Between Castilian Reconquista and Ottoman Jihad

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The University of Chicago

Between Castilian Reconquista and Ottoman Jihād: An Analysis

of the 1501 Hispano-Muslim Qaṣīda to Bayezid II

By

Mohamad Ballan

May 2010

A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of

Arts degree in the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences

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The late fifteenth century witnessed many significant transformative developments in Europe and the Islamic

world. Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was conquered by the Ottoman sultanate in 1453; the

Christian kingdoms of Iberia, led by the Crown of Castile, captured Granada, the last outpost of Hispano-Muslim rule in

the Peninsula, in 1492, and the systematic conversion of the conquered Muslims of Castile was initiated at the turn of the

century in 1501. Few scholars have attempted to explain the relationship between these events and processes, and the

connection between them is not immediately apparent. The 1501 Granadan poetic appeal, or qaṣīda, to the Ottoman

Sultan Bayezid II is a hitherto largely unstudied document, and illustrates the issues at play during the late-fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries with regards to the Hispano-Muslims/Mudéjars, the rise of the Ottoman Empire as a major Muslim

power, and the heightened millenarianism within Castile. The integration of the broader context of the Mediterranean at

the turn of the sixteenth century into a reading of the text demonstrates its importance as a valuable historical document

and illuminates the various dimensions of the transition of the Hispano-Muslims from Mudéjars to Moriscos.

Essentially, the text represents a response by a group of Hispano-Muslims to the forcible conversions of 1501

and exhibits the transformative agency of a marginalized minority seeking to determine the course of their future. The

qaṣīda highlighted the plight of the Hispano-Muslims by presenting a narrative detailing their persecution at the hands of

the Castilian authorities in Granada. In doing so, it asserted the righteousness and moral superiority of the Granadan

cause in order to garner the support of the Ottoman Empire, the preeminent Islamic power of the era. As part of their

strategy, the Hispano-Muslims exalted the Ottomans as the defenders of the faith, and acknowledged the sultan, Bayezid

II, as the legitimate Caliph of Islam and the Shadow of God on Earth. This appeal represents an important ideological

watershed and a critical turning point in the history of the Hispano-Muslims as it highlights a particular response to the

collapse of convivencia (the relatively peaceable co-existence between Christians and Muslims in Iberia) in the Kingdom of

Castile between 1499 and 1502, a determination to remain part of dār al-Islām (“House of Islam”), and an adamant refusal

to accept the legitimacy of the new status quo.1 The value of the appeal lies in its presentation of the attempts of a

particular faction of Muslims in Granada, the rebels of the Alpujarras, to alter the predicament they found themselves in

after 1499 by seeking to draw the Ottoman sultanate into their struggle. As such, it reflects the decision of a particular

1 Traditionally, dār al-Islām (“House of Islam”) was understood as the community of Muslim believers and the land where sharī‘ah held sway,

while dār al-ḥarb (“House of War”) designated the territory of unbelief where non-Muslims ruled. For more on the distinction between dār al-Islām and dār al-ḥarb, see Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp.162–164.

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faction of Hispano-Muslims to affiliate themselves with Ottoman power and Islamic civilization, rather than covertly

maintaining their faith and continuing their existence as a besieged minority in Spain.

This alignment of the Hispano-Muslims and Ottoman Turks would gradually develop into a more concrete

Morisco-Ottoman alliance throughout the sixteenth century, and would be a primary factor in the struggle between the

Ottoman and Spanish empires for domination in the western Mediterranean and North Africa. The qaṣīda therefore

allows historians to understand more fully the origins and bases of the relationship between the Hispano-Muslims and

the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, this document provides important insight into the emerging millenarian and apocalyptic

perception of the Ottomans among many Muslims in the Mediterranean, which greatly informed, as I shall demonstrate,

the decision by the Hispano-Muslims to link their fate with the success of the Turks. In actively seeking to transform the

existing reality in Granada by manipulating the broader religio-political forces of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth

centuries, the appeal is demonstrative of the historical agency of the Hispano-Muslims, who were neither passive victims

of Castilian Reconquista nor unwilling agents of Ottoman jihād.

