the ­future. They seem to have turned to a providentialist paradigm where the pre­ sent could only be understood as the fulfillment of divine ­will, which implied the abandonment of any form of po­liti­cal action other than obedience. The expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula, thus, represented a new chapter in the history of the Morisco community that required a dif­fer­ent understanding of history and a new response to their new situation. What, then, w ­ ere the implications of this shift in the Moriscos’ understanding of the unfolding of history? In this new schema, not only was the End Times unknown, but the pre­sent was to be accepted without re­sis­tance. This providentialist reading of history (now devoid of its previous apocalyptic content) invited what would at first glance seem as a quietist stance vis-­à-­vis Spanish Christians. We know, however, that ­after their expulsion many Moriscos actively engaged in corsairing activities in the Spanish coasts, and that they continued to harbor hopes of a reconquest of the Peninsula.27 Yet for t­ hese Moriscos writing from exile, this new reading of history elicited sentiments of belonging not only to the broader Muslim community of believers but to a separate group from among God’s ­people. The mobilizing power of prophecy did not have the same function in the new context of the Dār al-­Islām, but the Moriscos’ providentialist filter allowed them to recognize themselves as dif­fer­ent from their brethren in North Africa. They spoke a dif­fer­ent language, they ­were attached to a dif­fer­ent land, they had been forced to convert to Catholicism, and they had lived ­under the watchful eye of the Inquisition. Providence guaranteed to them that they ­were a dif­fer­ent kind of Muslim: they ­were Spanish Muslims whose suffering would be rewarded with paradise at the End of Times.

lished sociopo­liti­cal order. See Bruce Lincoln, “Reflections on the Reflections of Messrs. Junginger, Arvidsson, Albinus, and Ullucci,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 25 (2013): 210. 27. ​For a recent treatment of the subject see for example Mercedes García-­Arenal, “The Moriscos in Morocco: From Granadan Emigration to the Hornacheros of Salé,” in The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain. A Mediterranean Diaspora, 286–328.

Appendix A

First Prognostication of the War of Granada

In the name of God, the Merciful, Compassionate. This is a divine meter that my lord Zayd el Guarguali (may God forgive him!) composed, and it says: “Oh how long have I awaited for what was promised in the prophecies concerning what the true Prophet promised, and God has provided! Which was revealed to him not in the tongue of the p­ eople, and He declared it [to the Prophet], and not a single letter of the providence of our good God w ­ ill be missing: and it w ­ ill be as he says it. I want to speak of the ninth generation, on behalf of whom the legislator [Muḥammad] pleaded many times for God to have mercy [on them], and whose prayer God listed to and has appeared. Oh [honored] men! I want to specify what the Prophet divined about the

The following appendices are close translations of all extant jofores. Note the cryptic, archaic, and convoluted language in the texts, which is consistent with other apocalyptic prophecies. My translation of the prognostication that was published by Luis del Mármol Carvajal, Historia de rebelión y castigo de los moriscos del reino de Granada. H ­ ere I follow Javier Castillo Fernández’s edition of the text (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2015), which is the most recent; see chap. 3. Mármol Carvajal states that this prognostication was found among some books in Arabic in the possession of the Holy Office of the Inquisition of the city of Granada. The three jofores he included in his chronicle w ­ ere translated from the Arabic by the Morisco interpreter Alonso del Castillo in 1575, ­under the title Sumario é recopilacion de todo lo romançado por mí el Licenciado Alonso del Castillo, romançador del Santo Oficio. This was published in Memorial Histórico Español, vol. 3 (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1852), 80–86. 249

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island locked between the seas,1 which is the island of the Spaniard, whose judgment has been revealed in his [Muḥammad] sayings, and in the sayings of prophets and men [of authority], every­thing written down marvelously by means of ancient divination; which has followed the Law, and ʿAlī’s sayings,2 who declared what would take place u­ ntil now. And they have all agreed,3 and it seems to be what Odeyfa4 announced, and what was divulged through him. Likewise, it can be read on the authority of Zahabe5 and Daniel, b­ ecause t­here is no doubt about what ʿAlī said. Every­one gives him credit, and g­ reat deeds have been read through him, which have taken place as he said. Speaking about the West and Andalusia in his prophecies he said that, without a doubt the unbelievers would possess it, and verily it has taken place, and every­one has seen it, both t­ hose of sound judgment and t­ hose who foresee the t­hings to come. For in the year ninety-­six it [Andalusia] w ­ ill be conquered in its entirety, and all its cities w ­ ill be populated, and in them a prince ­will rise, and before this begins, with the agreement of the ­people, all the citizens w ­ ill populate the countryside and they w ­ ill sow the earth, and the moment w ­ ill be when a comet appears announcing righ­teousness and liberty. Commotions ­will be appeased, and the ones from Mecca ­will emerge, and the e­ nemy of the cruel w ­ ill come from the lands of Haraje,6 which are in the east, in the Kingdoms of Yemen.7 And [he] w ­ ill conquer the lands of Ceuta, Alcázar, and Tangiers, and the lands of the Blacks. And he ­will descend in the West with ­g reat armies of Turks, and [he] ­will conquer its inhabitants, unjust and infidel lords who worship many gods. And the ­whole kingdom [of Granada] ­will return to the control of the ­house of the Messenger of God, and the law 1. ​Since the time of al-­Andalus, the Iberian Peninsula has always been referred to as “the Island” (al-­jazīra) or “the green island” (al-­jazīrat­al-­khaḍrāʾ). 2.  ​ ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, cousin and son-­in-­law of Muḥammad. 3. ​The text reads “E todos lo han entendido” (lit. “And they have all understood it”). Del Castillo, Sumario é recopilacion, 3:81. 4. ​Prob­ably Hudhayfah Ibn Ḥusayl, companion of the Prophet ­under whose authority numerous ḥadīths have been transmitted. He died in the year 656 C.E. and was buried in Medina. The text h­ ere refers to the fact that he was the ṣāḥib al-­sirr al-­maknūn (the possessor of the concealed secret), a title which he acquired a­ fter the Prophet is reported to have shared with him his secret knowledge on the hypocrites among his community and on the f­ uture events of sedition (fitna) in his community. See Ibn al-ʿImād, ­ Shadharāt al-dhahab ­ fī akhbār man dhahab, edited by ʿAbd al-­Qādir al-­Arnāʾūṭ and Maḥmūd al-­Arnāʾūṭ (Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1986), I/209. 5. ​The Memorial Histórico Español edition of Del Castillo’s manuscript proposes the possibility that Cahbe refers to a certain Caab al-­Ahbar, “an anonymous book that contains many fables and tall tales about Muḥammad and his companions.” Castillo, Sumario é recopilacion, 3:81, fn. 1. However, Mármol Carvajal’s edition of the same jofor reads “Zahabe.” The text is most likely referring to the Damascene historian al-­Dhahabī (d. 1342). 6. ​The Memorial Histórico Español edition states that “Harage” should read “Hazag” (Ḥijāz). Castillo, Sumario é recopilacion, 82, fn. 2. 7. ​The text reads “Yamema.”



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w ­ ill be exalted. And the generation of t­ hose who worship only one God w ­ ill possess Gibraltar, which was theirs in origin and point of entry, and to them it ­shall return. And on the tenth succession our joy ­will be fulfilled, and what­ ever difficulties t­ here are left in it w ­ ill be for the Jews. G ­ reat misfortunes w ­ ill come to the cursed Jewish caste and to ­those who adore images, and ­there ­will be g­ reat mysteries in the West, and in the lands of the Cinh in the east,8 and in the lands of Azasate,9 and with victory and exaltation all scandal w ­ ill be removed. From Tadmor,10 which is the lands of the east, and from the province of Xem11 the conqueror w ­ ill come to the Fortress of the Maidens,12 and g­ reat captains of the Berbers w ­ ill come with him, the Xerife [Sharīf], Eydar, Zayde the dark-­skinned, Yahya el Farid, and Abdul Çelem, who, with his naked arm, ­will show himself to all the ­people. And Granada’s punishment ­will be an admirable feat, ­because in the commotion and war, their ­houses ­will be destroyed b­ ecause of the misdeeds that w ­ ill be done against her [Granada] due to lies and deception, u ­ ntil the generation of the natives reaches the point of death, at the command of the unbelievers. And when wine takes over the judgment of the rulers, then they w ­ ill call for the destruction of villages,13 a­ fter which all the p­ eople w ­ ill abide by making peace. And in this peacemaking, large towns and fortresses w ­ ill be lost due to treason. And in the year 92 and 93, two ­g reat communities ­will be vis­i­ble on two sides and Málaga ­will be lost completely, and it w ­ ill not be her [Málaga] alone, but rather all cities, for the loss of honor results in the loss of kingdoms, and t­ hose who are not governed by prudence are accompanied by all sadness and sorrow. Faith w ­ ill be lost in this community of p­ eople of war, and the law w ­ ill be neglected: wise men ­will come to be the laughing stock of all, and the governors ­will see to the casting out the ­people from their villages, and destroying villages, losing their tributes14 without being able to harm Africa, leaving her b­ ehind. And then, without delay a­ fter this, war w ­ ill befall the infidels, and t­ here w ­ ill be no village left standing in the Kingdom of Granada. And in the long year, discord w ­ ill grow and few w ­ ill escape difficulty and humiliation; t­ here w ­ ill be death. And await for the throne and victory in the West from the Africans, ­because what the true Prophet said must necessarily come true: p­ eople w ­ ill flee the villages, and when the disobedient son errs, travel w ­ ill be beneficial; and when 8. ​Unclear. Possibly Ṣīn (China) or Sind (India)? 9. ​In Alonso del Castillo’s Sumario é recopilacion, 82. Azafat. Possibly Safaṭ, in Jordan? 10. ​According to the Memorial Histórico Español, Palmyra. 11. ​Bilād al-­Shām, in Syria. 12. ​The text reads “Fortaleza de las Damas.” Perhaps the Torre de las Damas in the Alhambra? 13. ​The text reads “alcaría” (alquería). 14. ​The text reads “pechos.”

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God’s resolution arrives at night, instead of during the day, the sea w ­ ill be fit for ships to cross without any danger. And what God revealed has never been wrong and ­will never be wrong. The climes15 of the Christians ­will be broken by the law of the Moors [Muslims], and when the Hidden King reigns,16 they [the climes of the Christians] ­will always decrease, and the Blacks ­will come to conquer Ceuta and the lands of Murcia, and the Jews w ­ ill work the Fortress of Doves.17 The Turks w ­ ill march with their armies to Rome, and the Christians w ­ ill not escape them, except for t­ hose who w ­ ill convert to the law of the Prophet: and the rest ­will be taken as captives and killed. This turn ­will forcibly be in the West and at noon, and in the land of Blacks, and this w ­ ill take place in all the kingdoms; and conquerors w ­ ill emerge from the lands of Atibar [Tibar] against the unbelievers. And it says more: Oh mountain of Tariq (Jabal Ṭāriq, Gibraltar), your entry and conquest is the true gift! For this you should understand that neither in Ceuta nor Tangiers nor fortresses nor in any of its regions a single branch ­will remain, and they ­will all be conquered. And that in the Island of Spain and in Málaga with this turn [they] ­will till [the land] and edify, and it [­Spain] will be joyful with the law of the Moors; and that Vélez and Almuñécar will ­ be stripped of their heretic arrogance; and Córdoba ­will be rid of its sins and vices, and the callers to prayer (almuédanes, al-­muʾadhdhinūn) w ­ ill make its bell s­ ilent out of necessity, and consequently, heresy w ­ ill be expelled from Seville, and what­ever was destroyed at the time of its loss ­will be restored with the appearance of the faithful. And the prophecy of the prophet Daniel w ­ ill be fulfilled, which said that it [Seville] would be liberated a­ fter having been lost to a tyrannical king, and we have seen his exit. May it please God that what is said in it is verified! God said in His divine book: “Verily, ­haven’t you seen the Christians win all the corners of the earth, and a­ fter having been victorious be defeated soon within a few days?” This is God’s judgment, before and a­ fter the believers w ­ ere joyous in victory. He is the one who aids the one who is served, and God’s promise ­will not fail [to be fulfilled]. The first of the signs that w ­ ill be in t­hese prophecies, Oh men! It ­will be a very ­g reat sign, that a big comet ­will appear in the ­middle of the sky, which w ­ ill be very bright, and a­ fter it, the king of the Turks w ­ ill take a city with its people ­ and king. And soon after ­ he will ­ take the large island of Rhodes, which, possessed by the Moors [Muslims] perpetually, the Christians 15.  ​From the Arabic iqlīm (regions). According to Javier Castillo Fernández, in al-Andalus ­ the iqlīm w ­ ere minor districts within a region or qūra, which had a large city where a governor resided. Castillo Fernández, Historia del rebelión, 144, n. 39. 16. ​The text reads “Encorvado,” also known as Encubierto. For a discussion of this figure, see the introduction. 17. ​Fortaleza de las palomas?



