The Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of Spain

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1/19

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THE SECRET LITERATURE OF THE LAST MUSLIMS OF SPAINAuthor(s): LUCE LÓPEZ-BARALTSource: Islamic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 21-38Published by: Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, IslamabadStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23076080Accessed: 10-03-2015 16:03 UTC

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2/19

Islamic

Studies 36:1

(1997)

THE SECRET LITERATURE OF THE

LAST MUSLIMS

OF SPAIN

LUCE LÓPEZ-BARALT

"We are

not

in times of

gracc

but of

tears".

This terse statement was uttered

by

a

sixteenth

century Spanish crypto-Muslim

by

the name of

Baray

de

Reminyo

and it sums

up

the emotional situation

of

the last

Muslims of

Spain prior

to their

final

expulsion

in

1609. This sorrowful statement is echoed over

and

again

in

the

cryptic

literature of these

hybrid Spaniards

who had to have recourse

to

transliterating

the

Spanish language

of their

oppressors

with the

nostalgic

Arabic

script

of the native

tongue

of the once

flourishing

al-Andalus. To their

regret,

most

of

them

had

simply

forgotten

the sacred

language

of the

Qur'ân.

Another

Morisco

author who chose

to

hide

his real

identity

under the

pseudonym

of "El

Mancebo de Arévalo"

("The

Young

Man of

Arévalo"),

depicts

a

vanquished

community

which is

again

reduced to tears and to incessant

wailing.

The Mora

de

Ubeda.

an old Muslim

woman,

shares her

tragic personal

story

with

the

young

chronicler while

"weeping

at the fate of the

Muslims". What

the

Mora

tells her

eager

interlocutor

in dramatic detail

is how she lost

all her relatives and

possessions

during

the

siege

of Granada back in

1492.

The

world of the

saintly

old

crypto-Muslim

woman is

literally coming

apart

before

her

eyes,

and in another

heart-breaking passage

of the Mancebo's

Breve

compendio

(Abridged

Compendium)

she

grieves

at the

destruction of the

holy

books

of Islam:

"I saw el alto alkiteb al-harsidal"

[The

Exalted

Heavenly

Book], according

to L.P.

Harvey,

"in the hands of a

merchant who

made a

child's

papers

out of

it,

and

I

picked

up

these

folded

folios,

to

my great

sadness..."1

The

Mora thinks that the

Muslims of

al-Andalus,

the

Moriscos'

ancestors,

are themselves

to

blame for

the

present

collective

tragedy

because of

their

lukewarm

observation

of the tenets

of the faith:

"The

weepers

themselves

are

the cause

|of

our

present

misfortunes|.

for the

past

|weepcrs|

determined*?)

that

the

present

|weepers|

were to suffer".

But,

in

spite

of her

overwhelming

sorrow,

she is

still

hopeful

that

God

will

be

merciful towards

the

Spanish

Muslims

and

will

permit

"that

the minarets once

more

will stand in

fixed tall

peaks".'


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3/19

luce

löpez-baralt/The Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of

Spain

The

plaintive

testimonies

extant in the folios of these secret Morisco

manuscripts

—

most of which are still

unpublished

—

truly

reach the

point

of

obsession.

Now it is Yüse

Banegas,

another

crypto-Muslim

whom the Mancebo

considers a

"great

Arabist",

who

weeps uncontrollably

while

informing

the

Mancebo

of the recent historical events that had afflicted him so

poignantly.

The testimonial

writer,

being

from

Avila,

was

ignorant

of

what

really

had

happened

in Granada:

"My

son,

I do not

weep

for the

past,

for

from

the

past

nothing

returns;

but I

weep

for what

you

will see if

you

have life

|long enough|

and are

present

... in

Spain

...

I

did

not

desire

to

come to such

weeping

,.."3

We relive

again

the "acíbar doloroso" or

"paintful

bitterness" of the times

—

the

expression

is now the Mancebo's

—

when we witness the

parting

of the

clandestine Morisco author

with Yüse and his

daughter,

who

was also a devout

Muslim.

They

showed the Mancebo around their Granadan

farm-house,

which

they were about to lose, and gave him as a farewell present a ring and a pearl,

excusing

themselves for the

meagreness

of the

gift,

for

they

had lost

practically

everything.

"And

when I bade both the father and the

daughter goodbye,

there

was

weeping

on all sides".4

A

mysterious crypto-Muslim

by

the name of Muhammad

Cordillera

copied

a beautiful codex in 1577 which

today

is extant

in

the National

Library

of Madrid

(ms.

5223).

In this miscellaneous

manuscript,

whose author is

unknown,

we find a desolate

prayer

to God

—

again,

full of tears and

wailing

—

asking

Him to have

mercy

on His

algaribos

or His exiled Muslims from

Spain.

The

anonymous

author asks

the

Almighty

to show His

wrath:

. . .

against

our cruel

enemies,

always

full of

iniquity against

us,

so

that the lamentations and tears and

sighs

of

those blessed Muslims who

have

died

or

undergone prison

and

martyrdom

and other manners of

torment and

oppression

can be

avenged

in this world and

in

the

next;

and

may

God forbid that the hearts of the Muslims of

this land

ever

again

be

disturbed,

and

may

He

permit

that

they

lose no more than

what

they

have

already

lost ...5

It is no wonder that Muhammad himself is seen

to

cry

over al

Andalus's

tragic

fate

in

the

Morisco's

plaintive

literature.

We now read

in

ms. 774 of the Bibliotheque National de Paris an aljófar or prophesy in which

Ibn 'Abbäs

recounts

that one

day

the

Prophet,

after his

evening prayer,

looked

over the

setting

sun

"and

he

cried and cried

very

hard". Pressed

by

Ibn 'Abbäs

to tell him the cause for such uncontrollable sorrow:

"Why

have

you

cried until

you

have wet the hairs of

your

beard with

your

tears?" Muhammad

answered:

"I have

wept

because

my

Lord has shown me

an Island

which

is

called

Andalusia,

which will be the most distant Island

which will be

populated

of all

of

Islam,

and

will

be the first most from which

Islam will be thrown".6

The flow of

tears we find in clandestine

Morisco

literature

is

indeed

overwhelming.

No wonder the Mancebo sums

up

the

symbolic

identity

of his

fellow

crypto-Muslims by saying sternly

that

they

are

"lloradores" or

"weepers".




4/19

Islamic Studies 36:1

(1 997)

Why

such extreme

grief? Rendering

one's soul has

never been an

easy

experience.

And this is

precisely

what

Spanish

Morisco

literature

is

all about:

it constitutes

a

collective effort to

preserve against

all

odds of the

community's

Islamic

identity.

But

doing

so in the

midst

of

Inquisitorial Spain

was

overwhelmingly

difficult,

for all the remnants

of

Muslim

cultural-religious

ceremonies,

language,

personal

names,

regional apparel-even

the festive dance

of the

zambra

—

had

been

strictly

forbidden

by

a succession of official edicts

throughout

the sixteenth

century.

As could

be

expected,

the

prohibitions

had an

immediate

impact

on the Islamic

community.