Background I: Castilian Reconquista

Since its initial conquest by Arab and Berber armies in 711–715, most of the Iberian Peninsula had been under

Umayyad Muslim political control between 756 and 1031.2 Following the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba

in 1031, however, al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled portions of Iberia, had disintegrated into over two dozen emirates,

known as taifas.3 This fragmentation and weakening of Muslim political authority facilitated the rise of the northern

Christian powers of Castile, León, and Aragón. Attempts by local (Hispano-Muslim) and foreign (Berber) dynasties to

resist the southward expansion of these Christian kingdoms ultimately failed, and the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in

1212, ending in an overwhelming defeat for the Muslims at the hands of a Christian coalition, sealed the fate of most of

al-Andalus.4 Beginning in the eleventh century, Castile and Aragón in particular had capitalized on the collapse of the

2 Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus (London: Longman, 1996), pp.1–130. 3 John Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact (London:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), ed. Norman Housley, p.164; Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp.130–153; David Wasserstein, The

Caliphate in the West: An Islamic Political Institution in the Iberian Peninsula (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); David Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). 4 Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, Volume 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1974), p.271; Muhammad Razuq, Al-Andalusiyyin w-hijratahum ila al-Maghreb (Casablanca, Ifriqiya al-Sharq, 1989), pp.31–35; James

T. Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry: A Student Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp.45–47; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.164; Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp.154–273.

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Caliphate of Cordoba and succeeded in conquering major Andalūsī cities such as Toledo in 1085, Zaragoza in 1118,

Majorca in 1230, Cordoba in 1236, Valencia in 1238, Jaén in 1246, and Seville in 1248.5

This process of the gradual expansion of the Christian kingdoms at the expense of al-Andalus has been termed

the Reconquista by Spanish historiography, a term referring specifically to the religious and political effort by the Christian

kingdoms to drive Islam out of the Iberian Peninsula and a concept which greatly influenced the national foundational

myth of Christian Spain as heir to the Visigothic and Roman heritage of Iberia, evoking a continuity between the pre-

Islamic and post-Islamic past of the Peninsula.6 As early as the late eleventh century, and certainly by the thirteenth, with

the conquest of most of al-Andalus, the Reconquista had taken on many characteristics of a crusade, which greatly

informed the political and military campaigns against the Hispano-Muslims, and provided the basic legitimizing

framework for the southward drive of the Christian kingdoms.7 As historian Joseph O’Callaghan has observed, “the

Christian struggle against Islamic Spain can be described as a war of both territorial aggrandizement and religious

confrontation.”8 Nevertheless, despite the official papal sanction of the Reconquista as a crusade, the religious rhetoric and

the public humiliation of Islam, manifested in the occasional reconsecration of mosques into churches and the expulsion

of Muslims from conquered regions, there was no comprehensive attempt to eliminate Islam (or Judaism) as a religion

from the Iberian Peninsula prior to the late fifteenth century.9 In fact, large communities of Muslims existed under

Christian rule, accommodated under an arrangement similar to that which had existed during the period of Islamic

dominance, although with the roles reversed, with the Muslims being subordinated to Christians and paying a tax to their

new Christian overlords.

By 1248, the Kingdom of Granada, ruled by the Naṣrid dynasty, was the only remaining independent Muslim

entity in Iberia.10 Although it remained unconquered, the position of Granada vis-à-vis the Kingdom of Castile was

largely that of a client kingdom, whereby the Naṣrids paid a tribute to the Crown of Castile in exchange for peaceful

relations and a certain measure of sovereignty. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, despite a potential

5 John Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), pp.76; Leonard Patrick Harvey, Islamic Spain,

1250–1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp.9–15; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p.50–123; ‘Adil Bishtawi, Al-Andalusīyyīn al-mawārīkah (Cairo: Maṭābiʻ Intirnāshiyūnāl Bris, 1983), pp.47–58; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.164. 6 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, p.3. 7 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, pp.17–22; José Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España

(Vitoria: Editorial del Seminario, 1958), pp.14–370; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.165–172. 8 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, p.7. 9 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, pp.177–208. 10 Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.20–26; Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry, p.61; Bishtawi, Al-Andalusīyyīn al-mawārīkah, p.92; Kennedy, Muslim

Spain and Portugal, pp.273–292; Mercedes García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdīs of the Muslim West (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p.297.