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­will never again be victorious, which is one of the ­g reat signs of this. And the armies of the Christians w ­ ill come to Andalusia and that they w ­ ill think of putting an end to its inhabitants, and out of fright many ­will turn to their Law [convert to Chris­tian­ity]. But ­after this a friend of truth ­will rise among them who w ­ ill advise them to rebel with the law of God, and then the crescent of the Turks ­will come upon the Christians in ­every city, village, and fortress. And t­ here w ­ ill be three uprisings: the first one w ­ ill be out of defeat and loss; the second out of deceit and lies, ­until they bring them to the point of death and defeat; and the third out of honor and grace, and it w ­ ill be the gate and entrance to take over all cities and kingdoms. And this breaking of the Turks over the Christians ­will be so ­great that they ­will enter and conquer all its kingdoms and cities, from the Sea of Daylan (Daylam) [Caspian Sea] to the Sea of Marcad, u­ ntil t­ here remains or can be heard no memory of them, nor their weeping heard. And in this way this Island w ­ ill be lost and its p­ eople w ­ ill be conquered and it [the conquest] w ­ ill pour and descend like rain from the clouds, and any master w ­ ill be a slave. May God almighty let us see this succession, He who is the greatest Giver [of all]. And the author said more about this: “When time frightens you with enemies, and hurts your conscience and [brings] dissension [among] your friends, and fear overtakes you on all sides, be forewarned in the artifice of our God, for He w ­ ill soon come with that which you desire, [which is] liberty, and bright orbs and stars of fortune, and you w ­ ill receive messages of repose and good tidings.” Therefore, do not despair for in the secrets and mysteries of the providence of God ­there are ­g reat marvels, and if in the meantime your heart becomes undone with fear, and you do not receive the signs that you await, nor do you hear news from your friend, say, “Oh my God, grant me compassion from your hand and have mercy on me! For t­here is marvelous secret in this.” Oh! How many affairs confuse the hearts and l­ater t­here is joy and repose? And how many works, ­after becoming unbearable, have brought rest? And when the darkness of the night comes, the stars reveal themselves and bright stars appear. Therefore, trust in God and await for His grace, and joyfully receive from His hand what He has provided for you; and say, having conformed to His will: ­ I receive from You, my God, what You have ordained. My God, You are the knower of ­future­things.

Appendix B

Second Prognostication of the War of Granada

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. It can be read in the divine stories that the Messenger of God was sitting one day a­ fter the noon prayer, talking to his disciples (who are all in grace), when suddenly, ʿAlī, son of Abī Ṭālib and Fāṭima al-­Zahrāʾ (who are both also in grace), sat down with him and said: Oh, Messenger of God! Make it known to us what the world w ­ ill look like for your f­ amily at the End of Times, and how w ­ ill it end? And he [the Prophet] told them: “The world will ­ end at the time when t­here is the most perverse of peoples, ­ and then ­there ­will be a generation of my ­family in an island at the last confines of the West, which will ­ be called the island of Andalusia,1 who w ­ ill be the last inhabitants of my f­ amily [living u ­ nder] this Law [Islam], and its last succession. May God have mercy on them.” And upon saying this his eyes welled up and he said: “They are the persecuted ones, the afflicted, they are the destroyers of themselves, they are the tormented ones of whom God said: T ­ here is no place that w ­ ill not perish without Our permission.” This can be read up to the end of the sunna,2 what is written about this, which God the Sovereign My translation of the prognostication published by Luis del Mármol Carvajal in his Historia del rebellión y castigo. H ­ ere I follow Javier Castillo Fernández’s edition of the text (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2015), 147–150. See chapter 3. The italics in the text are my emphasis. 1.  ​ Jazīrat al-­Andalus. The Arabic term used to designate the Iberian Peninsula. 2. ​The original reads zuna. 254

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alludes to. And this w ­ ill be b­ ecause the p­ eople of Andalusia w ­ ill forget the t­ hings of the Law, following their passions and desires, loving the world a lot and neglecting prayers, defending alms and refusing them, and giving in solely to lechery and scandals and deaths. And ­because lying ­will grow among them, and the youth w ­ ill not revere the old, nor the adults feel sorry for the young, and the absence of reason, injustice, and false judgments w ­ ill grow among them. And merchants ­will buy and sell with usury, and with falsehood and deceit in what they sell and buy, all ­because of greed of seizing the world, and to increase and save what they have, they lie endlessly about what goods they obtain, or about w ­ hether they have obtained what they have in a licit or illicit way. And saying this his eyes swelled with tears and he cried, and we all cried with him. And then he said: “When t­hese evils appear in this generation, God Almighty ­will subject them to ­people who are more evil than them, who w ­ ill make them endure the cruelest torments, whereupon they w ­ ill ask for help to ­those among them who are the most just, but they [the most just] ­will not provide it; and God ­will send upon them [a ­people] who ­will have no mercy over the youngest, ­ nor who has any courtesy toward ­ the eldest of them, b­ ecause each s­ hall be condemned for their faults and s­ hall be punished. We have never seen usury exist in buying or selling, or cheating in mea­sures or weights, among a generation that God the Highest has not punished by giving or withholding w ­ ater over the face of the earth. And lust has not existed or extended itself among a ­people without God sending them death, and never has ­there been usury in buying and selling in a ­family, nor false oaths in ambition and arrogance, that God almighty h­ asn’t punished with wretched illnesses. Never did ­there appear in a ­family, deaths so terrible and such public hom­i­cides without God subjecting them and delivering them to the hands of their enemies; never has ­there appeared in a ­people the deeds of the ­family of Loth, which is sodomy, without God punishing them, sending them destruction and the collapse of their towns. And never did ­there appear in any ­family scant charity and mercy, and l­ittle fear of d­ oing evil, that God did not punish them by not hearing their prayers and pleadings in their tribulations and fatigues, ­because when sin appears on earth, the sovereign Lord sends due punishment from the heavens. And He does not damn anyone of my ­family ­until he sees mercy stripped away from them, and [He] does not punish his servant in this world with the greatest evil than the hardening of his [servant’s] heart. And thus, when the heart of man hardens, God damns him and does not listen, nor does He have mercy on him. When God is angriest with His servants, that is when Judgment Day w ­ ill be near, and this w ­ ill be b­ ecause of their excess in vices and their forgetfulness of good, and ­because they ­will drift away from truth.”

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[Upon saying this,] he [the Prophet] cried and said: “May God take pity on them in this island when ­these vices and sins appear among them, and [when] they stop following the Qurʾān! B­ ecause in this time, most of them, u­ nder the guise of devotion and religion, w ­ ill seek the world and dress in the hides of ­humble sheep, and their tongues ­will be sweeter than honey and sugar, but their hearts w ­ ill be t­ hose of wolves, and their deeds w ­ ill be vile and evil, and thus God w ­ ill send them punishment from all sides, and He w ­ ill not listen to their prayers b­ ecause they f­avor injustice, and the unjust harmers w ­ ill never enter into the community of my f­ amily. And he who smiles in the face of an unjust person or makes room for him to sit, or helps him [the unjust person], or ­favors him in ­doing harm, verily he ­will tear the veil of salvation from their throat. And if a king acts tyrannically in his own land and does not uphold justice among his subjects, God w ­ ill send losses in his kingdom with re­spect to bread and fruit and all other goods. And if a king reigns with truth and justice, and t­here i­s no cruelty in his kingdom and f­amily, then all good t­hings ­will increase. And thus, when in this island injustice appears among this ­people, and truth and fidelity is neglected, and pride and treachery overtake them, and they mistreat orphans and act tyrannically, and they steer away from the precepts of God the Merciful, and they obey the devil and follow vices, and they bear witness with lies and falsehood, and they kowtow to the rich, and act haughtily ­toward the poor due to the hardness of their hearts, and their arrogance and speech is sweet and their deeds b­ itter, then God w ­ ill send His punishment.” And upon saying this, he cried again and said: “By the mercy of God and the greatness of His names, if it ­wasn’t for ­these words of the creed, that­there is no god but God and that I, Muḥammad, am his messenger, and for the love that God has for me, He would send over them His punishment in all rigor. And he cried more bitterly and said: Oh, my God, have mercy on them!, repeating t­hese words three times, yet b­ ecause of this God w ­ ill send over them cruel and perverse governors who ­will take their property for no good reason, and w ­ ill take them captive and kill them and force them into their law, making them worship idols with them, and forcing them to eat bacon with them. And becoming their lords, and taking advantage of them and their trou­bles, they ­will torture them to the point of wearing them out, to the point of making them secrete the milk that they suckled through the tips of their fingernails; and t­ here w ­ ill be so much oppression during this time that walking by the tomb of his ­brother or friend [a man] ­will say, if only I ­were in your place! And they w ­ ill continue in this way u­ ntil they come to lose all faith in being f­ree in the law of salvation, u­ ntil most of them w ­ ill become desperate and w ­ ill renounce the law of salvation, which is the law of God and the law of

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truth.” And with this he cried more gravely and said: “God the sovereign w ­ ill have mercy on them and ­will turn His merciful face and ­will look upon them with eyes of clemency, pity, and compassion! And this w ­ ill be when the poison of their enemies is ignited, and they [the enemies] will ­ burn many of them with fire, men, w ­ omen, c­ hildren of a young age, and men of old age alike, and they w ­ ill banish them from their villages, and at this time the angels w ­ ill become agitated, and with g­ reat impetus they w ­ ill go before God and w ­ ill say to Him: Oh, our God! Some [­people] from the f­amily of your friend and messenger Muḥammad are burning at the stake, you being the power­ful avenger.3 Then God Almighty will ­ send forth someone to rescue them, who ­will take them out of this ­g reat evil and punishment.” [Upon hearing this,] ʿAlī, who is accepted in grace, cried, and we all cried together with him. And he said: “In what year w ­ ill God send this aid and redeem their afflicted hearts?” To which he [the Prophet] responded in this manner: “Oh ʿAlī! This will ­ happen in the island of Andalusia when the year begins on Saturday, and the sign that ­there ­will be of this is that God ­will send a cloud of birds, and in it t­ here w ­ ill be two marked birds, and one w ­ ill be the angel Gabriel, and the other one the angel Michael, and this ­will be the origin of the other birds of the lands of the parrots, which w ­ ill indicate the coming of the kings of the East and the West to the aid of this island of Andalusia, and they will carry a sign that they w ­ ill first attack t­ hose of the West. And if ­these birds talk they ­will intimate to whom they talk, ­there ­will be ­great agitation and scandals in the West.4 And everything ­ will ­ be filled with fear and agitation. And t­here w ­ ill be scandals and wars and between the law of the Moors [Muslims] and t­hose of the law of Christians, and every­one w ­ ill convert to the law of the Moors, but this w ­ ill be a­ fter much difficulty. This year t­here w ­ ill be thick fog and l­ittle rain, and trees w ­ ill bear plenty of fruit and Augusts of bread [harvests] will ­ be more abundant in the cold mountains than in the coasts, and bees w ­ ill fill their beehives on this blessed year.”

3. ​The original Spanish text seems to preserve the Arabic copulative structure of the sentence. 4. ​The original Spanish sentence reads: “Y si hablaren las aves, darán a entender que a la parte que hablaren habrá grande alboroto de guerra en el poniente . . .”