Many

Moriscos

fled to Muslim

countries;

while those who chose to

stay

in

Spain

were

forcibly baptized (quite

often without true

religious

conviction).

But some of the most adamant

Muslims,

now

"officially"

Catholic,

went

underground.

As

crypto-Muslims

they

represented

the

epitome

of the Islamic resistance of Renaissance

Spain,

and

precisely out of their midst came the combative yet sorrowful authors we have

been

quoting

so far.

But even this

Morisco elite did-not

escape

the fatal

destiny

of

slow

absorption

into the mainstream of

official"

Spanish

culture. The sixteenth

century crypto-Muslims,

descendants of the

highly sophisticated Hispano-Arabs

from

al-Andalus, were,

in

spite

of

their heroic

cultural and

religious

resistance,

gradually

becoming full-fledged Spaniards.

Thus,

the secret literature of

the

last

Muslims

of

Spain,

for all its

tears,

all its

desperation

and all its

outrage,

is a

lasting

monument to the

hybridness

and

polyculturalismthat

was

understandably

the Moriscos' lot. We are about to browse

through

the

folios of

a

literature

which was indeed

unique,

not

only

because of its

hybrid linguistic

fabric

but

also

because

the historic and cultural

experiences

it

explores

are

exclusively Hispano

Muslim. As we

will

see,

Spanish

Morisco

literature

belongs

both to the East

and

to

the

West,

but is confined to neither.

But

precisely

out of the

crypto-Muslims'

troubled

identity

came an

unexpected literary creativity.

The

underground

Moriscos took to the task of

urgently trying

to

preserve

their rich cultural

heritage

from

receding

into

oblivion, and,

in the

very process

of

rewriting

their classical literature "del arabi

en

aljami"

—

from Arabic to

Spanish

in the Arabic

script

—

they

ended

up

reinventing

themselves

as

authors and readers.

The end result of this

long

process

of

literary

reforging

implied

indeed a

profound

innovation of the Arabic

belles lettres, of the Islamic religious treatises and even of the practical works

(medical

books, itineraries,

etc.)

that the Moriscos

had inherited from

their

ancestors. Let

us take the case of the

legend

of the hero

Buluquia,

who travels

through

time and

space

in the midst of untold cosmic

marvels in a

superhuman

effort

to meet a

yet

unborn

prophet by

the name of Muhammad.

The

story,

which an

anonymous

Morisco

translated

into

Spanish

in ms. VIII of the

Biblioteca de

Estudios Arabes of

Madrid7,

is

extant in its

original.

The Arabic

version both

in the Thousand and One

Nights

and in al-Tha'älibTs

Qasas

al

Anbiyâ'.

But it is one

thing

to

have

enjoyed

the Muslim

legend

in the

open

spaces

of a Moroccan or

Syrian

medieval

market

place

and

quite

another to have

heard

it in the hushed

silence of the

Spanish crypto-Muslims'

clandestine




5/19

luce López

baralt/The Secret

Literature of the Last

Muslims of

Spain

dwellings.

Furthermore,

it is

quite

a different

experience

to focus on

the

story's

unrestrained

delight

for Mirabilia that

has made Arabic fiction so

famous,

instead of assuming it as an urgent political tool for the defence of a national

identity

in

danger

of

extinction. Anwar

Chejne

is

right

when he

proposes

that

even Arabic literature

of

entertainment or

adab,

when

translated

by

the

Moriscos,

served a

utilitarian,

pedagogical purpose

of

cultural

self-affirmation.8

So even the

painfully

exact renditions of the

Arabic

originals

become

texts

with

a

new

political meaning

in

the hands of the Morisco

authors. If this

is the case

of

simple

translations,

we can well

imagine

that the

poignant

testimonial literature

of

the

underground

community

was still more

original

and

more

engaged.

Before we

begin

to read the

disturbing

old

manuscripts,

let us take a

closer look at the

drama

of

conflicting

identities that the Morisco

authors had to

undergo

between the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries-both in

Spain

and

afterwards in their

adoptive

Islamic

countries. That is to

say,

precisely

during

the

years

in

which

they

wrote most

of

their

intensely

polymorphic

literature,

the

underground

Spanish

Muslims

were

torn

between two

antagonistic

ways

of

perceiving

themselves as human

beings: they

were

Muslims,

but at the

same

time

they

were

Spaniards.

And these two

aspects

of their

legitimate'cultural

heritage

had become

simply

incompatible

in

Renaissance

Spain.

The

cultural

and

religious pluralism

and the

relative tolerance of the

Middle

Ages

was

by

now a

thing

of the

past.

The

Moriscos

who

opted

to

stay

in their

motherland

had to

accept,

as we have

already

pointed

out,

cultural

integration

into

an

official, monolithic Catholic "Spanishness". They had to either bury in oblivion

or force into

clandestinity

the Islamic

ingredients

of

their national

identity, by

now

totally

discredited. As a

result,

many

Moriscos ended

up

being culturally

hybrid

because the slow deterioration of their Islamic

heritage

did not

always

give

way

to a

complete

identification nor to a

profound

knowledge

of

the

solidly

Catholic culture of

the victors. It must be

pointed

out

that even the

Spanish

name which

now

came into

vogue

for 'Moors'.

—

Moriscos

—

ended

up

acquiring

a

very

negative

social innuendo.

But these

very

Moriscos,

by

now

profoundly

torn in

their

national

identity,

faced a new

dilemma

when

their final

expulsion

was

decreed

by

Philip

III

in 1609:

they

had not been allowed to

be bona

fide

Spaniards

in their

native

land, but

they

did not have the time either to become

full-Hedged

Muslims in the

first decades of their exile in

Barbary.

The

Morisco

community

thus

underwent

two different

processes

of

acculturation. The

Islamic

culture was

forcefully

taken

away

from

them

in

Renaissance

Spain,

and,

when

they

were

finally

in the

process

of

becoming

assimilated into the

'official'

Spanish

culture,

they

were

forced

by

the

circumstances into a new

process

of assimilation.

In

their new

adoptive

countries

they began

to

relearn their

long

forgotten

Arabic and to

acquire

a

deeper knowledge

of

their Islamic

religion, by

now

mostly

reduced to

superficial

rituals. Countries

like

Morocco,

Algeria

and

Tunisia received

the

Muslim

refugees

with

open

arms, but,

at the

same-time,

considered them to be Europeans. As Mikel de Epalza reminds us. the Turkish




6/19

Islamic Studies

36:1

(1997)

regent

of

Tunis,

'Uthmän

Dey, protected

the

new comers as an autonomous

foreign community

of a

high

technical and

economic

level

and

placed

them

under

his

direct

political

protection

for obvious utilitarian reasons.1'

The Moriscos found

themselves,

therefore,

in the

ironical

situation of

being

expelled

from

Spain

as Muslims

and

then

of

being

considered

Europeans

by

their

benefactors

in their new homelands.

Like the

symbolic

olive tree

(see

Qur'än

24:35),

they belonged

neither

to the

East nor

to

the

West.

While

in

Spain they

had

to hide

their Islamic

identity.