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North African Marinid threat, which subsided after 1340, and sporadic outbreaks of conflict and frontier skirmishes

which led to the conquest and annexation of strategically important Andalūsī cities, the status quo remained in place, with

Granada as a de facto vassal of Castile.11 Although not threatened militarily by the Kingdom of Granada, the Christian

kingdoms felt uneasy about the continued existence of an independent Muslim entity on Iberian soil, as it emboldened

the Mudéjars living under their rule, as evidenced by the Muslim rebellions in Murcia and Andalusia in 1264, and

provided a haven to which rebels and apostates from Christianity could flee and seek refuge.12 Moreover, the often-

destructive raids launched from the Kingdom of Granada into Andalusia rendered such an arrangement strategically

unsustainable and ideologically unacceptable for Christian Spain in the long term. As such, despite the lull in Christian

military activities against Muslims in the Peninsula between the late thirteenth and early fifteenth centuries, Granada

always remained the object of any prospective Iberian crusade.13

In the late fifteenth century there were important political transformations within Spain which had significant

consequences for the survival of the Kingdom of Granada. One of the main factors that had enabled Naṣrid Granada to

exist for almost 250 years had been the internal struggle between the Christian kingdoms of Iberia. In 1469, with the

unification of the Kingdoms of León, Castile, and Aragón—realized with the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand, the

Catholic Monarchs—and the establishment of peace between Portugal and Castile in 1479, the divisions between the

various Iberian Christian powers was ended.14 The religious and militant outlook of the new monarchs of Spain

notwithstanding, this unity presented a historic opportunity for the Crown of Castile to finally turn its attention to the

conquest of Granada. Indeed, the unification of the Christian kingdoms led to renewed calls within Castile for the

resumption of the Reconquista and a crusade against Granada, described by contemporaries as a “very just, very holy, very

worthy war,” in order that “the pagans and the barbarous nations and the infidels should be converted to the faith or

destroyed.”15 A raid by the Naṣrid amīr, Abū’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī, on the Christian town of Zahara in Castilian territory in 1481

provided the pretext for the realization of this ultimate objective, and ignited a long and brutal war between the Crown of

11 Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada en el siglo XV (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 2002), pp.11–82; Weston F. Cook, The

Hundred Years War for Morocco: Gunpowder and the Military Revolution in the Early Modern Muslim World (Boulder: Westview Press,

1994), p.120; Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp.273–292. 12 Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.50–54. 13 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, pp.212–213. 14 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.1–16; Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella (London: Weidenfeld and

Nicolson, 1975), pp.20–23; Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p.296; John Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella (London: Longman: 2004), pp.20–21; J.N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, Vol. 2 (Oxford, Clarendon

Press, 1978), pp.360–365. 15 These are the words of Castilian poet Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino and the Bishop of Burgos, Alfonso de Cartagena, quoted in

O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, p.213; Heather Rae, State Identities and the Homogenization of Peoples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p.56.

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Castile and Naṣrid Granada.16 Although possessing a religious dimension from the start, following the escalation of the

conflict with the Christian seizure of the strategic town of Alhama in 1482, the war against Granada was officially

transformed into a religious confrontation in the tradition of the Reconquista, with the Papacy sanctioning the assault on

the Naṣrids as a crusade.17 In the next few years, Castile succeeded in capturing several more important Naṣrid

strongholds, including Ronda (1485), Loja (1486), Málaga (1487), Vera (1488), Guadix (1489), Baza (1489) and Almería