Appendix C

Third Prognostication of the War of Granada

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God alone, for ­there is none other than Him. This is the judgment taken from the sayings of the Messenger of God (whom God sanctified and saved), which is called Tauca el Hamema,1 which means “the dove’s breast,” comparable in its composition and elegance to the beauty of the colors of the dove’s breast. And it says the following: Stop counting mockeries and precious adornments and dignities; [may] you never forget death, for life is ending. Your sins are more grave than mountains: convert to God and do not sleep, for you w ­ ill wake up buried among rubble. Stop counting the rich gardens of luxurious buildings, and crowned and embellished maidens, and recall the agitations of the Day of Judgment, and the fury of hell, with its fires. On that Hour the following signs [­will appear]: movement and tremor of the earth, frights and g­ reat terror, and other signs that h­ umans cannot declare. The one who spoke of them the most was Odeyfa, that there ­ are more than seventy signs which he said to have heard [from] the Guide, the My translation of the prognostication published by Luis del Mármol Carvajal in his Historia de rebellion y castigo. H ­ ere I follow Javier Castillo Fernández’s edition of the text (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2015), 150–55. 1. ​According to Alonso del Castillo this was a versed prophecy in the form of a muwashshaḥ, titled Ṭawq al-­Ḥamāma (The Ring of the Dove). Note the similarity between this title, and the treatise on love by the famous Andalusi scholar Ibn Ḥazm. 258

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prophet of God, eight of which are the most notable, and other minor ones that follow. Many [­people] asked the Chosen One about them, and [he] revealed some of the noted ones, which he said w ­ ere: the appearance of the Messenger of God, and the descending of the moon in the garden of Tuhema after ­ the sun comes out cracked. These ­ are the signs of Judgment [day], about which the Qurʾān alleges and speaks, and the rest that have to do with this ­today are many and very notorious in this world; more apparent than the glistening light of the sun. The Chosen one said that he was followed by the cloud: “When you see w ­ omen g­ oing a­ fter men, begging shamelessly, furiously like mules of lust, and when usury grows and what is wrongfully earned by men, and lust and homi­cide ­ is taken up as law, and disobedience multiplies among children [against] their parents, and you see the true believer disheartened, and wise men persecuted to the point of serving evil men. And when you see all the corners of your h­ ouse full of every­thing illicit and badly earned, and when your father-­in-­law comes to be closer [to you] than your legitimate b­ rother, and you neglect your ­brother and obey your friend, and when you see the barren m ­ other earning with her d­ aughters among men, and the son disobeying his parents to obey his wife in all affairs, and when you see paintings in the t­ emples, and when w ­ omen take up perverse habits and bad vices, and when you see men of religion living in lofty buildings, and when you see the number of arrogant men and criminals grow, and the number of just men decrease. And when you see t­hose who are fearful of God lonesome as orphans, and wicked men with their heads more stubborn and heavier than mountains. And when you see the tails precede the heads, and a dear friend reject a friend, and a man not trust another man with whom he spends time, and when you see generous p­ eople become poor, and greedy p­ eople become rich, and greed grow and the hands of the generous become hardened, and the number of beggars grow. And when you see the law neglected and its followers as rare as white specks in black hair, and when you see men turned into wolves, covered in men’s clothes, he who is a wolf w ­ ill eat with wolves, and he who is not a wolf w ­ ill be eaten by wolves. And when you see discord grow acutely, and rain during this time be fewer.” And e­ very time the Messenger of God named each one, his eyes swelled with tears, and he said that such would be the life of the person who is born in it [the End Times]. And regarding the signs he also said that fires ­will ignite in Rome, which ­will burn among ­people and in the w ­ ater and the earth, and ­there w ­ ill be a subtle smoke that ­will cover the earth and w ­ ill scorch the breasts of heretics. And he mentioned collapses that would occur in the Hixez (Ḥijāz) in the East, and other ones below Sazera, and the bridge of Alcazar de la Pasada. And he mentioned signs of the fulfilled

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victory. When Constantina [Constantinople] is taken by the force of arms from the Romans, and when you see that the Moors [Muslims] working in victory conquer Rome and win Portugal, then the riches of precious stones and coins w ­ ill grow among the Moors, u­ ntil they set out with the shield of Caçim. And when the world comes to this perfection it will ­ signal the decrease ­after its fulfillment, and the hearts will become unsettled, and the world ­will escape from your own hands. But before this, I want you, who are listening to me, to know that God ­will send a tyrannical king to the West, who ­will hold and subject it, in whose face ­there ­will be no sign of ­human sight, and he will ­ abuse and judge people ­ with all harshness, and people ­ will ­ die at his hands, with all their properties, a­ fter whom, another one of g­ reat valor w ­ ill come, who w ­ ill be named Jacob, whose misfortunes and calamity w ­ ill grow, and he ­will die in need, whereupon you ­will see in the West, and ­there ­will be g­ reat war and agitation, and [the number of] p­ eople w ­ ill decrease. Andalusia ­will be orphaned without a king, and ­there ­will be no one to obey. She [Andalusia] will ­ remain in this trouble, ­ confused and dark, until ­ news about this reaches Rome, and from t­here, a king w ­ ill emerge, who w ­ ill have no faults; king, son of king. Oh men! [he] who w ­ ill set sail with g­ reat armies, who w ­ ill come forth out of need, and with him they w ­ ill come to Granada, the white and clear one, to whom they w ­ ill say: “You are our forced king, in any case, you are our governor.” He w ­ ill ascend with his armies and troops to the fortresses of the Alhambra, where he w ­ ill remain a few days hidden, and from t­here he w ­ ill conquer many g­ reat fortresses and climes and provinces. And you w ­ ill see the scepter and victory of the Moors pushing. And without a doubt they w ­ ill possess Seville. They w ­ ill take ninety cities from the heretics, and through their city walls, breaking them with the force of arms, this victory w ­ ill last seven years, and they w ­ ill take the wealth from the land of the heretics and through them this side will ­ improve, and all the cities of the West ­will be joyous with him, and on his first journey he ­will take Antequera, ­going up its walls and breaking them with the force of arms. This victory ­will last seven years, and they w ­ ill take this booty from the land of the heretics. Praise be to God who w ­ ill do this justice, giving the heretics a drink from these ­ bitter ­ chalices! And when the hour of this agitation comes, and the power of the Almighty God, this man ­will set his journey straight to Segovia, and in the month of Ramadan they ­will enter it in any case, and he ­will follow with this victory, which ­will be continuous. And he ­will take the fortresses of the Christians with skill. And this ­will be followed by disagreements between the governors and the king, who is the head. And Dolarfe, king of the Christians, ­will leave, and he ­will rebel against the ­people and ­will break them, and he w ­ ill push them u­ ntil forcing them to take refuge Fez. And since they w ­ ill

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pass through Gibraltar, the sea w ­ ill disturb them and they w ­ ill be surrounded on all sides by the Christian armies of King Dolarfe. And the rich ones w ­ ill escape in ships, and those ­ who cannot pass, most of them will ­ die by the sword, and o­ thers w ­ ill perish drowned in the sea. And at this point God w ­ ill send a king of tall stature, hidden, higher than the mountains, who w ­ ill beat the sea with his hand and it ­will split, and from ­there a bridge ­will rise, which is mentioned in this story, and a third of the p­ eople w ­ ill escape swimming, and the rest ­will [perish] by the sword and ­water, ­until the Christians continue to their victory. And at some point they w ­ ill enter into Fez by force of arms, and when they enter they w ­ ill search for its king, and they w ­ ill find him hidden in the mosque with the sword of Idrīs in his hand turned into a Moor. And upon being seen, all the Christians w ­ ill become Muslim with him. Then he w ­ ill go to the h ­ ouse of Mecca, and he w ­ ill pray u ­ ntil he sees the purity of the Zamzam well and its w ­ ater. Then cursed old Antichrist w ­ ill be born, and he w ­ ill rise. And during this time God w ­ ill send g­ reat barrenness, which w ­ ill last seven years, in which t­ here w ­ ill be no bread, nor seed, nor w ­ ater, except for what this cursed old man shows. He ­will sow wheat at noon, and ­will harvest it in the eve­ning, and he w ­ ill plant trees and plants with the right hand, and ­will reap its fruits with his left hand. He ­will tell the dead to rise and they w ­ ill rise, and he w ­ ill fancy himself as a raiser of the dead, god and lord who has no likeness, and he who follows and obeys him [the Antichrist] will ­ achieve no good, and w ­ ill die as a heretic, and w ­ ill be buried in hell. He w ­ ill go a­ fter the p­ eople showing them much and diverse sustenance, and founts of water, ­ and on his forehead he will ­ have written “He tyrannized and sinned.” His face w ­ ill be frightening, because ­­ he w ­ ill only have one eye. On his head he w ­ ill have a bowl2 full of delicacies, round as the moon. And you ­will see ­people ­after him in such ­g reat numbers that ­there ­will not be enough room for all of them and their families. He ­will ­ride on his mount, which ­will be of a frightening style, which ­will occupy every­thing in sight; and he ­will go around the world in seven days. And he w ­ ill have two marked rivers, one of w ­ ater and one of fire. T ­ hose who go with him and drink from the w ­ ater w ­ ill find it light like fire, and he w ­ ill come with all the families of the Jews, with whom he w ­ ill obscure the brightness of the morning. Then God Almighty w ­ ill send Jesus Christ, son of Mary, who w ­ ill emerge in the lands of Jerusalem, and upon seeing him, [the Antichrist] w ­ ill crumble before him like an effeminate coward. And the rocks and towns w ­ ill say: “The e­ nemy of God has entered u­ nder us.” Christ the guide w ­ ill stay a few years, during which, b­ ecause of his virtue, the wolf w ­ ill go about with sheep lovingly [the wolf 2. ​The text reads librillo or “almofia.”

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w ­ ill live around sheep without harming them], and the youth w ­ ill play with snakes and poisonous vipers, and they ­will not be bitten, abiding by the law of our Prophet, and judging rightly by it. And he w ­ ill assign a [person] from the lineage of Muḥammad in perpetuity. And during his time all heretics w ­ ill convert to God. And when the p­ eople of the earth find out, Christ w ­ ill climb mount Tabor and w ­ ill break the walls of the p­ eople of Xuxe and Megigue (Yaʾjūj and Maʾjūj),3 who are the pigmies, whose number w ­ ill exceed the number of the sand of the sea, and their f­aces w ­ ill be dif­fer­ent, some long like feathers, o­ thers taller than mountains, and other w ­ ill have such big ears that they will ­ sit on top of them and will ­ cover themselves with parts of them. The lands of ­these [­people] ­will last eighty years.

3. ​Gog and Magog.

Appendix D

Prophecy of Fr. Juan de Rokasiya

Bismillāh al-­raḥmān al-­raḥīm (In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate). This is the prophecy of Fr. Juan de Rokasiya ( John of Rupescissa). Twenty-­ four doctors and astrologers concurred with him in the year fourteen eighty-­ and-­a-­half [1485?]. The emperor Azrāʾīl spoke in the ninth chapter of the book of Revelations: “The Turks and Greeks ­will come to destroy the Christian ­people.” They w ­ ill harm Italy and Lombardy and all of Hungary and Cologne, and a large part of Germany. And the noble town of Rhodes, which trusts its walls and fortress, which is renowned; God forbid that it be burnt, for God’s ruling has already been decreed, for she [Rhodes] had no mercy for the poor of the earth of the monastery of St. Francis. This city w ­ ill be forsaken before long. You, Rome, w ­ ill be reduced by the said Turk with g­ reat cruelty, and they w ­ ill not pity you. The city of Pisa, and Florence, and the city of Siena ­will be given as vengeance on account of their evils. They w ­ ill be destroyed by God’s wrath. The city of Ibiza and Valencia w ­ ill cry copiously and w ­ ill no longer laugh at their neighbors. Cologne and the city of the phi­los­op­ hers and jurists1 w ­ ill be My translation of BNM Ms. 5305, ff. 61r–67v. Gerard Wiegers has transcribed the text. See Wiegers, “Jean de Roquetaillade’s Prophecies.” 1. ​Paris. 263

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abandoned. Milan and Lombardy will ­ be destroyed by the kings, and they w ­ ill never use their bishops and archbishops more than they did. Genoa you are a port of tribulation and a land of persecution, you w ­ ill be decreased and reduced in that same fashion at the hands of the Turks, who ­will have no mercy on you. To the Kingdom of Pulia2 and the Kingdom of Sicily, you will ­ be purely destroyed and isolated. The Kingdom of Naples ­will not be praised for her evils, which, b­ ecause of [its] ignorance and arrogance, w ­ ill be destroyed and subjugated by the Turks. On the year of fourteen eighty-­and-­a-­half of the Incarnation, princes and lords and the p­ eople w ­ ill rise against the clergy, abhorring their g­ reat pomp and temporal vanity, who on account of their evils w ­ ill be persecuted and they w ­ ill find nowhere to go or take refuge. For it is God’s ­will that all the black and white monks be refused. And the other monks who have possessions, and the other chivalric ­orders, ­will be afflicted and persecuted, both in the temporal [affairs] as in the spiritual [ones]. They w ­ ill be deprived of their promotions and gathered together. ­Great plagues ­will come ­after the members of the religious ­orders; some ­will die of hunger and ­others in war, and o­ thers of the plague, and all their possessions w ­ ill be taken away by ­others, and ­those of the dead, at the hands of infidels. Thus, be certain and do not doubt, for without rest, impetuously many and g­ reat tribulations w ­ ill come on earth; that before the fifteenth of July, fourteen eighty-­and-­a-­half arrives, the cardinals of the Holy F ­ ather in Rome w ­ ill flee from the g­ reat tribulation that w ­ ill come, as Daniel said in the fifteenth chapter: “You, Church, ­will be completely dispossessed ­because of your ­great disorder, and the greater part of you is induced and raised by haughtiness and ­because of the sin of avarice, and richness and vainglory of pleasures, in such a way that you would rather suffer the punishment of hell than live in poverty or in the life of the apostles. For this many clergymen ­will perish at the hands of the cruel Turks, for no one w ­ ill escape their hands except for t­hose who have the sign of lā ilāha illā Allāh Muḥammad rasūl Allāh (There ­ is no god but God, and Muḥammad is the messenger of God). Thus, the Romans from Valon and Avignon w ­ ill bid farewell to the pope, and cardinals, and bishops, and archbishops. They ­will all be destroyed and deprived of all their properties and temporal possessions. They w ­ ill be forced to live the life of the apostles. Many tribulations, and tempests, and earthquakes, and famines, and droughts, and deaths, and wars ­will come on the earth. He who is raised with provision, but not of money, ­will be ­free. And know that ­because of [in spite of] the pressure of the king of France t­ here w ­ ill be no less b­ attles, rather, they w ­ ill increase, and the 2. ​The Aljamiado reads “Poloya.”