But once

in

Barbary,

even

though

they

were

overjoyed

to be able

to

practice

Islam

at

long

last,

they

felt

a

poignant,

understandable

nostalgia

for their lost

Iberian motherland. And

this,

again, proved

to be

a

difficult

undertaking:

after

so

many

decades

they

had

learned to love and to memorize their

contemporaries'

re-discovered

literary

works. It is

usual to

come

across the

Spanish

Renaissance classical authors

—

Garcilaso, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Góngora — cautiously bui admiringly

intermingling

with Islamic authorities

in

the

proselitistic

treatises

written

in

exile.

It must also

be

said that the literature

the Moriscos

produced

as

refugees

proved

to

be as

hybrid

and

as

polycultural

as

it had been

during

the

Spanish

underground period.

But for inverse reasons: while

in

Barbary

the

Muslim

authors

could

express openly

their

allegiance

to

Islam,

a

too

enthusiastic

identification with their former

European

culture could be

suspect.

The

"lloradores" thus

took

their tears to

exile:

their

destiny

was

to

remain

landless

l'or

many

years

to

come:

this,

in

spite

of

their adamant

loyalty

to

the

Islamic

religion

of

their ancestors from

al-Andalus,

which

they

finally

recovered

in the

Muslim nations which

gave

them

refuge.

But let us retrace the Moriscos'

steps

while

they

were still in the

Peninsula,

struggling

to remain faithful

o

the

Islamic

faith.

Their

literary saga,

which

roughly

encompasses

the sixteenth

century,

began

in

earnest alter

the

Catholic Monarch's benevolent

capitulations

after

the

fall

of

Granada

began

to

be violated. This is not

to

say

that

the

Spanish

Islamic

community

had

not tried

to

reforge

their

national culture into

Spanish

prior

to the Granada debacle

or

the

forced

baptisms

(

1499-1525): let us remember the sixteenth

century

aljamiado

rendition

of

the Poema

de

Yusuf

and

'Isa

ihn Jäbir's 1456

Spanish

translation

of

the

Qur'än,

whose

momentous historical

importance

many

scholars have

recently

stressed.1" But the

sustained,

collective

effort

of

preserving

for

posterity

the

last

remnants of the Moriscos' cultural identity is, ironically, really a Renaissance

phenomenon.

Perhaps

a Renaissance

ci

l'envers

phenomenon,

l'or

no

other

European

nation

can boast of

having

produced

such a

peculiar

literary

corpus

as

Spain

did

during

its

supposed

"classical"

period,

Be

that

as

it

may,

thanks

to

these

manuscripts

which

we have

recently

begun

to discover and

to

decode"

we

have

the

impressive opportunity

of

witnessing

—

with

singular

pathos

—

the

extinction of an entire

peuple,

and we

see

as

well

their

efforts to

hold

back

the

inevitable historical forces which

were about

to

descend

upon

them,

The Morisco authors were

the

chroniclers

—

or

perhaps

the

anti

chroniclers.'

—

of a

vanishing

world.

Their

first

tragedy

was

that

they

could

produce

neither

literature nor

religious

proselitistic

treatises

in

the

language

of




7/19

luce lôpez baralt/The Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of

Spaii

their forebears

from al-Andalus. The Arabic characters in which the Moriscos

wrote

their

Spanish,

and which were

—

with a few

exceptions

—

the full extent

of their knowledge of their holy tongue, testifyto a terrible tragedy.

The

loss of the

language

of the

Qur'än

was

grievous

to the Muslim

believers

not

only

from the

point

of view

of

culture,

but

more

particularly

from

the

point

of view of

religion,

for

in

Islam

praying

in

the

sacred

tongue

of the

revelation is an essential

part

of the

religious

ritual. This fact leads Ottmar

Hegyi

to observe that

the author of these clandestine texts

hung

to their

Arabic

characters

less from considerations

of

secrecy

than for the sacred

dignity

that the

Arabic

characters held

for them

and

their

clandestine

readers.13 Thus the

indignation

of these

crypto-Muslim

authors,

who

deeply

resented

having

to use

"al-'Ajamï"

or

aljamiado

for their

treatises:

the

expression

comes from

the

Arabic

'ajamiyyah, meaning foreign tongue.

Although

the coined

technical

term

has been

generally applied

to the

totality

of the secret

literary corpus

of the last

Muslims

of

Spain,

it

must be

acknowledged

that some

Moriscos

wrote also

in

the

Arabic

language

and

even in

Spanish

using

the

Latin

script

both before and

after their

exile in

Barbary.

That is

why

Gerard

Wiegers prefers

to

refer

to

Morisco

literature as

"Islamic

Spanish

literature".13

In

any

case,

the

Moriscos,

fully

aware of their

linguistic shortcomings,

were

outraged

to have to write in

the

foreign,

almost

heretical

aljamiado,

as

the

vitriolic tone

of this

anonymous

author

clearly

demonstrates:

Not one of

our

religious

brothers

or sisters knows the Arabic in which

our Holy Qur'än

was

revealed, nor understands

the truths of the

religion,

nor

can

appreciate

its refined

excellence,

unless these

things

be

conveniently

stated to

them

in a

foreign

tongue,

which

is

that

of

these

Christian

dogs,

our

tyrants

and

oppressors. May

Allah

confound

them

Thus, then,

may

I

be

pardoned

by

Him who reads what

is

written

in

the

heart,

and

knows that

my

only

intention is

to

open

to

the

faithful of

the

Muslim

religion

the

path

of

salvation,

even

if

it

be

by

this

vile

and

despicable

means,14

Another

anonymous

Morisco,

who

took on

the task

of

translating

the

Qur'än

into

Spanish

in

1606,

is

again quite

unhappy

over the

fact

that he

has

to

use the "letters of the Christians". He begs for his readers' understanding:

[The

writer)

begs

that on

account

of

being

in

those

letters

[his

work|

be not

belittled,

but

rather

respected;

because,

being

set

down

in

this

way,

it can better

be seen

by

those Muslims

who

know

how

to read

Christian,

but not

Muslim,

letters. For it

is

true

that the

Prophet

Muhammad

(peace

be on

him)

said

that the best

language

was the

one

that

could be

understood".15

The

process

of

learning

to

transliterate

these "letters

of

the

Christians"

with the Arabic script was not an early one, A high-n>nking sharlf of noble




8/19

Islamic

Studies

36:1

(1997)

origin,

Ibn 'Abd al-Rafi'

al-Andalusl

gives

us a

heart-rendering

account of how

his father

taught

him the Arabic

alphabet

and

the first notions of Islam when

he

was six years old. His testimonial account gives us a privileged access to a

crypto-Muslim

home and

forces us

to

share the fear the

youngster

must have felt

when his father

quietly approached

him

one

day

with a

walnut-wood slate

in

his

hand. Ibn 'Abd

al-Rafi' assures the reader

that after

many years

of exile in

Barbary

he can still see the

slate

graphically

inscribed in his

memory.

The

father starts

to write

upon

the slate the "letters of

the

Christians",

and

goes

over

them with his son.

Every

time the child

repeats

one of these

"foreign" signs,

the

father,

with

gentle yet

authoritative

patience,

goes

on to

instruct him

on

the

corresponding

Arabic

signs.