(1489) before besieging Granada itself in 1491.18

The Christian conquest of the city of Granada was finally accomplished in 1492 and was achieved largely through

peaceful means, by treaty and capitulation rather than by violence.19 However, this did not diminish the spiritual and

ideological significance of the conquest, which was viewed as redeeming Christendom and described as a divinely inspired

victory over “the enemies of [the] holy Catholic faith.”20 For contemporary Muslims, it was interpreted as “one of the

greatest disasters to befall Islam.”21 The terms of surrender, or capitulations, between the Granadans and the Castilians

stipulated that the Hispano-Muslims would be allowed to retain their faith and customs so long as they paid the agreed-

upon tax and refrained from threatening the Crown of Castile.22 In this sense, there was nothing revolutionary about the

16 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.103; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.370; Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand

and Isabella, pp.94–95; Juan Antonio Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta (Granada: Alhulia, 2004), pp.41–42; Housley, The

Later Crusades, p.298; Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, p.48; Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco, p.121; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.173. 17 Pope Sixtus IV, “Crusade Bull against Granada, 1482,” in Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580 (New York: St. Martin’s Press,

1996), ed. and trans. Norman Housley, pp.156–162; Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.104; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.269–274;

Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, Castilla y la reconquista del Reino de Granada (Granada: Maracena, 1988) pp.203–206; Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, La Guerra de Granada (Granada: Diputacion de Granada, 2001), pp.45–54; Anwar G. Chejne, Islam and the West: The Moriscos, a

Cultural and Social History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), p.5; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.301–303; José Goñi

Gaztambide, “The Holy See and the Reconquest of the Kingdom of Granada,” in Spain in the Fifteenth Century: Essays and Extracts by

Historians of Spain (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), trans. Frances M. López-Morillas, ed. Roger Highfield, pp.356–361; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.371–403; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.173. 18 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.104–139; Razuq, Al-Andalusiyyin w-hijratahum ila al-Maghreb, pp.54–55; Fernández-

Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.101–103; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.275–310; Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta,

pp.44–46; Quesada, La Guerra de Granada, pp.45–78; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.5; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.298–300; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, pp.143–170; Peggy K. Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

2004), pp.219–263; Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.50–66; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.381–386; Cook, The

Hundred Years War for Morocco, pp.121–126; Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp.300–304. 19 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr fi akhbār mulūk Banī Nasr: Taslim Ghranaṭa wa nuzūḥ al-Andalusīyyīn ila al-Maghrib (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafah al-Diniyya, 2002), p.41; ‘Abd Allah Muhammad Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun aw al-muriskiyyun al-andalussiyun

(Cairo: Dar al-Sahwa, 1991), p.21; Rodrigo de Zayas, Los Moriscos y el racismo del estado:creación, persecución y deportación (Cordoba:

Editorial Almuzara, 2006), p.89; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, pp.171–184; Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.66–67; Hillgarth, The

Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.387–388. 20 Ferdinand and Isabella, “Letter to Agostino Barbarigo, Doge of Venice,” in Documentos sobre relaciones internacionales de los Reyes

Católicos Vol. 4, 1492: 45, p.33;Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict (London: Longman, 1983), p.35; O’Callaghan,

Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, p.214; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.267–269; Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.89–

90; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.392–393; Gaztambide, “The Holy See and the Reconquest of the Kingdom of Granada,” pp.370–372. 21 Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.388; Kamen, Spain, 1469–171, p.35. 22 Hernando del Pulgar, “The Christian Conquest of Granada,” in Medieval Iberia: Readings from Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Sources

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), ed. Olivia Remie Constable, pp. 343–344; Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.22–33; Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.103–104; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.314–323; Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una

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conquest of Granada; for centuries, Muslim towns and regions throughout Iberia had capitulated under similar terms,

resulting in the emergence of a new “class” known as Mudéjars, Muslims living under Christian rule.23 Both the Crown of

Aragón and the Crown of Castile were home to large populations of Mudéjars, who openly practiced their religion and

coexisted relatively peacefully with Castilian and Catalan Christians.24

Shortly after the conquest of Granada, however, political pragmatism and peaceful proselytization gave way to