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p­ eople w ­ ill say “peace, peace!” but it w ­ ill not be time for peace. And b­ ecause of the g­ reat and terrible tribulations, ills, and tempests that w ­ ill fall from the sky, the Turks w ­ ill subjugate the Christian p­ eoples, and the first3 beast of ten horns, which is called Antichrist, with many kings and princes. Before the year fourteen eighty-­and-­a-­half arrives, t­ here w ­ ill be many new and marvelous t­ hings in the world, which w ­ ill be the following: small animals w ­ ill raise against the larger one, such as birds4 against hawks. This means that the common ­people cannot suffer the tyrannies and robbery of the powerful, who ­will rise against them and it w ­ ill be a plea­sure, and t­ here w ­ ill be so many tribulations and tempests and horrors in the sky, that the p­ eople w ­ ill marvel. T ­ here ­will be illnesses, and ailments, and pestilence, which ­will violently kill ­people. T ­ here w ­ ill be more showers than during the time of Nūḥ (Noah). T ­ here ­will be ­great famine and loss of seed bags and vegetables, ­because of freezing, the likes of which has never been seen. T ­ here are t­hose who w ­ ill be saved, and ­because of the ­g reat tribulations many ­people ­will perish. For if France’s haughtiness and its courage, and the fortress5 of the French lasted, and the Church was commensurate, its honor would not be reduced. And know that the effort of the king of France, and his courage and his dominion w ­ ill deal with the first beast this time. God willing he ­will not be defeated in that ­battle. An angel w ­ ill appear with a chain of fire in his hand, with which he w ­ ill bind Satan, and he w ­ ill throw him in the well of the abyss,6 and he w ­ ill have him imprisoned, and the earth ­will rest in peace. In this time that ­there ­will be famine and shortage. They w ­ ill be reduced and [illegible] scorned. And Ibiza and Valencia w ­ ill bewail, they w ­ ill not laugh at their neighbors, who w ­ ill be reduced by the Antichrist; they ­will see [him] from the sea, the one who ­will be worthy and of ­g reat sanctity; [he] ­will serve God barefoot through the barren hills. He w ­ ill have two signs that all men who serve him w ­ ill see. P ­ eople w ­ ill go a­ fter him like ants, and he w ­ ill besiege you Valencia, and your prince who is said to be strong ­will flee to the city of the river, and ­there he ­will cease the pursuit, and w ­ ill be seized. This is the very end and [illegible] before the first [illegible] what God wants. This Antichrist w ­ ill be called Fāṭimī. He w ­ ill do justice [by] reconquering Spain in forty-­two months, as Isaiah said in the fifth chapter of Revelations: [in] forty-­two months w ­ ill be the conquest of Spain, and of the Antichrist, who ­will gather at the sea shore, who ­will be the destroyer

3. ​The Aljamiado reads “priama” (f. 65v). 4.  ​ Tordos. 5. ​The Aljamiado reads “Fortaleza”; could also be translated as “strength.” 6. ​Wiegers transcribed the text as abismo. The Aljamiado text reads al-­basm.

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of the Holy M ­ other Church and of the Franciscans and friars, b­ ecause of the great ­ pomp, ignorance of their riches, they will ­ have what God abhorred, which you deserve in your properties and persons, before the year fourteen eighty-­and-­a-­half arrives, with the w ­ ill of God Almighty. This Antichrist w ­ ill be the young man from Dénia, who w ­ ill win over Spain, In shāʾ Allāh (If God ­wills).

Appendix E

Account of the Scandals That ­Will Take Place at the End of Times in the Island of Spain

Bismi Allāh al-­raḥmān al-­raḥīm wa ṣalla Allāhu ʿalā sayyidinā Muḥammad wa ālih (In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, and may God bless our lord Muhammad and his ­family). This is the account of the scandals that ­will take place at the End of Times in the island of Spain. It was recounted by ʿAlī ibn Jābir Alfaracio (al-­Fārisī) who said: That in the city of Damascus there ­ was a mountain of mountains,1 and an old man, whose head and beard was white, had withdrawn to serve Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted). One day of ʿĀshūrāʾ2 at the hour of al-­ʿaṣar (after­noon), a man from al-­samāʾ (the heavens) descended on him and sat on his right-­hand side, and told him: Yā3 servant of Allāh (God)! I want to make it known to you how the scandal of the Muslims of Spain is nearing. He said: My translation of BnF Ms. 774, ff. 278r–288v. For a transcription and edition of the Aljamiado text see Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774 de la Biblioteca Nacional de París (Leyendas, itinerarios de viajes, profecías sobre la destrucción de España y otros relatos moriscos) (Madrid: Gredos, 1982): 239–43. I have left the Arabic terms in the Aljamiado text to give a sense of the bilingual nature of Aljamiado religious lit­er­a­ture. 1. ​Arabic construction: jabal min al-­jibāl. 2. ​10th day of the month of Muḥarram. On this day Muslims, especially Shīʿīs, commemorate the martyrdom of al-­Ḥusayn, Muḥammad’s grand­son, at Karbalāʾ in the year 680 C.E. 3. ​Yā is the Arabic vocative. 267

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—­And why ­will that be? He said: —­Because many ugly ­things ­will take place among them. And the first ­thing that they w ­ ill do is that they ­will stop learning the Qurʾān, and they w ­ ill abandon the al-­ṣalāt (prayer), and they w ­ ill not pay the al-­zakāt (alms), and they ­will fast ­little, and they say that Allāh is truthful in their hearts, and they are empty in naming Allāh. And ­because of this, they ­will sow a lot and ­will harvest ­little, and they ­will work hard and have ­little profits. And al-­ʿabīd (the ascetic) said to the man: —­Tell me how the p­ eople in the world live. He said that ­there ­will be ­little shame and much al-­zine (Ar. al-­zināʾ; adultery), and b­ rothers ­will not recognize their ­brothers, nor ­will sons recognize their f­ athers, and the mosques w ­ ill be left empty and depopulated, and the youth ­will not honor the elders, and the youth ­will say that the elders are not truthful, and they ­will treat them as if they ­were ­children, for when that happens, Allāh taʿālā (God, the Most Exalted) ­will send [someone] who w ­ ill destroy time, and ­will send them ­g reat famines and ­decimate provisions. ­There ­will be g­ reat adversities among ­people in cities and villages, and Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted) ­will send them rain when it w ­ ill not be needed and ­will stop it when it is needed. And the ʿabīd (ascetic) said: —­Yā man! Tell me when that ­will be: And he said to him: In the year nine hundred and two, the sixth year w ­ ill begin. T ­ here w ­ ill be discord between the kings [who] worship the al-­ṣalīb (cross) and the eaters of swine. ­Toward the north, in the west, ­there ­will be a ­g reat ­battle, and the time when that happens ­will be when the trou­bles of Muslims in Spain have passed. —­And Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted) ­will send a king named Aḥmad, who w ­ ill be lord of the earth and sea, and all the ­people w ­ ill obey him. And the sign of when that w ­ ill happen is when a star appears before the Greater Feast,4 which ­will brighten the earth with its clarity. When that occurs, then the Turk w ­ ill rise in a city and w ­ ill capture its lord. And the Christians ­will rise against Muslims, ­until ­people approach the Christians, and at that time ­people ­will be in ­g reat tribulation.

4.  ​ ʿĪd al-­Aḍḥā.



Account of the Scandals That ­Wi l l Ta k e P l ace

269

In that year ­there ­will be ­g reat shouts and screams among the ­people, and they w ­ ill perish, without having been wounded or hurt. On that day t­here w ­ ill be a lot of p­ eople, young and old, and w ­ omen, who w ­ ill become Christians. And the greatest tribulation w ­ ill be in Aragon and Huesca. The remedy of the Muslims ­will come when the Muslims make many of them become Christians, and the beginning w ­ ill be in Andalusia from now u­ ntil the said year. ­After that ­there ­will be another way; a fire among men, ­women and ­children. And [they] ­will burn their mosques and turn them into churches for the crosses; then the clergymen w ­ ill show much wickedness. A ­ fter that Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted) ­will move the hearts of the Muslim kings, and their captain w ­ ill be the Turk, who w ­ ill set his armies in the sea, which w ­ ill be uncountable. And the first t­ hing that w ­ ill return to al-­dīn (the religion) of al-­Islām­will be the island of Sicily, then the island of olives, which is Mallorca, and the island of salt, which is Ibiza. ­After this ­there ­will be a ­g reat agreement between the Muslim kings, and the eldest of them w ­ ill be Hāshāmī, whose guidance w ­ ill be to defend al-­dīn (religion) of al-­Islām. It is said that the Muslims w ­ ill conquer the larger island of Spain, and that the Muslims will ­ come from three sides from the sea, with countless p­ eople. T ­ here w ­ ill be g­ reat cries in Valencia as well as in Dénia, t­here w ­ ill be another voice of al-­Islām. In the mountains of al-Andalus ­ the Muslims will ­ rise against the Christians and ­there ­will be a ­g reat ­battle between them, ­until blood reaches the door of the mill. ­There, the Muslims ­will be the victors on a day of al-­khamīs (Thursday), and ­there ­will be ­great fright ­until the ­children and adults rush to become Muslims. ­Those of Valencia, upon seeing this, ­will flee to Mulviedro. And the Muslims ­will rise above them of a Saturday, at the hour of al-­ʿaṣar (after­noon). Then trembling w ­ ill grow among Christians. Upon seeing this, the Muslims w ­ ill charge from all sides. So the city of Alḥandaq5 w ­ ill not laugh at its neighbors, and when [the Christians] of the white city6 see the g­ reat harm [that has been done to] the Christians, they ­will all gather to stage a ­great ­battle between them and the Muslims, in such a way that the white h­ orse w ­ ill not be recognize from all the blood that ­will be shed between them. And the king of the Christians w ­ ill be captured and sent to the city of Valencia. T ­ here he w ­ ill become a Muslim. And when they see this, the Christians w ­ ill gather in the city of the river. Three Muslim kings w ­ ill go a­ fter them, and they w ­ ill enter the city by force of arms, and all three w ­ ill eat at one t­ able, and then they w ­ ill bid farewell to one another. One w ­ ill move to the part of Monkayo; the 5. ​Possibly Alfondeguilla, Valencia. 6. ​Zaragoza, in Aragon.

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other to the part of Çuera, and the other to the part of Ḥimça (which we think means Seville). And when the Christians see that their king is captive, some of them w ­ ill become Muslims. And the Muslims w ­ ill be victors with the power of Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted), and no one w ­ ill be seen [­doing anything] except for al-­jihād (Holy War). F­ athers w ­ ill not take care of their sons, nor w ­ ill husbands [take care] of their wives. When that happens, the worshippers of idols and eaters of swine will ­ be defeated; and nothing will ­ remain but ­al-­dīn (the religion) of al-­Islām; and at that time, the Qurʾān ­will be read publicly, and the al-­ṣalāt (prayer) w ­ ill be performed in the time of the tribulation. Good tidings will ­ come to the Moor who has a Christian friend, and afterwards, good tidings to the Christian who has a Moorish friend. Thus, have good faith, for the time of the End is near. The living tells the dead: if only I was like you (in your state). Then wake up from your negligence, for the time is near. And look closely to the signs that al-­ʿabīd (the ascetic) mentioned would come to the Muslims of the precious island of Spain b­ ecause of the g­ reat sins that w ­ ill take place among them, and Allāh taʿālā (God the Most Exalted) w ­ ill show no mercy on them, and he w ­ ill send the worshippers of the cross a­ fter them, who w ­ ill take their property and their ­houses, and their ­women and ­children and they ­will have no mercy on them. Thus, Muslims, unite like the strong lead. For its beginning ­will be in the year nine hundred and ten. Allāh is the most knowledgeable. This is what has been transmitted by ʿAlī ibn Jābir al-­Fārisī. Wa al-­ḥamdu l-­illāhi rabbi al-­ʿālamīn, wa lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bi-­llāhi al-­ʿaliyyu al-­ʿaẓīm.7

7. ​“Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and t­ here is no force except in God, the G ­ reat, the Almighty.”