"Ours

are like

this",16

he

whispers

in

the startled

child's ear. 'Abd al-Rafi'

ends

up

having

to memorize a

double

alphabet neatly

inscribed

in a

double

column.

He learns

immediately

that he is

in the midst of

a very dangerous academic task: he must

keep

his father's

teachings strictly

to

himself. Not

even his mother

should

have access to

the

delicate

curving

Arabic

signs

extant

in

the wooden

slate.

He remains

alone,

memorizing

his ominous

lesson,

when

suddenly

his

mother

bursts into

the

room

and

scolds him:

"What

was

your

father

teaching you?". "Nothing",

mutters the

child,

starting

his

life

of

duplicity

as a

crypto-Muslim.17

"Don't

be

afraid,

and tell

me,

for

I

know

very

well

what

he

was

teaching

you".18

But

the

future

sharif

had learnt

to

keep

a

secret

and

proves

to

be

loyal

to the

father

who had introduced

him

with such

caution to

the

secrets

of his

threatened

community.

In the

years

to come

he will

manage

to

study

with

the

saintly

al-Üthürl of

Granada,

who

had

become

an

expert in Islamic law before the fall of the city. Al-Rafi' had to continuously

risk his life

in

order

to

further his

knowledge

of Islam

and it

is

not

surprising

that

he

finally

decided

to tlee

his

native homeland.

Not

all the

crypto-Muslims

had

the

same

scholarly

tenacity

—

nor

the

same

good

luck

—

as

had

Ibn

'Abd

al-Rafi'.

The

Morisco

Francisco

de

Espinosa

alleged

in

his

Inquisitorial

trial that

"he

knew

no more

words

in

Arabic

than

El

handurila

de

la

bradamin

hurrazmin,

and that he knew not even

what

they

meant".19

Of course the

accused

man

could

be

disguising

his

true

Islamic

knowledge

to avoid

incrimination,

but

the

truth

s

that

the

aljamiado

manuscripts

indicate

a

similar

situation. The reader

often

comes

across

the

pathetic practice

of

the

Arabic

alphabet

in

the blank

folios of

the

anonymous

codices.

Usually,

when the Arabic language is brieflyquoted in the manuscripts, it is interspersed

with

grammatical

errors.

Even the

Mancebo

de

Arévalo,

whom his collaborator

Baray

de

Reminyo

describes as

a

"scholarly

young

man...

very expert

and

educated

in

the

reading

of

Arabic,

Hebrew, Greek,

and

Latin,

and in

aljamiado

most

conversant",20

seems

to

have had

a

quite

modest

literary

and

religious

culture.

L.P.

Harvey

has

demonstrated

the

errors

our scholar

falls

into

when

he

tries

to

show

off

his

knowledge

of

these venerable

languages,21

He

was

also

ignorant

of

the

basics

of

Arabic

grammar

and

of

the rules

of

declination,

which

he

appears

to

confuse with the

attitudes

of

the

speaker,

His

Morisco friends,

ignorant

of

Arabic,

begged

the

young

man to

give

them

some

instruction in

the




9/19

luce López barai τ The

Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of

Spai

language.

And he

"helps"

them with this

outrageous

"lesson",

whose

original

opacity

we

respect

in the translation:"

I

wished to collect certain Arabic similes in

aljamiado

because

some

of

my

friends asked me

why

it was that in

Arabic in certain

passages

sometimes one said

Alläh,

ther times

Allähu.

and other times

Allühi....

one

is to understand

that

saying

Allah without

any

other

appearance

|addition|

is to

speak

in

absolutes.

Allähu

is to take current

|sic.,

no

doubt

meaning

"speak"

|

in

order

to

invoke some

saying

as

though

to

say

"merciful"

or

"mercy".

Saying

Allah

is

like that

man

who

suddenly

wishes

to

entrust

himself to

Allah;

he

goes directly

to

Allah

instead of

asking

his

al-rahmah or

pity.

The

man

who

says

Allahu

goes

more

slowly

in

seeking

...

pity.-·'

For

all

their

distressing linguistic

difficulties,

the

crypto-Muslims

refused

to

forget

Arabic.

And

they

did

it

against

all historical

odds;

in the

momentous

year

of

1492

-

the

fall

of

Granada and the

expulsion

of

the

Jews

-

permitted

the

nationalization

of

Spanish

territory,

while the

discovery

of

America

opened

the Peninsular culture

to

unexpected

horizons.

But

1492 was

also

a historical

year

because

Antonio

de

Nebrija

published

the first Gramática

de

la

lengua

castellana.

The

great

humanist

thought

that his

Spanish

Gramática

based on

Quintilianus

and

Diomedes, would

be

of

service

for

the

unity

of

his

recently

founded nation,

which

quickly proclaimed

Castillian as its official

tongue,

But in

a

few years

the

underground

Moriscos

will in turn

be

hurriedly

translating

the famous Arabic

grammar

Jurrûmiyyah

or

Muqaddtmah

of

Muhammad

al-Sanluiji

ihn

al-Jurrfon,

born in

Fez

(1273-1339

π

), The

anonymous

aljamiado

rendition

of

the

popular

opuscule,

extant in

ms.

Junta

XII,

probably

anteceded

the

first

European

editions

and

Latin translations

of the

text

-4

It

is no

exaggeration

to

say

that

the

clandestine

manual

was

the

Moriseo's

fierce

answer

to

Nebrija's

Gramática,

and one can

only

wonder how

many crypto-Islamic

children

used it

in

the

secrecy

of their

homes

in

their

struggle

to remain

bilingual. They

were

precisely

the future authors of our

hybrid aljamiado

texts,

Aljamiado

literature

was

indeed

so

mestizo

or

hybrid

in its

linguistic

outlook that when (he first manuscripts were discovered in the eighteenth

century,

scholars

just

did

not know

what

to

make of

them, Confused

by

texts

that were

written n the Arabic

script

but

which

at

the same time

were

not extant

in

Arabic,

researchers

like

Sylvestre

de

Saey

thought

they

must have been

written in "some

of the

languages

spoken

in

Africa,

or

perhaps

in

Madagascar".-'

Let

us

begin by opening

some of

the

most

prdselitistic

manuscripts,

for

they

constitute

the hulk

of

sixteenth-century

Islamic

Spanish

literature,

Again

it is the

Mancebo

de

Arévalo

who

describes

vividly

in his Breve

compendio

or

Brief

Compendium

a

visit

he

payed

to ΆΠ

Sarmiento,

an illustrious 'álim

or

Muslim sage from Granada. Sarmiento, already one hundred years old and




10/19


(1997)

infirm,

had been so afflictcd

by

the

fall of the

city

that

in order to avoid the

constant insults

his fellow Muslims were

still

being

subjected

to,

he

moved to

the outskirts

of the town. The Mancebo

went to his house

in the

company

of

two Morisco

friends and was

quite

impressed

when

he

heard

Sarmiento

formally

lecture the newcomers

from a home-made

pulpit

or almimbar:

"He stood at his

house's

almimbar,

and with the

very

same tunic

he used to

wear when he

greeted

the

Kings

of

Granada

during...

festive

occasions,

he

began

preaching...".·16

Sarmiento's

stubborn emotional

attachment

to

the

old Islamic

ways

must have

seemed heroic

yet

at the

same time

pathetic

to the newcomer

from

Arévalo.