Christian millenarianism, and the relations between the Castilian conquerors and the local Granadans began to

deteriorate. Although the reason for this shift has been the subject of much scholarly discussion, no clear consensus has

emerged. The debate has highlighted the various political, religious, and ideological trends occurring in Spain, among the

ruling elite in particular, in the late fifteenth century to locate the specific cause of the reversal of the policy of toleration

towards the Jews and Muslims of Castile. Although ascribing varying importance to different trends, most scholars have

suggested that a major factor in the collapse of convivencia in Granada was the growing influence of the Archbishop of

Toledo, Jiménez de Cisneros, in royal circles, with Queen Isabella in particular.25 Pedro Mártir, a member of the Spanish

court and contemporary of Cisneros, wrote that “this [Cisneros] was the man by whose counsel Spain is now governed.

década fraudulenta, pp.88–103;Luis Suárez-Fernández, Los Reyes Católicos: El timepo de la guerra de Granada (Madrid, Ediciones Rialp,

1989) pp.241–244; ; Angel Galán Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1991), pp.81–94; Manuel

Barrios Aguilera, Granada Morisca, la Convivencia Negada (Granada: Comares, 2002), pp.25–29; Quesada, La Guerra de Granada, pp.79–85; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.35; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.6; Henry Charles Lea, The Moriscos of Spain: Their Conversion and

Expulsion (New York: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1968), pp.20–22; David Coleman, Creating Christian Granada: Society and Religious

Culture in an Old World Frontier City, 1492–1600 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp.6, 36–37; José Acosta Montoro, Aben Humeya:

Rey de los moriscos (Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1988), pp.19–20; Erika Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros: On the Threshold of Spain’s Golden Age (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999), p.32. 23 Mark Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: Between Coexistence and Crusade (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1991), p.54; Kathryn Miller, Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities in Late Medieval Spain (New

York: Columbia University Press,) pp.4–8; Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.2–4; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.55–150; Francisco Márquez Villanueva, “On the Concept of Mudejarism,” in The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, Vol.1 (Leiden: Brill, 2009),

ed. Kevin Ingram, pp.23–50; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.37; David Nirenberg, “Christendom and Islam,” in The Cambridge

History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), eds. Miri Rubin and Walter Simons, p.164; Kathryn Miller, “Muslim

Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate to Islamic Territory: Two Fatwas from Fifteenth-Century Granada,” Islamic Law and Society 7 (2000), p.257. For a comprehensive study of the social, religious, economic, and political history of the Mudéjars in Christian Spain, see José

Hinojosa Montalvo, Los mudéjares: La voz del Islam en la España cristiana, 2 Volumes (Teruel: Centro de Estudios Mudéjares, Instituto de

Estudios Turolenses, 2002. Teruel : Centro de Estudios Mudéjares, Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 2002). 24 For a sense of the rules and boundaries regulating the coexistence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Castile, see “The Legal Status of Jews and Muslims in Castile: Siete Partidas,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.269–275.For an important perspective on

convivencia and Mudéjar existence, especially in the fourteenth century, which challenges the notion of an inter-faith utopia, and explains the

nature of this coexistence with a particular emphasis on communal conflict and violence, see David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence:

Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 25Reginald Martin, Cardinal Ximenes and the Making of Spain (London, 1934), pp.77–79; John Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs,

1474–1520 (Oxford, 2000), p.239; Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict (London, 1983), pp.36–37; Peggy K. Liss, Isabel

the Queen: Life and Times (Philadelphia, 2004), pp.372–377; David Coleman, Creating Christian Granada: Society and Religious Culture in

an Old-World Frontier City, 1492–1600 (Ithaca, 2003), p.1–49; Juan Antonio Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502, Una década fraudulenta: Historia del reino cristiano de Granada desde su fundación, hasta la muerte de la reina Isabella Católica (Granada, 2004); Rodrigo de Zayas, Los

moriscos y el racism de estado: creación, persecución y deportación (Almuzara, 2006), pp.87–102; Leonard Patrick Harvey, Islamic Spain,

1250 to 1500 (Chicago, 1990), pp.324–339; Manuel Barrios Aguilera, Granada morisca, la convivencia negada (Granada, 2002), p.23–82;

Ángel Galán Sánchez, “Los venicidos: exilio, integracion y resistencia,” in Historia del reino de Granada: De los orígenes a la época mudéjar (Granada, 2000), ed. Rafael G. Peinado Santaella, pp.525–565; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.298.