Appendix F

Prophecy of St. Isidore

This is a prophecy made by [means of] astrology by the sage [who is] worthy of g­ reat science, St. Isidore, and it says as follows: I say, and it ­will be fulfilled and completed on this earth accordingly. And I say that I am not a prophet or son of prophet, but rather servant of the Unity [God] and of his prophets, each one in his own place, and may Allāh place me in His al-­janna (paradise). Amen. I say: You, Granada, w ­ ill be captive, you w ­ ill be the h­ andles1 of the p­ eople of Spain, and your p­ eople w ­ ill end with the king, and every­thing w ­ ill be broken for them. You swear, and it w ­ ill give them faith. And a strong planet is followed2 on the sea and in Viçkaya (Biscay) and its great ­ army,3 for this is what it says:

My translation of BnF Ms. 774, ff. 289r–293v. For a transcription and edition of the Aljamiado text see Mercedes Sánchez Álvares, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 243–45. There ­ are many passages in this prophecy that are difficult to follow. 1. ​A difficult passage. The text reads “ansas,” which is an Aragonese form of asa (­handle).G. Galmés de Fuentes, Alvaro, M. Sánchez Álvarez, A. Vespertino Rodríguez, and J. C. Villaverde Amieva, Glosario de voces aljamiado-­moriscas (Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, 1994), 103. 2. ​A difficult passage. The text reads “Y síguese fuerte planeta.” 3. ​The text reads gran konpaña. “Konpaña” is a troop, congregation, group of ­people gathered for a specific purpose. Galmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces aljamiado-­moriscas, 367. 271

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You, Spain, weeping upon her. And it says the following: The Jews are evil, and they w ­ ill be stripped of their law and shredded. Oh, Spain! I tell you, that if your p­ eople knew what you s­ hall go through, and they believed it so, they would abandon you [Spain]. ­Great harm ­will come over you! But it says this: What Allāh wants cannot go back nor go forward, if it is not through pleads of one Allāh alone, the only Lord; it says: that when the wheel of fifteen hundred and one4 turns, then the p­ eople of Spain w ­ ill be so 5 afflicted and so cursed that they w ­ ill not know where to go nor what w ­ ill happen to them, given what ­will be removed from her [Spain], and they ­will not be able to have any information about one other, and so many ­people ­will die that ­there ­will be ­g reat harm in the kingdom of corruption, that in their land ­there ­will be ­g reat condemnation awaiting Spain. And at that time [it ­will be] good fortune for the Moor who has a Christian friend, because ­ the Moors [Muslims] of Spain w ­ ill come, and it says this: that when the wheel of fifteen hundred and one comes, there ­ will ­ be no one in Spain who will ­ read the Qurʾān. And this will ­ be because ­ of lack of science and ill advice among Moors [Muslims], who, defending themselves from the strictures, ­will be forced to take the chrism [to convert], in such a way out of bad advice and much misfortune and g­ reat unreason that they w ­ ill do onto them. For when the wheel of two or sooner, arrives, Christian ­ ity ­ will ­ be so persecuted, and in such a way brought, that in that time, Christians w ­ ill be fortunate to have a Moorish [Muslim] friend. And if he has done good or evil, he w ­ ill see it then, for such corrupted evil w ­ ill overtake Christians, that the fortress of evil w ­ ill never stop ­until the sect is eliminated. And I say the truth that it [Chris­tian­ity?] ­will end on account of three ­things: b­ ecause the Moors w ­ ill win the w ­ hole of the land of Spain, and the other on account of the clerics, b­ ecause Allāh does not want lies. And if you change this writing, Allāh ­will make it true. I say that when the three tens are up ­after the three five hundreds, you w ­ ill end well if t­here are seven solar eclipses. I say that without a doubt, the war ­will last in Spain ­those seven years. And ­there w ­ ill also be so much death, so that you [Spain] w ­ ill be left all destroyed, for the war of the Moors w ­ ill never cease u­ ntil what has been promised is fulfilled and completed. He said: I ­will give my ­things to the voice of Akbar (the Greatest),6 which says:

4. ​It is likely referring to the year 1501 C.E., when the Mudéjars of Castile w ­ ere forced to leave the Peninsula, or convert to Chris­tian­ity. 5.  ​ Ablasmada. Gálmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 9. 6. ​God.



Prophec y o f St.   I s i d o r e

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Rogabo pater mio et paraklito dobis vobis.7 That w ­ ill be the final voice of Akbar (the Greatest), and I d­ idn’t come to the earth except to scandalize parents and ­children [who] ­will be screaming.8 This is what is revealed about the reduction of Christians. But I think [he] said that maybe he ­will help, and the world ­will be so disrupted that it ­will be marvelous, that what­ever is concealed ­will doubtlessly be revealed. And what Arbannis9 said will ­ come true: that you, Spain, will ­ be like a pot that ­will be consumed on many sides, you ­will be consumed in your state, and all your kingdoms w ­ ill be finished due to war and the evil that is locked in you, and not even Allāh’s ­will is carried out [and it ­will not even be pos­si­ble for Allāh’s ­will to be fulfilled].

7. ​The Aljamiado texts seems to be citing John (14:16): “And I ­will ask the ­Father, and he ­will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.” The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, ed. Michael Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 172–73 NT. The Latin version of the Biblia Sacra Vulgata reads: “et ego rogabo Patrem et alium paracletum dabit vobis ut maneat vobiscum in aeternum.” Biblia Sacra. Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, eds., Robert Weber, Roger Gryson, et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgeselschaft, 1994), 1685. 8. ​Difficult passage. The text reads “por poner escandalo entre los padres e los fijos tan kiritabis”; “kiritabis” is the second person ­f uture form of the Latin verb quirito, to scream. 9. ​Unclear. Possibly al-­nabī, the Prophet.

Appendix G

Plaint of Spain

This is the Plaint of Spain, which St. Isidore, excellent doctor of Spain, extracted from a very old book titled Secret of the Secrets of Spain, [telling] of the ­g reat weeping that ­will overcome her before the three tens are reached a­ fter the three five hundreds.1 You, Spain, w ­ ill boil in the passions of your evils, just as the pot [that is] consumed by the g­ reat fire. Your pains w ­ ill grow, and your boils, b­ ecause of the ­great fires that w ­ ill be set inside of you. You w ­ ill be in civil hands, and justice will ­ be decreed by Jews, and the offices of the Church will ­ be given shamefully to the Marranos (Converted Jews), and the divine offices [­will be] disgraced. Then the great ­ boar2 will ­ emerge from the damp fountains, with the five piglets, and they w ­ ill rip a large part of you, Spain. With their tusks they w ­ ill stab you, and you w ­ ill be trampled by the g­ reat boar. And the evils that ­will engulf you ­will be ­g reat, for the sword of justice ­will enter you from five sides. Woe to you, Spain! For you w ­ ill have no protector, b­ ecause you have forsaken your Lord.

My translation of BnF Ms. 774, ff. 294r–301r. For a transcription and edition of the Aljamiado text by Sánchez Álvares, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 246–49. 1. ​Possibly the year 1530 C.E. 2.  ​ jabarín [sic] Jabalí. f. 294v. 274



P l ai n t o f Spai n

275

Woe to you, Spain! And to your g­ reat leader without a crown of virtues, for your sins are abhorred in the eyes of Allāh. The blood of the humble ones ­will demand vengeance on you. Woe to you, Spain, for you are like sheep without a shepherd, a body without a head, a w ­ idow without husband, or ­people without a leader. You w ­ ill cry and moan, and w ­ ill not be heard. Now you are honored by your countrymen. [But] You w ­ ill be reduced b­ ecause you have given your clothes to t­ hose undeserving, who are pitiless thieving wolves. Woe to you, Spain, for you stole the gates3 of your cities, and you broke their liberties. [You are] the breaker of t­ hings you swore, and your governors are thieving wolves without kindness. Their office is haughtiness and grandeur, and sodomy and lechery, blasphemy and apostasy, pomp and boastfulness, and tyranny, thieving, and injustice. Woe to you, Spain. What w ­ ill you make of the Church of God? You w ­ ill give its benefits to sinners, who w ­ ill be worse than idolaters, and [they] w ­ ill not preach the Gospel of your savior, but rather their false intentions of infuriating the small ones and make them execute their evil deeds. Woe to you, Spain! For you ­were threatened many times, and now you ­will be destroyed. You w ­ ill be war-­thirsty and you w ­ ill have death. As vengeance for your evils, you w ­ ill be broken and dishonored, and your g­ reat city and its holy t­ emple w ­ ill be started [­will begin to be constructed] but never finished. During that time, Jews w ­ ill be Christians, and knights w ­ ill be hypocrites, and the clergy boastful. May God prevent the Moors from rebelling in the estates, and that they tame the necks of the Castilians [make the Castilians obey]. Then the renewal of the law w ­ ill begin. This w ­ ill be a­ fter a power­f ul snake rises in the East, which w ­ ill surround the ancient city of Constantinople and w ­ ill kill the Greek prince. It w ­ ill be seated at the head of the earth, and t­ here ­will be ­g reat wars in the world. Woe to you! Spain. Twice you w ­ ere destroyed, you w ­ ere once mistreated through drought, and another time at the hands of the Hagarenes [Muslims]. Now you ­will be [destroyed] thrice by them, and you ­will be destroyed on account of your evils. And when the ­great beast of Spain turns twenty-­one, your destruction w ­ ill begin, for the noble cavalry of France and Catalonia w ­ ill be torn apart. The same ­will be in Compostela, which is Galicia. Woe, then, to the clergy, and to the false men of religion, for they w ­ ill all be destroyed b­ ecause of their g­ reat sins. They w ­ ill forget the ser­vice of their Church and they ­will burn on earthly ­things, greed and earnings, and they ­will employ usury. Like the Marrano locusts, they w ­ ill seize c­ hildren. With the 3.  ​ Adarbes.

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power of the Church, they ­will fornicate. They ­will be tyrants, arrogant, grandiose, boastful, Luciferian, [they will ­ do] abominable and cruel and deadly sins. The men of religion w ­ ill not have firmness, truth, or clarity. The wrath of the heavenly lord ­will descend upon them and they ­will be chased and torn, afflicted and killed. And the Hagarene beasts ­will come out of their caves [filled with] poison to destroy upper and lower [northern and southern] Spain. And the Spaniards w ­ ill be so disconcerted and in conflict with one another that they ­won’t be able to look ­after themselves. And the Moors ­will do such ­great harm that inland, in Brittany, the New David ­will emerge by the calling of the Encubierto (Hidden King) with the most Christian of powers, so that all the Hagarenes are wiped out of Spain, along with the Hebrews and locusts, and the thieving hungry wolves, and religious cats [thieving clergy]. They w ­ ill all suffer with the Hagarenes, and the Encubierto (Hidden King) w ­ ill come with t­hose of the lineage of Hector,4 and he w ­ ill clean the caves and the city of Hercules. And ­there ­will be a ­g reat war between the wolves and the pillagers, with the religious cats, who are the Conversos.5 And so much blood w ­ ill be shed near the fountain of iron, which w ­ ill reach the mounts of the h­ orses, that it ­will be very painful to watch. They ­will pass through with iron chains, and they w ­ ill clean out the city of Seneca.6 Woe, then to the Hagarenes of Spain, for the arrogance of their al-­Ḥamrāʾ (Alhambra) w ­ ill be taken, and the gorgeous cavalry of Ronda, which used to be renowned, and the beauty of Málaga, and the fortress of Gibraltar, and the delightful gardens and mountains where they used to relax, they w ­ ill leave every­thing. And their harm ­will be such that they ­will not know where to flee or which advice to take. Many w ­ ill perish by arms, and many w ­ ill drown in the sea, and many w ­ ill flee to the Montes Claros. The Encubierto (Hidden King) w ­ ill go a­ fter them and ­will win over Ceuta and Tlemcen and Morocco. This is what has what has reached us of the prophecy of St. Isidore. Wa al-­ḥāl Allāhu rabbi al-­ʿālamīn.7

4. ​The lineage of Hector would be the Trojans. For an identification of the Turks as descended from the Trojans see Margaret Meserve, Empires of Islam in Re­nais­sance Historical Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), especially 49–51. I am currently preparing an article for publication on the association of the Ottomans with Troy in Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture. 5. ​The text reads “confesos.” 6. ​Cordoba. 7. ​This phrase seems to be incomplete, or a corrupt form of the Arabic sentence Wa Allāhu rabbi al-­ʿālamīn (God is the Lord of the Universe). The text, in its current form, reads: The situation is, God who is Lord of the universe.