Our

chronicler remained

optimistic

over

the

possibility

of Islam

returning

to

Spain,

for he assures

in the

prologue

of his

opus

magnas,

the

Tafsira

or

Exposition,

that he will write

yet

another

Tafsira

"when this land is

free",0 that is, when

Spain

is "liberated" from the Christians. But deep inside

the

crypto-Islamic

testimonial writer

must have felt

the

pangs

of

doubt;

almost

all the fellow

Moriscos he meets

in

Granada

have the

feeling

that

the worst was

yet

to come.

He

keeps

interviewing

the survivors

again

and

again,

and his

modern attitude

reminds Maria Teresa

Narváez,

the

Tafsira's

editor,

of that of

a

journalist

avant

la lettre. The

Mancebo

stays

for

two months

with

Yuse

Banegas,

the

"grande

arabigo"

or

"great

Arabist"

from Granada

we have

already

quoted,

to learn from him. The

old

scholar,

who makes the

Mancebo read out

several

Qur'änic

surahs

loud to correct

his

style,

had an

important

role

in

the

city's

final

capitulations.

As an

eyewitness

of these

events,

he

saw how the

Granadian

women were sold

as slaves in the

town

square

when the

city

surrendered:

"do not doubt

my

telling

thee...

for I saw

with

my eyes

all

the

noble

ladies,

both

widows and

married

women,

being

scorned and

humiliated,

and

I saw sold in

public

auction more

than three

hundred maidens.Yüse's

lament is

one of the most

poignant

the Mancebo

records

for

posterity.

At

long

last the muted

voices of the

vanquished

Islamic

community

describe the

historical

events

from their

own

point

of view:

My

son,

I know that

of the

things

of Granada

your

understanding

is

void;

and

you

should not be

frightened

when I tell

you

of

them,

because there is

no moment when

they

do

not echo within

my

heart

...

My son, I do not weep for the past, for from the past nothing returns,

but I

weep

for

what

you

will see

if

you

|stay]

in this island of

Spain.

Pray

to His

kindness,

that .

. . this

thing

that

1

say

fall into

oblivion,

and not be

fulfilled as I have

foreseen

it,

specially

with our

religion

so

scorned

... that the

people

will

say:

Where

did our

preaching

go?

What

has

happened

to the

religion

of our fathers'.'

And all

will be

bitterness

for the

man with sense

[to

feel

it).

And what

most hurts

is

that the

Muslims will imitate

the

Christians,

and

will not refuse their

dress nor

dodge |spurn]

their food.

Pray

to

His kindness that

...

they

pay

no attention

to their law with

their hearts...

You

will

clearly

see

that

I

say

all this

passionately |but|

I

did

not desire to come

to such




11/19

luce López baralt/The Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of

Spai

weeping...

For

if

now in such short

space

it

appears

that

we sustain

ourselves

by

confrontation,

what

will

there be when the last autumns

[the

last

days]

come? If the fathers belittle the

religion,

how will the

great-great-great grandchildren praise

it?

If

the

king

of the

conquest

keeps

not his

words,

what awaits us from his successors?29

Banegas

was

painfully right

in his

historical

"prophesy":

the Catholic

Monarch

King

Ferdinand

betrayed

his own accords after the fall of Granada.

They

were hard times indeed. And

yet,

the

crypto-Muslims

did

put up

a

fight,

not

only

in the

Alpujarras

but from

important pockets

of

Islamic resistance

like

Saragossa. Again

we are in debt

to the Mancebo's sense of

history

in the

making;

in

one

of

his most dramatic

scenes,

he describes in minute detail a

secret

meeting

of "Muslims and wise men" in

Aragon,

in which he

participated,

probably as a worried observer. The chronicler skilfully records the desperation

and

anger

of his fellow

Muslims,

many

of whom could not deal with

the

difficulties involved in

keeping

Islam

alive:

...[the

gathered

Muslims

began

to

speak

of

our sorrows and each one

gave

his

harangue:

and

among

so

many things

there was one who said

our loss was indeed

great

and lamented at how little

essence

our

work

had;

and

another

'älim

[wise man]

said that

the worK which we had to

do...would

be to our

greater

merit;

but

they repudiated

his

speech,

saying

that the

work

was to no avail as far as the

precept

[or

orthodoxyl

is

concerned,

because it was

lacking

the

principal thing,

which is the

[officiali

call to

prayer,

and thus the work could not be

pleasant [spiritually

acceptable

to

God|...

And

among

all these

disgusts,

another wise

man said another

...angry

piece:

like all the

rest,

he said that

every

man

should tie

up

his skirt

about

his

waist

[so

as to move

freely

in order to

escape]

and those who

desired

salvation should

go

out and seek it.

Everyone

took his

speech

very

ill,

because it caused

great

sadness

[?fîeça\

and did not

give

the

example

of a

good

Muslim. There

many

different sorrows were

told;

and as each of those men felt the

general

harm as his

own,

I was not

surprised

that each one should

speak

his

mind,

because we were not in

any mood to jest, nor to utter improper words.30

In

spite

of all these

difficulties,

the

aljamiado

manuscripts

bear witness

to the fact that the

underground

Moriscos

did

manage

to survive as an Islamic

community,

sometimes,

barely

so. Reem Iversen31 has

documented a curious

aljamiado

letter

ms.

Junta

XV1Ï)

addressed to an

al-faqih

or

Islamic doctor of

law. It is written in

great

haste

by

an

anonymous

Morisco who

requests

that the

al-faqih

send

him

(or

her)

at once a

prayer rug

to

perform

the

saläh or Islamic

ritual

prayer.

The sender of the

undated letter also

specifies

that the mat must

be halál

(made

of licit

materials).

If the clandestine

business was discovered it




12/19


(1997)

would have cost both

the letter writer and the mat

provider

their

liberty

and

perhaps

even their

lives.

But the

crypto-Muslim

authors did not limit themselves

to

these

merely

ritual

aspects

of their Islamic

religion. They

attacked

Christianity

in treatises

that were much more

sophisticated

from

a

theological

point

of view. The

anonymous polemist

who authored ms. 5302 of the National

Library

of Madrid

was

quite

frontal

in his attack of

Christ,

whose

figure

he

downsizes to that of

a

simple prophet

who was

not,

as Catholics

claim,

God himself.

Reading

this

text

proves

to be an

uneasy experience

for

Spanish

readers: no wonder this

particular

manuscript

still

remains

unpublished.12

The author

first

depicts

the

circumstances

of Jesus'

gestation

and

birth,

which seems to

him

as normal

as

those of

any

other human

being:

"(Jesus|

stayed

in

|Mary's|

womb

for nine

months and then left it

through

the same

place

where Adam's sons leave it".33

Our polemist reminds his reader that Allah is Uncreated, and that he neither eats

nor drinks nor

sleeps,

and of course is never afraid.