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Because of his lively intellect, his gravity and wisdom, and his holiness…he has such authority with [the Catholic

Monarchs] as no one has had before,” thus demonstrating the importance of the Archbishop.26 Indeed, Cisneros’ power

and influence seem only to have grown after 1492, when he was appointed as the confessor of Queen Isabella.27 Unlike

his contemporary Hernando de Talavera, the Archbishop of Granada, who advocated peaceful preaching and relative

accommodation towards the Hispano-Muslims of Granada, Cisneros envisioned a purely Christian Spain, which would

defend and spread the Catholic faith both domestically and overseas, and in order to realize this objective, Cisneros was

prepared to use extreme force to assimilate and eliminate the Jewish and Muslim communities of Iberia.28 The first

manifestation of this aggressive policy was the edict of expulsion in March 1492, directed at the Jews of the Kingdom of

Granada who were given the ultimatum of conversion to Christianity or expulsion from Spain.29 It soon occurred to the

Granadans that both the ecclesiastical and royal Castilian authorities were unprepared to fully honor the Capitulation

Agreements.30 In the aftermath of the expulsion of the Jews, immense pressure was placed upon the Muslims to convert

to Christianity, especially after the arrival of Jiménez de Cisneros in Granada, and their rights, as preserved in the

Capitulations, were violated.31 In addition to mass baptisms, their places of worship were desecrated, their religious books

burnt, and many were provoked into rebellion by 1499.32 This uprising was swiftly and violently suppressed, the

Capitulation Agreements voided, and conversion decrees enacted in 1501 which forced all Muslims within Granada to

convert to Christianity or leave the Peninsula without any of their possessions.33 In 1502, this decree was extended to

26 Quoted in Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, p.17. 27 Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, p.15. 28 Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, pp.33–34. 29 Ferdinand and Isabella, “Edict of Expulsion of the Jews (1492),” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Olivia Remie Constable, pp.352–356; Ferdinand and

Isabella, “Expulsion of the Jews,” in Documentos sobre relaciones internacionales de los Reyes Católicos Vol. 4 (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1962), 1492: 42, pp.27–31; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.5; Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.229–

233; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.303; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, pp.5, 38; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.298–315; Edwards,

Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.81–82; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.447–452; Marvin Lunenfeld, Keepers of the City: The

Corregidores of Isabella I of Castille (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) pp.130–134; Rae, State Identities, pp.73–74; Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 1492: The Year the World Began (New York: Harper One, 2009), pp.97–100. 30 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, p.44. 31 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, p.12; Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.34–36; Reginald

Merton, Cardinal Ximenes and the Making of Spain (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench and Trubner Ltd., 1934), pp.76–77; Catherine Gaignard, Maures et Chrétiens à Grenade (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), pp.126–129; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.372–375; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del

Reino de Granada, pp.361–364; Aguilera, Granada Morisca, pp.68–72; Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.6–7; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula

de cruzada en España, pp.402–403. 32 Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, p.45; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.331–334; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.77; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.36; Mary Purcell, The Great Captain: Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (New York: Doubleday and Company Inc., 1962), pp.128–129;

Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, pp.30–32; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.303; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.6; Hillgarth, The

Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.473–474; Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, pp.34–35; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform,

p.298. 33 Isabel and Ferdinand, “Letter to Martín García Regarding the Moors of Granada,” in Documentos sobre relaciones internacionales de los

Reyes Católicos Vol. 6 (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1966), 1500: 26, pp.228–229; Diego Hurtado de Mendoza,

Guerra de Granada (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1970; originally published 1610), p.103; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of

Fernando and Isabel, p.13; Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.37–39; Gaignard, Maures et Chrétiens, pp.137–138; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.377; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.379–380; Aguilera, Granada Morisca, p.75; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714,

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include all Muslims throughout the Crown of Castile, and after 1526, these conditions applied to the Muslims of the

Crown of Aragón as well.34

This was an entirely new development in the long history of Muslim-Christian relations in the Iberian Peninsula.