Appendix H

Muḥammad’s Prophecy about Spain

It was recounted by al-­nabī (the Prophet) Muḥammad, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), that he said: —­I ­will guide you over an island to mercy. They said: —­Yes, yā rasūl Allāh (Oh Messenger of God)! He said: [In] an island in the West called Andalusia, where a group1 of my al-­ umma (community of believers) will ­ inhabit at the End of Times, because ­ guarding frontier in her one day and one night close to2 Allāh taʿāla (God the Most Exalted), is as if they adored him always. And he who sleeps t­ here with his troop is like the one who always fasts, and is upright outside of it. Good fortune for the one who reaches this at the End of Times, and Allāh

BnF, Ms. 774, ff. 301v-308v. For a transcription and edition of the Aljamiado text see Sánchez Álvarez, El manuscrito misceláneo 774, 249–53. 1. ​The text reads “kompaña,” which also means troop or congregation. See Gálmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 367. 2. ​The text reads “enta,” which means close to or to/toward. Ibid., 253. 277

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taʿālā (God the Most Exalted) ­will send a wind that ­will take them to the Bayt al-­Maqdis ( Jerusalem). It is recounted by the messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), that he said: —­On the Day of Judgment, a man of my al-­umma (community of believers) ­will still rise in the island of Andalusia, who ­will carry out al-­jiḥād fī sabīli Allāh (Holy War in the path of God). It w ­ ill not deviate,3 nor w ­ ill it be known when the Day of Judgment w ­ ill come,­until4 the mountains ­will be flattened. It was recounted by the messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), that he said: Andalusia has four gates of the gates of al-­janna (paradise).5 One of the gates is called Faylonata,6 and the other gate Lorca, and another one is called Tortosa, and the other one Guadalajara. Muḥammad ibn Qatil said in Mecca: Some7 of t­hose from Andalusia, by the one on whose power my person lies! That guarding the frontier in Andalusia for just one day and one night is better than twelve completed pilgrimages. And ʿAbd al-­Malik ibn Ḥabīb said: I asked some of the first ones8 of the first scandals (tribulations) in Andalusia. And another one also asked me about the green mosque, and I told him the place, and he said: —­Yā Abā Marwān! I ­will give you firm news that on the Day of Judgment the al-­muʾadhdhin9 w ­ ill rise to call to prayer. At the time of al-­ʿaṣar (the after­noon), he ­will preach in Andalusia and that Islam ­will not deviate10 u­ ntil the Day of Judgment, and that the enemies w ­ ill not win over her ever. The messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), said:

3.  ​The text reads “detallará,” which also means deviate or withdraw. See Gálmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 215. 4. ​The text reads “dakí.” Ibid., 185. 5. ​Paradise. 6. ​I have yet to identify this city. 7. ​The text reads “A partida.” See Gálmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 458. 8. ​The text reads “A partida de los de los primeros.” 9. ​Person who calls Muslims to prayer. 10. ​The text reads “detajará”; see n. 3 above.

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279

—­Al-­jihād (Holy War) w ­ ill not come from the West, but rather it w ­ ill be from an island called Andalusia, which, by the one on whose power my person lies! That guarding the frontier in her one night is more advantageous than a martyr rubbing himself with his own blood fī sabīli Allāh (in the path of God). Ibn Shihāb said: —The ­ messenger of Allāh, Muḥammad, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), slept, and said: By the one on whose power my person lies! My b­ rother Gabriel has told me, while I was sleeping, that an island called Andalusia would be conquered ­after me, that blessed is the living one, and the deceased is a martyr. The Day of Judgment w ­ ill come with seventy two signs, and u ­ nder each sign, seventy two thousand [­people] wounded without sword or spear. ʿUmar ibn al-­Khaṭṭāb, raḍī Allāhu ʿanhu (May God be pleased with him), asked: —­And who are ­these martyrs? Al-­nabī Muḥammad, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (The Prophet Muḥammad, may God bless him and give him peace) said: —­Those are the algaribos (strangers)11 of my al-­umma (community of believers), they are the inhabitants of the ends of the earth. By the one on whose power my person lies! Guarding the frontier one night in the wars of Muslims is more beloved to me than the night of Laylat al-­Qadr.12 The messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), said that the island of Andalusia is a plain of the plains of the al-­jannah (paradise), and some of his companions said: —­Yā, my Lord! Make us participants with them in goodness. The messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), said: —­How w ­ ill you partake in their prize if you have not participated with them in their strug­gles and horrors? And Jibrīl (Gabriel), ʿalayhi al-­salām (peace be upon him), told me that the hair of the p­ eople in [Andalusia] w ­ ill turn grey early before their time as a 11. ​Ar. gharīb/pl. ghurabāʾ. 12. ​Night of destiny, when Muḥammad received the revelation.

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result of the senselessness that their enemies w ­ ill do [against] them, and they ­will eat grains that are not in season. It was recounted by ʿIkrima and by Ibn ʿAbbās, and by the messenger of Allāh, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), who said: The troops of the worshippers of the idols and the eaters of swine ­will still win over the troops of truth and belief; the island of Andalusia w ­ ill be conquered ­after me. Ibn ʿAbbās, raḍī Allāh ʿanhu (may God be pleased with him), told us that one day, the messenger of Allāh, Muḥammad, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), was performing al-­ṣalāt of al-­maghrib (sunset prayer), and when he was done with his prayer he leaned against the edge of the miḥrāb13 and he looked ­toward the West and he cried a very copious cry. Ibn ʿAbbās, raḍī Allāh ʿanhu (may God be pleased with him), said: —­Yā, rasūl Allāh (Messenger of God)! Why have you cried ­until you have wet the hairs of your beard? —­al-­nabī (the Prophet) Muḥammad, ṣalla Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may God bless him and give him peace), said: I have cried b­ ecause my Lord has shown me an island called Andalusia, which w ­ ill be the last island which w ­ ill be populated by Islām, and the first [place] where Islām ­will be banished. ʿAbd Allāh said: —­Yā, rasūl Allāh (Oh Messenger of God)! And how w ­ ill the unity of Allāh taʿāla (God the Most Exalted) win over them? He who sent His messenger with the true guide and the true al-­dīn (the religion) said [it] [in order] to prove it over [all the other] addines (religions), to the regret of the unbelievers. And al-­nabī of Allāh (the Prophet of God) said: Verily t­ here w ­ ill be t­ hings that w ­ ill bring down that community, and only a few of them w ­ ill be obliged, and the souls w ­ ill be selected,14 and they w ­ ill love al-­dunyā (the world) over al-­dīn (the religion), and they leave many of the punishments of the Merciful in what is said15 in his al-­Qurʾān. For this world. 13. ​Niche in the wall of a mosque which indicates the direction of the qibla (pointing to Mecca). 14. ​Difficult passage. The text reads “y avantajará las almas.” Avantajar means to prefer or to put before. Galmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 141. 15. ​The text reads “en el diçiente de su alqurán.” See Galmés de Fuentes et al., Glosario de voces Aljamiado-­Moriscas, 218 (diçienda, saying).

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Index

ʿAbbāsids, 4 Aben Daud, 74, 88–89, 96 Aḥmad b. Qāsim al-­Ḥajarī, 98, 244 Ajofrín (Castile), 20, 22, 27, 33, 40, 46. See Ribera, Agustín de al-­Andalus, 7, 16–17, 40, 77–78, 81, 90, 95, 99, 182; lore of, 123; prophecy in, 7, 81; restoration of, 76, 80–81, 124, 133. See also history of Islam in Spain Alamín, Miguel, 221–22 Albaicín, 64, 70, 72, 85 Albania: Ottomans in, 60; rebellion in, 104 alfaquí, 179–80, 189, 239; as authority, 239; role of in Alpujarras Revolt, 75–76; role of generally, 168–69, 172–73, 175–86, 212–13; sermons, 181–86, 188–89, 197, 200–202, 212, 221, 225 Alfonso the Magnanimous, 120 Algiers, 103,111–12; Morisco communication with, 135, 219–20; Philip II’s plans to conquer, 109; support from governor, 141, 145–46 ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, 3, 124, 201 ʿAlī ibn Jābir Alferesiyo (al-­Fārisī), 6, 8, 241, 267, 270 aljamas, 41, 68n9, 69, 111, 151, 175, 177, 183, 191n86, 202, 205, 224 Aljamiado: definition of, 4; martyrdom in, 88–89; prophecies in, 123–29; texts, 4–5, 27, 44, 54–55, 72, 121–29, 153, 169, 180–82, 209–12, 227 Alpujarras Revolt: and Aben Humeya, 75–77; aftermath of, 100–102, 113, 138, 164, 171–72, 215; alfaquí in, 76–77;­causes of, 64–65; Christian martyrs and, 91–94; Christian view of, 91–93; chronicles of, 72–83; circulation of prophecy in, 75–78; as defense of Morisco identity, 96–99; elites in, 96–97; End Times and, 84–87; ḥadīth and, 82–83; initiation of, 64; in Inquisition rec­ords, 77–78; jofores in,

66–67, 73–74, 82–83; leaders of, 74; and martyrdom, 66, 87–93; mobilization by prophecy, 65–66, 80–84, 87; in Morisco history, 65–66; notables in, 68–72; and Ottomans in prophecies, 84–85; planning of, 72–75; prophecy in, 66–67, 78–82; religious symbols and, 94–95; and restoration of al-­Andalus, 77, 81–83, 99; and restoration of Islam, 66, 95; rumored Ottoman support of, 103; weakening of, 86–87; scholarship on, 94, 98; as turning point for Morisco politics, 133; vio­lence against Christians, 91–93 ambassadors, 103–4, 106, 112, 195, 215, 223, 242 Andalusia, 83, 89, 90, 131, 135, 184, 229, 244 Antichrist, 123, 261, 265–66. See also Fāṭimī Apocalypse of John, 97 Arabic language: loss among Moriscos, 27, 56–57; as Morisco identity, 68, 70, 72, 97–98; prophecies in, 80–81 Aragon: French Huguenot support for, 113; Inquisition in, 102, 106, 110–13; letter from Ottomans, 135; kingdom of, 100–101, 109; Moriscos in, xiv, 18, 89, 102, 111–13, 124; Moriscos inspired by Alpujarras Revolt, 102–3, 106–7, 109, 113–14; prophecies in Mediterranean context, 101–2; prophecy of restoration of Islam, 100–101; rumors of Ottoman arrival, 100–102, 107; prophecy of universal Ottoman rule, 101; rumors of Ottoman support, 130–31, 139; rumors of uprising in, 106, 111–13, 131. See also Huguenots Arcos, Lope de, 148; to Inquisition, 148, 217–18 Arévalo, 19, 40, 60–61 ashrāt al-­sāʿa. See Signs of the Hour astrology, 4, 231, 241, 263, 271

303

304

Index

auto de fe, 28, 106, 150, 154–57, 163, 199, 210, 218, 222 Ávila, 19, 20, 40–41, 61 Azores, 158 Banū al-­Aṣ far (ar.), Benī Aṣfer (tr.), Blond ­Peoples, 117–19 Barbarossa, Ḫayreddīn, 60, 134 Barcelona, 1, 111; in prophecy, 141, 143, 146, 175, 229 Bāyezīd II, 134 Béarn, 113; and Aragon, connections with Aragon, 153, 156, 158, 193, 198, 200, 203, 205; Huguenots of, 141, 202, 215, 217; individuals from, 148, 151, 158, 156; Ottoman communication and, 202–3. See also Nalias, Francisco; Henry IV (France) bell of Velilla, as prophecy, 1–2, 18 Benazar, Lorenzo, 153, 174–76, 188, 198–200, 205, 213 Bolea, Bernardo de, 113, 130 Çafar­family, 150–53, 157, 192; Gerónimo, 192–93, 198; Juan, 152–53 Calanda, 106, 112, 140, 150, 157–60, 166, 197, 200 Calatayud, 100, 111–12, 121, 159 Capitulations of Granada, 17, 69–70, 226–28 Casado, Antonio, 40–41, 46, 60 Casas, Ignacio de las, 75, 78, 82 Castile: circulation of prophecy in, 4–5; Inquisition of, 61–62, 77; John of Rupescissa prophecy and, 122; loss of Arabic language, 27; merchants in, 20; Mudéjars in, 41; plays, 110; protection of Islam in, 55–56; religious fervor in, 38–39; sentencing of Moriscos by Inquisition, 61–62; uprising of, 2. See also Ribera, Agustín de Castile, Moriscos in: daily life, 5–6, 17, 19–24, 28, 36; hopes for Ottoman aid, 59–60, 63; and identity, 30, 62–63; and Mudéjars in, 40–41; preservation of Morisco culture in, 55–59; religious practices of, 41–42; reputation of in Spain, 40–41; religious views of Moriscos in, 42–49; Ribera’s prophecy and Morisco identity, 22; role in restoration of Islam, 63; as vanguard of Islam in Mediterranean, 62–63 Castilian language: prayers, 63; Qurʾān in language of, 56–59; translated prophecy in, 81–82, 89, 98

Castillo, Alonso del, 7, 80–81, 86–87, 97–98, 135 Catholic Monarchs, 17, 65, 68n10, 41, 70n12, 81, 134 cele­brations by Moriscos, 110–11, 142, 162, 217, 231 Cem Sultan, 128–29 Charles V (emperor), 2, 59, 65, 68n10, 69, 69n12, 70, 70n12. See also Habsburgs Chico, Joan, 198, 200–202, 207 ­children, view of, 23 Chris­tian­ity: corruption of, 115–16, 123; destruction of, 115, 122–23, 127; prophesied triumph of, 187; restoration of, 109, 116 Christianized Islam: as expressed by Mudéjars and Moriscos, 28. See also Ribera, Agustín de Christians: prophets in Iberian Peninsula, 21; rebels against Ottomans, 105; understanding of Morisco prophecy, 74–75 circulation: of ḥadīth, 50; of Muslim knowledge, 5–6, 180; of prophecy in al-­Andalus, 81; of prophecy in Alpujarras Revolt, 77–78, 84, 88–99; of prophecy generally, 58, 101–2, 107, 133, 168, 185, 187; of prophecy in early modern Spain, 7; of prophecy in Mediterranean, 1, 52, 16–18, 121–29, 231; of religious texts, 58–59 collective action, 66n6, 95 collective identity theory, 14–15, 129 Compañero, Juan, 143, 151–57, 192 Compañero, Pedro, 160–63 compassion, God as having, 96, 241, 245 conquest of Jerusalem, 108–9 conspiracies, 101; centrality to Morisco historiography, 131–33; and ­Grand Morisco Conspiracy, 131–38; Luis Moreno and, 138–47; on Valencia rebellion, 167–68 Constantinople: communication with Spain, 195; and End Times, 121; Moriscos in, 173, 223; Philip II as emperor of, 105; Ottoman conquest of 108–9, 115–21, 125; and Venice, 102–3; in St. Isidore prophecy, 123 conversion of Moriscos, 17, 36, 42, 65–71, 100, 127, 134, 214, 226, 237 Conversos, 21, 58–59; and Inquisition, 38–39; as visionaries and prophets, 39, 43, 62 Córdoba y Válor, Hernando de (Aben Humeya), 72, 74–77, 84, 188