But 'Isa or Jesus "was

born and

he ate and

drank,

and he

slept

and

experienced

fear and he fled Herod

and he walked with the sons

of Adam and

people

saw

him first as a child and

then as a

grown

man,

and he was with them

for

thirty

three

years.

So how can

you

say

that he was God

having

done all this?"34

The author's

depiction

of

Christ's crucifiction

is

truly startling

from the

point

of view

of a traditional

Catholic

Spaniard.

He died as a

man,

and as

an

anguished,

fearful

man at that:

"We have to

accept

the fact that

|Jesus]

was afraid...and that

he

complained

and

implored

|God|

that

he be excused

from

experiencing

the

process

of death.

And he asked God to let

him

rest,

and an

angel

came to

comfort

him... .So how can he be

God,

as

you

Christians

claim,

when he needed

such...and consolation

from the

Almighty?"35

As could

be

expected,

Muhammad,

a

veritable Christ à

l'envers,

is

celebrated

as the

true

Prophet

of the

crypto-Islamic

community.

Consuelo

López-Morillas's

recent

Textos

aljamiados

sobre

la vida de Mahonia:

el

Profeta

de los

moriscos

(Madrid:

Consejo

Superior

de

Investigaciones

Científicas, 1994)

offers

a

splendid

collection

of

aljamiado

texts

depicting

the

Prophet's

sacred

genealogy

and

frequent

miracles.

According

to

the

profusely copied

Kitäb al

Anwär or

Book

of Lights,36

the

Prophet

inherited from Adam and

from the

religious prophets

that

preceded

him,

a miraculous

light

which shone

on his

forehead as a sign of his future role as the spiritual leader of the

Muslims. The

famous

Kitäb

al-Mi'räj

or Libro de la

esca'a,37

on the other

hand,

describes in

vivid detail Muhammad's

ascension

on the

al-buräq

to the seventh

heaven,

where he

spoke

with

God

himself.

Again,

this well-known

text was

respectfully

copied

once and

again by

the

Spanish

crypto-Muslims.

It seems to have been

their

secret,

defiant answer

to the Christian

religious

figures

they

were forced

to

venerate

openly

in Catholic

Spain.

One

of the most

moving

testimonies of

the whole

corpus

of

Islamic

Spanish

literature, however,

is

the denunciation of

the

Inquisition.

The feared

Tribunal

not

only

constantly

violated the

crypto-Muslims'

consciences,

but took

their

children

hostage

and confiscated

their

properties.

Our

anonymous




13/19

luce

lopez

baralt/The Secret Literature of the

Last Muslims of

Spai

informer,

who writes l'orni the

safety

of

Tunisia,

seems to know that he is

writing

for

posterity

when he describes what it was like to live

under the

constant threat of the feared Tribunal:

Thanks

... be

given

to

our

merciful

Lord,

who

plucked

us out of the

midst of these Christian

heretics...|tor|

every day

their

abhorrence

grew greater

in their

hearts,

and it was

necessary

that one show

oneself

as

they

demanded,

for

if it was not

done.

|we|

were taken

to the

Inquisition,

where for

following

the truth we

were

stripped

of our

lives,

properties,

and

children;

for in

a thrice a

person

was thrown into a

dark

prison,

as black as

their

evil

designs,

where

they

should be left for

many years

as the

property

was consumed

...

and the

children,

if

they

were

small,

they

were

put

out to

rear,

to make of

them,

like

[the

Christiansi, heretics; and ... some said that

|we|

all should be

put

to

death,

others that we should be

castrated

{by

cauterization

in a

part

of

the

body

so that

|we|

might

not

engender

children

and

so die out

by

degrees.

Almost all

aspects

of life

were rewritten

by

the Morisco authors from

the Islamic

point

of view. The secret Muslim

community managed

to teach its

members not

only

how to

marry according

to

Islamic law but also

how

to die

within the faith. Death was

precisely

the most

critical moment that had to be

lived in the

context

of the Moriscos'

traditional beliefs. Different

religious

treatises

taught

the secret

community

all about the

processes

of

dying

and the

ensuing

afterlife.

Both Antonio

Vespertino Rodriguez19

and

Miguel

Angel

Vazquez*'

have

published excerpts

of

some

of the

most

fascinating

"death

manuals" of

itljamido

literature.

A

symbolic

skull describes in morbid detail

what it had been like for him to surrender his

soul;

"Azrail

[the

Angel

of

Death|

descended

upon

us

brandishing

fire and

received our souls with a blast of

fury.

He took

my

al-rüh

[soul]

from

me

I

tearing

it

apart]

from

joint

to

joint

and from vein to vein until

he

forced

it all the

way

to

my

throat.

Then he knocked

it with a

terrifying

club of fire.

1 felt such

pain

... that

I

can

only

compare

it to

the

experience of being skinned alive. I...have been lying here...for three

hundred

years

now and

I

still feel the

pain

in

my

throat from the

pulling

out of

my

soul...41

But

after such

eschatological struggle, many

Moriscos had the relief of

learning

that a

particularly delightful

heaven awaited them. It

was.

as was to

be

expected,

an

Islamic Paradise inhabited

by black-eyed

houris of

ravishing

beauty.

Their demeanour was so

incredibly

gentle

that

if

just

one of them were

to look down

upon

the

ocean

with

their

heavenly gaze,

its

salty

waters would

immediately

turn sweet.4'




14/19

Islamic Studies

36:1

(1997)

The

crypto-Muslims'

feverish

imagination

is

again

pul

to

good

use

in

another

literary genre

which the

persecuted minority exploited pro

domo sua

in

a

spectacular way.

We are

referring

to the incredible

affaire

of

the lead books

of Sacromonte and the

parchment

of the Tower of

Turpin

in Granada. When

the Torre

Turpiana.

the

old

minaret of

the

mosque,

was demolished

in 1580 in

order

to

expand

the

cathedral,

a lead box was

discovered,

containing "prophetic"

inscriptions

in

Spanish

and

Arabic

dealing

with the end of the world. Fifteen

years

later,

in

1595.

a much more remarkable

discovery

was made: lead tablets

were found

in

Sacromonte

or

"holy

mountain"

in

Granada,

written

in

angular

Arabic characters

(so

as

to look

antique)

and in crude Latin. These

thin

tablets,

which were about the si/.e

of

a communion

wafer,

had

been made to

appear

to

belong

to the first

century,

and

they

included several

books

—

The Green

Mysteries

Seen

by

St.

James,

Enigmas

and

Mysteries Seen

by

the

Virgin, among

others — attributed to Tesifón Ebnatar and his brother Cecilio Enalrabí, putative

disciples

of St. James

the

spostle,

the future

patron

saint

of

Spain.41

The

Archbishop

of

Granada.

Pedro Vaca

de

Castro,

enthusiastically

ordered

the lead

tablets or

plomos

excavated,

and the find

caused,

according

to

Harvey,

as much

uproar

as the

Dead Sea Scrolls have caused

in our own

day.44

The texts

give

us a

physical description

of Christ and

the

Virgin

Mary,

who is snatched

up

into

heaven on a mare

(a

coarse

version of the ascent of Muhammad

to the seventh

heaven

on the

burciq)

and who

replies

(in

Arabic)

to St.