I n d e x Córdoba, Juan de, 39 Cornejo, Alonso: confession to Inquisition, 168–81, 186–89, 197; as crypto-­Muslim, 170–72; early life of, 168, 172–73; escape plans, 209; false accusations in Valencia conspiracy, 168–69; forged letters of, 204–9. See also Pérez, Gil corruption, of Catholic Church, 115–16, 123 corsairs, 140, 144, 172; and Moriscos in exile, 248 Council of State (Spain), 102–5, 111–15, 130–31, 133, 138, 218, 221, 223 cross of St. Andrew, 28 crusaders, 117 crypto-­Jews, 21, 38, 156. See also Conversos crypto-­Muslims: in Aragon, 106, 109, 123, 128; practices, 181, 233–34 Cyprus, Ottoman invasion of, 102–3, 107–9, 114, 117, 135 Daniel, 77 Dénia, 123, 140–41, 229, 269 devil, 25, 80 Deza, Pedro de, 68, 86 discernment of spirits, 25–27 divine punishment, 67, 82–84, 108, 116–17, 123, 238 Dominicans, 21, 24, 106 Donà, Leonardo, 103–5 Duarte, Yuçe, 139–48, 153–54, 163, 175 Eastern Church, 109 edict of grace, 61, 161, 170–71, 177, 192, 198–99 Edict of Nantes, 230 El Zaguer, Fernando, 74–76 elches (Christian converts to Islam), 17 Elijah, 39 elites, 68, 70–76, 96; as organ­izing conspiracy, 142–43, 150–54, 177–79, 197–98, 225–26 Elizabeth I, 220 emigration to North Africa, 68, 88, 96, 139, 152–54, 174–78 End Times: arrival of, 50–57, 61, 80, 82, 85, 89, 91, 95, 101, 114, 117–19, 206, 242, 248; Christian prophecy of, 2, 21. See also Judgment Day eschatology, 80, 83, 88, 95, 116–18 expulsion of Jews, 240n8, 243 expulsion of Moriscos, 41, 64–65, 70, 97, 131–32, 161–62, 167, 186, 188, 214, 219, 232–33, 238–48; as divine inspiration

305

242–46, 248; as God’s plan, 238–41; justification of, 2, 132–33, 223, 232, 242–43; to New World 162; to North Africa, 94–95, 232, 243–46, 248; prophecy of, 1 false accusations, 207–8, 210–12; by Alonso Cornejo, 167–70; by Gil Pérez, 169, 190–208 false prophecy, 79–80, 168–69, 81; by Gil Pérez on Muḥammad, 205–6 Farax ibn Farax, 74, 193–94 Fāṭima, 254; as prophesier, 3 Fāṭimī, 123, 265 Ferdinand. See Catholic Monarchs; Capitulations of Granada Flanders, 136, 138, 147, 222 France: aid to Moriscos, 113, 161, 214; alliance with Ottomans, 188, 205, 229; communications with Moriscos, 158, 166; Protestants in, 17, 148, 151–60, 190. See also Huguenots Francis I, 137 Franciscans, 9, 21, 38 Frederick III, 115 Gabriel, archangel, 63, 89, 180, 201; in Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture, 39–40, 89; in early modern Spain, 33; in Islam, 41; and Muḥammad, 30, 89; in Agustín de Ribera’s prophecy, 35–38, 40, 54–57 Genoa, Republic of, 104, 106, 108, 123 George of Trebizond, 120–21 al-­Ghazālī, 48 ghāzīs, 117–18, 128. See also jihād (holy war) Gog and Magog. See Yaʾjūj and Maʾjūj (Xuxe and Megigue) good governance, 126–27, 227; as rights and privileges, 227–28; Spanish rulers as unjust, 226–28 grace, as gift to visionaries, 34, 41, 43 Granada: banning of Morisco expressions in, 68; Christian Arabs in, 97–99; forced conversion of Muslims in, 65, 71, 69–70; jofores and Inquisition, 80–81; kingdom of 4, 50–51, 64, 67, 71, 76–77, 82, 102; Morisco cultural practices in, 70–71, 77–78; Morisco cultural preservation, 96–99; Morisco identity in, 65–68, 71–72, 94–95; Moriscos in, 67, 82, 84, 94, 96; rifts among Granada society, 67–68, 71; role of prophecy in, 80–84. See also Granada, fall of

306

Index

Granada, fall of, 17, 21, 67, 85, 95, 179, 226, 237–38; exile of Muslim intellectuals, 67–68; history of, 81, 134; life as Mudéjars, 68; in prophecy of Alpujarras Revolt, 77–78 Granada War (1482–1492), 134 Greece, 105. See also Morea guard the frontier, 89–90, 156, 277–79 Guzmán de Silva, Diego, 103, 106 Habsburgs, 60, 137–38. See also Charles V (emperor) ḥadīth, 81, 82–86, 89–90, 117–19, 124, 165, 182–85; Muḥammad and End Times, 89; and strangers, 89–90; on suffering, 90–91. See also provenance of prophecy Ḥasan Pasha (Ottoman governor of Algiers), 135 Ḫayreddīn Barbarossa, 60, 134 Ḥaṭṭīn, ­Battle of, 115 Henry IV (France), 3, 18, 158, 166, 214, 219–20, 223–31; negotiations with Moriscos, 219–21, 223–30; as universal ruler 228, 230–31 heretics, 79, 80, 100, 109 Hidden King (El Encubierto), 11, 12n43, 124 Historia de rebelión y castigo de los moriscos de Granada. See Mármol de Carvajal, Luis history: understood through apocalypticism, 1–4; Spain’s Arab past, 98–99, 226 history of Islam in Spain, 7, 16–17, 40, 77–78, 81, 90, 95, 99, 182 Holy League 107–9 Huguenots, 106, 112–13, 202, 215. See also Aragon; Béarn; France Hungary, 59–60, 128; Ottoman invasion of, 115 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 72–75, 79, 92, 135 Iberian Peninsula: conquest of, 1–2, 57; in Mediterranean context, xiii; and Ottomans, 103; prophesied end of Muslim rule in, 10; trade routes, 100 Innocent VIII, 128 Inquisition: archives of, 7, 15, 29; and books, 5; and confiscation of Morisco property, 61–62, 65; in Córdoba, 38–39; and crypto-­Muslims, 19–20, 27, 30; and fears of conspiracy, 19; and fears of prophets, 20, 47; in Granada, 76; in Madrid, 19, 102; and persecution of Moriscos, 133–34, 156–57, 185–86, 213, 226; sentencing of

Moriscos, 6, 61–62, 171, 176, 218, 222; in Toledo, 19, 25, 27, 38, 47, 61–62; and torture, 106, 141–42, 148, 217; in Valencia 111, 114, 196; in Zaragoza, 18, 102, 109–11, 217 ʿĪsā ibn Jābir, 58 Isabella I. See Catholic Monarchs; Capitulations of Granada Islam: apocalyptic lit­er­a­ture in, 3–4; pillars of, 210; destruction of, 109; prayer in, 78, 181; restoration of, 51, 66, 80, 83, 101–2, 123, 141, 149, 159, 176–77, 235, 238, 247; sainthood in, 42–43, 48 Italy, kingdom of: 119–20 Izquierdo, Jaime, 154–57; sentencing to death, 155; as martyr, 154–57 jafr, 3–4. See also jofores ( jafr) Jeanne d’Albret, 216 Jerusalem, 115–16 Jesus, 115, 184–85 Jews, 105, 109, 229; conversion of, 116. See also Conversos; expulsion of Jews jihād (holy war), 88–89, 118–19, 156, 270, 278–79 Joachim of Fiore, 9; prophecy of restoration of Chris­tian­ity, 116–17, 243 jofores ( jafr), 66, 73, 74, 76, 77, 80, 81, 91, 99, 124, 229, 238, 241; analy­sis of, 13–15; circulation in Mediterranean, 2–4; and ḥadīth, 4; as Morisco identity, 13; in North Africa, 4n8; origin, 3–4. See also prophecy John of Austria, 76, 108–10, 136, 143 John of Damascus, 2 John of Rupescissa ( Juan de Rocacelsa or Jean de Roquetaillade), 2–3, 7, 9–10; prophecy of, 121–23, 128, 229 Judgment Day, 89, 95–96, 105, 117–18, 240. See also End Times Junta de Lisboa, 162, 186 Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha, 135, 141, 143–45, 147, 160, 166, 199; appeals from rebels in Granada, 86 La Goleta: Ottoman conquest of, 109–11, 114, 131, 136, 140, 162, 231; Spanish reconquest of, 114 language: Morisco use of Arabic, 27; of birds, 46, 46n10; of Moriscos, 94; of Qur­an, 56–58; to express religious ideas, 27–28. See also Castilian language; Aljamiado

I n d e x Lead Books, 97n82 Lepanto, ­Battle of, 18, 107–10, 114. See also Malta Lusignan, Guy de, 115–17, 121 Madrid, 19, 104, 109 Mahdī, 84, 119, 150, 123, 177, 241; claims to be Mahdī in history, 54 Málaga, 77, 81 Malta, 102, 112. See also Lepanto, ­Battle of Mancebo de Arévalo, 43n91, 237 Mármol de Carvajal, Luis, 7, 72–76, 78–82, 85, 92, 96, 135, 225 martyrdom, 66, 155; in Alpujarras Revolt, 88–91; Christians martyrs in Alpujarras, 88, 91–94; and End Times, 88–89; 95, 96, 98–99, 118–19, 184, 198–99; as mobilization, 88; Morisco martyrs in Alpujarras, 88, 91–94; my­thol­ogy of, 93; rewards of, 91, 96 Mary, 97, 184–85; Ribera’s vision of, 38 Mawlāy Zaydān, 219, 223, 244 Mayo, Martín: Aljamiado texts and, 124–29; as heretic, 100; prophecy of Ottoman takeover, 121, 124; provenance of prophecy, 121–22 Mecca, 135, 209; Agustín de Ribera vision of, 38 Medici, Catherine de’, 158 Mediterranean context, 101, 103, 107–9, 119, 129; conflict and, 60–61, 107; early modern, xv; prophecy transmission in, 15; uprising plots across, 104–6 Meḥmed II, 108, 115, 117–20, 125–28; as conqueror of Rome, 117–20; and End Times, 117–18; as universal ruler, 119–21 Meizoteros, Georgeos, 103–5 Merlin, 2 Mevlānā ʿĪsā, 52–53 Michael, archangel, 29–31, 48; iconography of, 30–31; in Islam, 30; in Judaism, 30n40 ­Middle Ages, 40–41, 58 mirror for princes, 125 Mocenigo, Alvise, 107 Morea, 104–5; Christian rebels in, 104–5. See also Greece Moreno, Luis: confession to Inquisition, 131, 139–41, 146, 153–54, 159–60, 162–63 Morés, 100, 139–40 Morisco communication: abroad generally, 102, 111–12, 174, 178, 187, 203, 224; with Algiers, 219–20; within Eu­rope, 102, 111–12, 200; with France, 138, 141, 153, 216; with North Africa, 152–54, 160,

307

198–200, 207, 219, 222; with Ottomans 135, 139–40, 144–47, 157, 164, 175–76, 218–19. See also Aragon; Béarn Morisco identity: definition of, 66, 70–71, 94–99; formation of, 68; loss of, 5, 226; and prophecy, 13–15 Morisco politics: discourse, 215, 224, 248; thought, 67, 101–2, 130, 132–33, 177, 195, 213 Morisco practices: cultural, 65, 68–71, 172–74, 212–13; occult, 44n96, 189; preservation of, 5, 96; religious, 90–91, 151–52, 155, 169, 180–84 Moriscos: as chosen ­people, 240–41, 244, 247; and Henry IV, 227–28; and Huguenots, 215–18; as Mediterranean actors, 3, 101–2; as Ottoman fifth column 112, 132, 136, 149; as part of Islamicate world, 16–17 Morisco society: integration and assimilation, 5, 24, 27–28, 68–70; intellectuals, 68; laws and privileges, 69–70, 127, 149, 227; rift in, 71, 186, 213 Mudéjars, 5–7, 17, 41, 68, 134, 139, 149, 179; daily life, 17; as traders, 5–6 Muḥammad, 4, 8, 42, 78–86, 90–91, 124–25, 128, 156, 180, 183, 201, 205–6, 240; in Aljamiado lit­er­a­ture, 39–40, 54–55; alleged prophesied birth of Agustín de Ribera, 49; on guarding Andalusia, 90–91; life of, as told by Mevlānā ʿĪsā, 52–53; night journey of, 30, 39–40; primordial light of, 54–55; prophecies of restoration of Islam, 74; as prophet, 84, 87; support for Moriscos, 183. See also ḥadīth Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-­Rafīʿ b. Muḥammad al-­Andalusī, 244–45 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-­Anṣārī, 81 Murād II, 125 Murād III, 100, 143, 147, 159, 166, 176, 183, 186, 203 Nalias, Francisco, 148; confession to Inquisition, 148, 216–18 Negroponte, 104, 125 Nicholas V, 115 Núñez Muley, Francisco: as defender of Morisco identity, 68–71, 96–98, 226 Nūr Muḥammadiyya, 52–55, 124 Ochalí. See Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha Old Christians, 21, 68, 106, 112, 132 (conflicts), 165, 172, 185

308

Index

omens, 1–2 Oran, 51 Ottomans: and aid to Moriscos, 1–3, 9, 15, 17–18, 59–60, 63, 83, 85–86, 102–3, 106, 111, 113, 134–39, 141, 175–76, 193, 231, 233–35, 241; armada of, 102–4, 109n33, 112, 115, 130, 136, 141–44, 158–59, 161, 200, 203; arrival expected in Spain, 102–3, 112, 136, 141–42, 166, 188, 229–30; expansion strategy, 64–65, 116, 123, 136–38; and France, 160, 164, 197–98, 202–3, 217, 235, 238; in Granada, 84–87; in Hungary, 60; in Italian Peninsula, 119–20; in Mediterranean, 52, 59–65, 84, 101, 106–7, 111–13, 129, 144, 147; negotiations with Spain, 186; in Negroponte, 59–60; offensive against Spain, 131, 143–47; po­liti­cal culture of, 125–27; presence in Spain, 139, 195, 234; in Valencia, 130–31, 197–98. See also prophecy; sultan paradise, 40, 81, 91, 156 Pérez, Brianda, 75–78 Pérez, Gil, 18, 133; as challenge to authority, 212–13; confession to Inquisition 165–67, 183–85, 190–93, 201–2; early life, 190–91; escape plans, 209; false accusations, 169, 203–4; forged letters of, 204–9 Philip II: and Alpujarras Revolt, 76; as emperor of Orient, 105, 108–9; and Inquisition, 111, 115, 157, 162, 178, 186–88; as king, 29, 65, 172; Moriscos of Aragon, 107–9; and negotiations with Ottomans, 143–47; and Ottoman threat, 86, 100, 104–5, 130, 135; and plots in Aragon and Valencia, 107, 111, 195, 203; in Portugal 162; in prophecy, 160; and treatment of Moriscos, 65, 70 Philip III, 219, 223, 227, 232; and expulsion of Moriscos, 238–39, 242–43 Pius V, 108–9 po­liti­cal reform, Christian prophecy of, 21 Polo, Lorenzo 208, 210 Pontus, 105, 119 pope, 117; destruction of, 127, 129 Portugal, 137, 206; aid to Moriscos, 195–96 Pragmatic of 1567, 65, 68n9, 69–72, 98 proof, of visions, 35–36, 39 prophecy: in Alpujarras Revolt, 72–74; authenticity of, 66, 97–99, 169, 212–13; in books, 2–4; by Christian authors, 8–9; of Christian conversion to Islam, 9, 11–12; as

Christianized Islam, 20, 36, 39–41, 45, 53; of conquest of Spain, 57; as contesting authority, 188; of Cyprus fall to Ottomans, 114; as diplomacy, 225–28, 230–31, 235–36; in early modern Mediterranean, 2–3, 50; as ḥadīth, 4, 6; and heretics, 79–80; as identity 237; as mobilization, 3, 65–66, 80, 168, 226, 235; as Morisco empowerment, 176–77; and Morisco identity, 22, 66; in Morisco society, 13–14; in Ottoman discourse, 107–8; as po­liti­cal agency, 16, 17; as po­liti­cal discourse, 12–18, 33, 63, 148, 168, 235; and po­liti­cal implications, 33; popularity across Mediterranean, 3, 7, 15, 17; as religious motivation, 168; of restoration of Islam, 2, 8–10; of Rome’s fall, 100–101, 114–15, 117, 128–29; as salvation, 33, 39; of Spain-­Ottoman conflict, 115; as unifying Moriscos, 247; of universal Ottoman rule, 114–16. See also provenance prophethood: in Islam, 21, 48; and politics, 22; self-­proclaimed, 20n5, 35; in Spain, 79 Protestants, 106–11, 113, 151; in Flanders, 136, 138. See also Huguenots provenance of prophecy, 15, 101, 124; from Algiers, 159, 163, 166; in books, 2–5, 136; in Mediterranean, 128–29, 180, 185, 187, 200; as Christian, 8–11, 231. See also Joachim of Fiore; John of Rupescissa ( Juan de Rocacelsa or Jean de Roquetaillade); ḥadīth; St. Isidore of Seville Puebla de Híjar, 139–43 qiṣaṣ al-­anbiyāʾ, 5, 57 Qiyāma (ar.), ḳıyāmet (tr.), 45, 112, 118–19. See also Judgment Day Quiroga, Gaspar de, 138, 161–62, 195 Qurʾān, 56–59, 63, 82, 86, 89, 125, 180, 182, 239; in Castilian, 56–59; circulation in translation, 57–58; revelation of, 89 Ragazzoni, Jacopo 107–8 Ramadan, 110, 172–74 Ramażān Pasha, 141, 150, 153–54, 160, 199 rebellion, plotting of, 194–203 Republic of Venice, 112, 117, 223; and Mediterranean conflict, 107–8; and Ottomans, 102–3, 107, 112; Ottoman conquest of territories, 115–17; as provenance of prophecy, 114–17; re­sis­tance of, 115–17

I n d e x Ribera, Agustín de: in Ajofrín, 20–22, 27–33; and archangel Michael, 29–31; in Arévalo, 40–46, 60; and bird language, 46; and Castilian Moriscos, 42–43; as child vs. youth, 23; Christianized Night Journey, 36–40; and communication with animals, 46–47; and crypto-­Muslim followers, 20, 25, 33, 40–49, 55–56; as discerning spirits, 25–26; early life of, 22–25, 40; as God’s envoy, 45, 47–49; and grace, 24–25, 32; healings of, 45–47; to Inquisition, 19, 21, 23–26, 34, 42, 46–49, 56; and Mancebo de Arévalo, 22n7; as mediating everyday and divine, 44, 49; miracles performed, 35–36, 43–46; as Morisco identity, 62–63; as Muslim saint, 20, 42–49; physical ailments of, 23–24, 35; prophecy as Christianized Islam, 26, 28, 30, 33; as prophet, 19, 48–53; and proof of visions, 33; thirty prophets, 52–53; and St. Andrew, 28–29; in Toledo, 20, 34–40, 45–46, 50–53, 55–56; as visionary, 19, 21–25, 28–37, 39, 48; prophecy in community, 33–34; prophecy of Ottoman victories, 59–60, 63; and prophecy as po­liti­cal, 59; prophecy of thirty prophets, 49, 52–53, 55–56. See also Ribera, Luis de; Ribera ­family Ribera, Agustín de, visions: of Castilian Qurʾān, 56–59; of Christian figures, 28–31; of devil, 24–25, 28; of fairies, 23–24; of Gabriel, 31–36, 41–42; of heaven and hell, 36–38; of Mecca, 38; of Ottoman victories, 59–60; of po­liti­cal messages, 59–61; of Ribera ­family as prophets, 53–54; of super­natural, 23–25. See also Gabriel, archangel; Ribera, Agustín de Ribera­family, 22–23, 31, 33–36, 50, 53, 55, 59–60, 62; as crypto-­Muslims, 27–28; doubting vision, 31–33, 35; as interpreter of visions, 34–35, 42, 46; mediating Ribera’s prophecy, 25–26, 34–36, 46, 53–55 Ribera, Luis de, 22–23, 35, 46, 53, 59–60; and Inquisition, 27, 34–35, 46; as interpreter of visions, 24–28, 31, 34, 41; as prophet, 53. See also Ribera, Agustín de; Ribera ­family Rome: conquest of, 123–24; ­f uture of, 107; in Mediterranean context, 101, 105, 108–9, 116–17; plans to conquer, 100, 114–15, 117, 119–21 Rupescissa, John of, 9–11, 121–23, 128, 229, 263

309

Saʿdīs, 3, 17, 153, 219, 244 Sacromonte, tablets of, 97–99 Safavids, Ottoman conflict with, 59–60, 145 Sagundino, Niccolò 120 saints and sainthood, 4, 43; in Islam, 42–43. See also walī Allāh (friend of God) Saladin, 115 Salonika, 153 salvation, 83, 88, 119, 123, 184 Sanctesteban, Thomas de, 191–93; confession to Inquisition, 192–93 Santisteban, Pascual de, 220–22, 225; negotiations with French, 220 Sardinia, 112, 150 Sástago, count of (Aragon), 113, 157, 163 scholarship: on Inquisition rec­ords, 21–22; Mediterranean perspective, 15–17; on Moriscos, 12–15 Segorbe (Valencia), 110, 146, 191, 200; notable Moriscos from, 149–50, 153, 168, 220, 173, 207n122, 208, 175, 182, 225 Selīm II, 107, 135, 138 shahīd (pl. shuhadāʾ), 91, 95, 155. See also martyrdom Sicily, 104 Siege of Belgrade, 125 Signoria (Venetian Senate), 102–15, 107, 115 Signs of the Hour, 7, 82, 119. See also End Times Sinān Pasha, 143 Soḳollu Meḥmed Pasha, 107–8, 137, 144–45 Sosa, Juan de (cousin of Agustín de Ribera), 22, 33–36, 45–46, 56; in Ajofrín, 34; and Agustín de Ribera as prophet, 49–51; sentence by Inquisition, 61–62 St. Andrew, 28–30; in Ajofrín, 29n30; in Ribera’s vision, 28–29; symbolism associated with, 28 St. Cecil, 97 St. Isidore of Seville, 2–3, 6, 10–11, 227, 243; prophecies in Mediterranean, 123, 128 St. Peter’s Basilica, 100, 121, 124, 128 St. Thomas, 37, 37n68 suffering, 80, 82, 88, 90, 91, 156 Sufism, 43, 52, 118 Süleymān the Lawgiver, 52–53, 60, 128, 134, 137 sultan: conversion of, 115, 121; as just and tolerant ruler, 149–50, 177, 230; as messianic redeemer, 15; as universal ruler, 115, 117, 127, 137–38 Supreme Council of the Inquisition, 19, 111, 138, 150, 193–95, 215

310

Index

Teruel, 140, 142, 153, 172, 183–84, 190–91, 208–10 Tetuán, 219 Toledo, 19–27, 161, 221, 247; as impor­tant site for restoring Islam, 55; role in prophecy, 51. See also Ribera, Agustín de Trabzon, 105 treason, 100, 106, 132, 166, 173, 190, 193–94 Tunis: Ottoman conquest of, 109–10, 114, 143, 162; Spanish attack on, 136, 143, 145 Uluç ʿAlī. See Ḳılıç ʿAlī Pasha ʿUmar ibn al-­Khaṭṭāb, 89, 279 Umayyad Caliphate, 4, 7, 77, 81 umma (community of believers), 4, 78, 80, 89–90, 246–47, 277–79 unified Chris­tian­ity, 116, 120–21 universal Islam, 101, 105, 114, 119–20 Valencia: cele­brations of Ottoman victory, 110–11; Inquisition in, 113; inspired by Alpujarras Revolt, 109, 113–14; kingdom of, xiv, 4, 10, 18, 69, 72, 101, 109; Moriscos in, xiv; rumors of Ottoman support for uprising, 111–12; uprising plots in, 111–12

Vall d’Uxó, 173, 175–76, 187, 190 Valladolid, 61 Vatican, 97. See also St. Peter’s Basilica Venice, 59, 101–3, 107–9, 114–15. See also Republic of Venice Villafeliche, 106, 143, 148, 198–202, 217–18 Visigoths, 51, 57 visions, by Christians, 29–30; in early modern world, 26–27, 29–30, 38–39, 46–47; meaning of 26, 29, 59 walī Allāh (friend of God), 43. See also saints and sainthood Wars of Religion, 216 Xea de Albarracín, 138, 184, 190–91, 196 Ximénez de Cisneros, Francisco, 17, 51 Yaʾjūj and Maʾjūj (Xuxe and Megigue), 262 Yazıcıoğlu Aḥmed Bīcān, 117–19, 127 Zaguer, Fernando el (leader of Alpujarras Revolt), 74–76