Peter's

inquiries

as to

the vices that

sixteenth-century

Granada

will suffer under

and as to the

importance

of

the

Muslims in those late

years.

A

long theological dispute

followed

the

discovery,

and

although

the relics were authenticated

by

Peninsular

scholars

in

1600,

they

were

finally

moved to

Rome,

where

they

were declared

heretical.4·''

This hoax served

a utilitarian

purpose

for

the Moorish

population

on the

eve of

its final

expulsion

in

1609.

The

plomos implied

a

diplomatic

(and

truly

desperate)

attempt

to reach a

synthesis

of the Christian and the

Islamic

religions.

Here

is

one

example

of

religious

syncretism

in the texts: the

Islamic

set-phrase

"there is

no

god

but God and Muhammad

is His

Messenger"

becomes Lâ lläha

illa

Allah,

wa YasiV ruh

Allah,

or "there is no

god

but God

and Jesus

is

the

spirit

of

God".

Very

Catholic

[in

contenti

and

very

Qur'ânic [in

form]

at the

same

time,

as

Harvey aptly

observes 46

There is some

suspicion

that the

controversial pair Alonso del Castillo and Miguel de Luna, who took part in the

"official"

translations of the

tablets,

were in fact their authors.

The false

chroniclers

and the Tower of

Turpin manuscript

are seen

today

as

pathetic

in

their

theological

naiveté and

tragic

in their total failure to halt

the Moorish

expulsion

and to lend

dying

Islam some

last

prestige, yet

they

are

of interest as

a

"literary precedent"

of

the

genre

of

prophecy

in

aljamiado.

We have

documented

a few of these

literary pieces

which aimed at

manipulating

the

crypto-lslamic

community's

future.

One of the

most

colourful

is an

anonymous

author's

prophesy,

extant in ms.

774 of

the

Bibliothèque

Nationale de

Paris,

who assures the reader

that the Moriscos

are to have a merciful

fate,

for discord

will break out "between

the two

kings,

adorers of the cross

and the eaters

ol




15/19

luce

lópez-baralt/The Secret Literature

of

the Last Muslims

of

Spaii

pork...and

Allah...will

send

a

king

who shall be called Ahmad".47

Finally,

the

Turks will come to the aid of the

Spanish

Muslims,

and the

prophesy

closes with

an

apotheosis

of Islam: The

first

thing

that

will

return to the

religion

of al-Isläm

will be the Island of Cecilia

[Sicily],

and afterward the Island of the

Olives,

which

is

Mallorca,

and the Island of the

salt,

which is Ibiza...and the

great

Island of

Spain

...4S

The

triumph

could not be more

complete,

and the details are

startling:

And the

King

of the Christians will be

captive,

and be sent to the

city

of Valencia. There he will become a Muslim. And when the

Christians

see

that,

they

will

gather

in

the

city

of the river. Over them

will come

three Muslim

kings,

and

they

will

enter the

city

by

force of

arms,

and all three shall eat at one

table,

and afterwards

they

will bless

one another; one will move into the area of Monkayo [sic.], the other

into the area of

Çuera (sic.],

and the other

into the area of

Himça

(which

we believe

signifies

Seville).

And when the

Christians

see that

their

king

is

captive they

will turn

Muslim .... And the Muslims shall

be

conquerors,

with the

power

of Allah ta 'ala

|exalted

be

He].49

History,

of

course,

took another tum. And

so

did the

Spanish crypto

Islamic

community

who had to invent their survival as a

people

for such a

long,

strenuous

period

of time.

Many

took their

destiny

in their own

hands

and

precipitated

their

flight

to

Barbary

even before the edict

of

the final

expulsion

was decreed. Some fled as

secretly

as

they

had lived in Renaissance

Spain.

Even

this last

wilful

act of Islamic affirmation had an ironic touch: the Moriscos

had to

escape disguised

as Christian

pilgrims

on their

way

to "Santa Maria de

Lorito

ILoreto]"

in France or to St. Mark in Venice. Once

there,

they

could

assume their real

identity

again

and

continue

their

trip

to Islamic lands.

I

have

been able to document a curious

aljamiado

"Guide to the

road",

which

guided

the

fleeing crypto-Muslims

out of their

"precious

island" of

Spain:

Information for the road: in Jaka

you

will

show

gold:

if

they

should ask

you something

about where

you

are

going

—

[say]:

because of debts.

And

that

you

wish to withdraw into France. And in France

[say]

that

you are going to Santa Maria de Lorito [sic.]. In Leon, you will show

the

coin,

you

will

pay forty-one,

in silver or

gold,

you

will demand the

road to

Milan;

from there onward

you

will

say

that

you

are

going

to

visit Samarko

[St.

Mark's]

in Venice. Embark in

Padua and on a river

with destination in

Venice,

you

will

pay

half

a real

per

head,

you

will

disembark at the

plaza

of

Samarko;

you

will

enter an

inn,

[but]

first

before

entering

a room with a bed

[there],

you

must

arrange

the

price,

you

will

pay

half a real

per day,

and

take

[eat

or

drink]

nothing

from

the

inn,

for

you

will

pay

for one

thing

three times. Go out to the

plaza

to

buy

whatever

thing you

need.

There,

those that

you

see with white

headgear

are

Turks,

those with

yellow headgear

are

Jews,

merchants




16/19

Islamic S tu di es 36:1

(1997)

from the Grand

Turk,

and from those

you

should ask whatever it is

you

wish,

for

they

will

lead

you aright

to it. Tell them that

you

have

brothers in

Salónica

and

that

you

wish to

go

there;

you

will

pay

one

ducat

per

head,

and for the

passage you

will also

give

for water and

firewood. Purchase

provision

for fifteen

days, buy

stew

and rice

and

vinegar

and olives and

chickpeas

or other white beans

and

fresh bread

for

eight days

and cake at ten

pounds

per

man.5"

Quite

a few Morisco texts celebrate their safe arrival

in

their

new

Islamic countries

of

adoption. Again,

one of the most vivid testimonies that of

"the exile of

Tunisia",

as Jaime Oliver Asin51 calls the

profilic

author of ms. *S-2

of the Biblioteca

de

la Historia of Madrid.

He and his

entourage

reached

Africa's shores as liberated Muslims: "We wanted

to

see

ourselves in Islamic

lands, even if it had to be naked".52 Our anonymous author writes for the first

generation

of

Spanish

Moriscos born in exile: he does not want them to

forget

their immense debt of

gratitude

to

Citibulgaiz

(Síd

Abü

Ί-Gayth

al-Qashshäsh,

the

holy

man who

organized

their

arrival)

and to

Uzmanday

or 'Uthmän

Dey,

Tunisia's Turkish

regent,

who also took

special

pains

in

helping

the newcomers

adapt

to their new life as

full-fledged

Muslims:

In this land of Islam we were received

by

Uzmanday,

Tunisia's

king,

of

imposing

demeanour but to

us a

gentle

lamb;

and

by

the

saintly

Çitibulgaiz,

and

by

the Muslim

people;

and all of them

tried

very

hard

to accommodate

us,

showering

us

with

great

love and

friendship.

Uzmanday exempted

us form

paying

the one hundred escudos that

every ship

had to

pay upon

arriving

in

port,

so as

to

encourage

us.. .and

what is

more,

he even let us choose

from

among

the

different lands we

were offered to

occupy.

Some had to choose

La Mahdia

against

their

will,

and

still,

he

helped

them with

wheat,

barley

and

guns...And

I

found out

through

a friend of his that when

he was ill he said:

as soon

as I

get

well

you

and I will

go

to all these

places

to find out

what

they

need and

give

it to them. And we

were

given

three

years

during

which

we did not have to

pay anything

[any

taxes]...

and he

prevented people

from

harassing

us... on the other

hand,

Citibulgaiz

helped

us

with food

and

lodged

us

in the

zaguyas [zäawiyahs

or

sanctuaries], specially

in

Çiti

el-Zulaychi's [zâwiyah],

where he

gave lodging

to

many

women

and children

and to

many poor people.

And since it is

usual for

ignorant

children to defile

without

taking

into

consideration where

they

are,

they

soiled

[Çiti

el-Zulaychi's zâwiyah]

to

the

extreme,

until

the

guaquil

[man

in

charge]

warned

Çitibulgaiz,

telling

him that

the

zâwiyah

had been turned into

a

dungheap.

And

he answered:

"Let

them

be,

and let them defile

all

they

want,

for

if the

place

they

are in

could

talk,

it would

say: "May you

be most

welcome to

my place,

blessed

people, perfect

Muslims and

dearest brethren.

Only

he

who is




17/19

luce löpez-baralt/The Secret Literature of the Last Muslims of

Spai

a mu'tnin

|believer)

will love

thee,

and

only

he who is a

munäfiq

[hypocrite]

will

loath

you".53

Reading Spanish

Islamic literature is a

sobering

experience

indeed.

Sometimes

we

feel

that

many

Moriscos wrote not

only

to

preserve

their Islamic

heritage,

but to

try

to sort out their troubled

identity

and to

try

to come to terms

with

it.

It is

true

that

these chroniclers of Moorish

aljamiado

literature were

unable to

halt their

destiny

in

spite

of

their

harangues,

their secret

meetings,

or

their

optimistic yet falsifying prophesies.

Yet

they

offer us an invaluable vision

of

their

gradual, painful disappearance

as a

living

culture. Thanks to the

testimony

of these

lloradores or

weepers,

we

have

been able to witness first

hand how al-Andalus ceased to be in sixteenth

century Spain.

Their

testimony,

written

in the midst of tears and

desperation,

is a

legacy

of invaluable historical

and human importance. And it belongs both to the East and to the West, for it

is

Uniquely Hispano-Muslim.

'Barary

de

Reminyo

and the Mancebo de

Arévalo.

Breve

Compendio,

fol.

225r.

:The Mancebo de

Arévalo.

Tafsira,

fol. 232r.

The

manuscript

is

found

in the old Biblioteca

de la

Junta

de

Estudios Arabes de Madrid

(currently

known as the Biblioteca

del

Instituto

de

Filologia

C.S.I.C.),

and

is

usually catalogued

as Janta LXII.

^Maria Teresa

Narváez,

"La Tafsira del Mancebo de

Arévalo.

Transcription

y

estudio del

texto"

(Puerto

Rico:

Rio

Piedras,

unpublished

Ph.D.

thesis),

p.

161.

'Ibid.,

159.

5Ms.

5223

of

National

Library

of

Madrid,

fol. 170v-18()r.

''Mercedes Sanchez

Alvarez.

El manuscrito misceláneo 774 de Ici Biblioteca Nacional de París

(Madrid:

CLEAM

Gredos, 1982),

p.

252.

7The Biblioteca de Estudios

Arabes,

which harbours a

very important

collection

of Morisco

manuscripts,

has had

many

names

in this

century.

It

has

been known as the

Biblioteca

de Estudios

Arabes,

Biblioteca de la

junta

de Estudios

Arabes,

Biblioteca

Miguel

Asin,

Biblioteca

del Instituto

de

Filologia,

etc. We have

abbreviated

the

name

of

the

Library

as 'Junta'.

"Anwar

Chejne,

Islam and the West: The Moriscos

(Albany:

State

University

of New York

press,

1983).

''Mikel de

Epalza,

Los moriscos antes

y

después

de la

expulsion

(Madrid:

Editorial

Mapfre,

1992),

p.

252.

'"Dario

Cabanellas,

Juan de

Segovia y

el

problema

islámico

(Madrid:

Facultad de

Filosofiya

y

Letras,

1952).

Leonard

Patrick

Harvey,

"The

Literary

Culture of the

Moriscos,

1492-1609:

A

Study

Based on the Extant

Manuscripts

in Arabic and

Aljamia" (Oxford:

Ph.D.

Thesis, unpublished,

1958);

Consuelo

López-Morillas.

The

Qur'ân

in

Sixteenth

Century Spain:

Six Morisco Versions

of

Sura

79

(London:

Temesis Books Ltd.

1982);

and Gerard

Wiegers,

Islamic Literature in

Spanish

and

Aljamiado,

Yça

of Segovia

(fi.

1450):

His

Antecedents

and

Successors

(Leiden:

Brill,

1994)

and

"Yça

Gidelli

(fl. 1450).

His

Antecedents

and

Successors:

A

Historical

Study

of Islamic Literature

in

Spanish

and

Aljamiado"

(Leiden:

Rijksuniversiteit,

Ph.D.

Thesis,

1991).

"The

clandestine

manuscripts

began

to be discovered

long

after the

expulsion

of 1609.

In

1728.

several

codices

which had

been hidden inside a column of a house in Riela turned

up.

and in

1884

a

substantial collection was discovered under a false floor in a demolished house in Almonacid

de la

Sierra

in

Saragossa.

In

the last

ten

years many

more

manuscripts

have been

surfacing,

and it

must also

be remembered that not all the

Morisco texts extant in the libraries ot

Spain

or other

countries of

Europe

are

properly

catalogued.




18/19

Islamic

Studies 36:1

(1997)

'-Ottomar

Hegyi,

"El uso del alfabeto

arabe

por

minorías musulmanas

y

otros

aspectos

de la

literatura

aljamiada,

resultante de

circunstancias históricas

y

sociales

análogas"

in

Adas,

147-164.

''Gerard

Wiegers.

Yça

Gidelli,

op.

cit.,

p.

2.

"George

Ticknor.

Historia (leIci

literatura

española

(Madrid:

Rivadeneyra,

1881-85),

p.

420.

'■'López-Morillas.

The

Qur'ân, op.

cit.,

p.

13.

"'Ahdelmajid

Turki. "Documents

sur le dernier exode des andalous en Tunisie"

in

Recueil.

114-127.

Ίbid.

'"Ib iti.

"'Mercedes

Garcia

Arenal,

Los moriscos

(Madrid:

Editora

Nacional, 1975),

p.

103.

-"Il

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