Although there were symbolic continuities between the Reconquista tradition and the conquest of Granada—the

sanctioning of the war as a crusade, the chanting of Te Deum laudamus upon conquering the city, and the transformation

of mosques into churches—the institutionalization of a policy of religious homogenization was unprecedented. It was in

this context of the shift in Castilian policy from relative accommodation to aggressive conversion that the appeal to

Bayezid II materialized.35 Although the revival of the Christian crusading ethos, which was deeply entrenched in Spain

since the thirteenth century, was a key factor in the conversion of the Hispano-Muslims, the Ottoman expansion was

another determinant influencing the Castilians in the struggle over Granada, and was one of the most important religious

and political forces in relation to which the qaṣīda positioned itself.

Background II: Ottoman Jihād

The Ottoman Turks were originally based in western Anatolia and had risen to prominence as ghāzīs (Islamic

frontier warriors), waging jihād (holy war) against the Byzantine Empire in the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.36

By the mid-fifteenth century, the Ottoman sultanate had conquered much of Anatolia, Greece, Thrace, and the Slavic-

speaking regions south of the Danube; in effect, they had replaced the Byzantine Empire as the dominant power in the

Balkans and the Aegean.37 The culmination of Ottoman expansion in southeastern Europe was the conquest of

p.37; Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, p.44; Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.6–7; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.303; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.475; Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, p.35. 34Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, Vol. 1 (Seville: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1951), p.274; Andrés

Bernáldez, Historia de los Reyes Católicos Don Fernando y Doña Isabel, Vol.2 (Seville: J.M. Geofrin, 1870), pp.251–252; Meyerson, The

Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, p.13; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.84; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.377; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.399–404; Aguilera, Granada Morisca, p.76; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.37; Chejne, Islam and the

West, p.6; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.475; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.298. 35 Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.40–43; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.303. 36 Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp.12–34; Hodgson, Venture of Islam, pp.424–428; Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1995), pp.29–117; Paul Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), pp.14–20;

Aşıkpaşazade, Die altosmanische Chronik des ‘Asikpasazade, ed. F. Giese (Leipzig, 1929), unpublished translation, pp. 6–35; Housley, The

Later Crusades, pp.56–79; ‘Abd al-Fatah Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmānīyya w-al watan al-‘arabī al kabīr (Riyadh: Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, 2008), pp.47–108; Abd al-Latīf ibn Muhammad al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya tijā mā’sat al-muslimīn fī al-

Andalus (Riyadh: Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, 1993), pp.49–50. 37 Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp.8–27; Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe,

pp.21–26; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.70–94; Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.113–118; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, pp.41–54.

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Constantinople on May 29th 1453, which was accomplished after a fifty-four-day siege by Sultan Mehmed II (r.1451–

1481), known as “the Conqueror” following his capture of the Byzantine capital.38

The conquest of Constantinople had a tremendous impact both on the Ottoman sultanate, which was

transformed into an imperial state with far-reaching aspirations and claims to legitimacy, and on Christian Europe. Most

Latin Christians viewed the fall of Constantinople as a devastating blow to Christendom and as an event far more

worrisome than the fall of the last Crusader stronghold of Acre in 1291.39 Not only did the symbolic and religious

significance of the city resonate deeply with many Christians, but its capture by a strong expansionist Islamic power

provoked anxiety within Europe.40 Almost immediately there were renewed calls for crusades against the Ottomans.41

Although similar initiatives were earlier organized by the Papacy and defeated by the Turks, first at Nicopolis in 1396 and

then at Varna in 1444, there was an increased sense of urgency associated with the post-1453 crusades.42 Fears of the

extension of Ottoman power deeper into Christian Europe were confirmed when Mehmed II besieged Belgrade

(unsuccessfully) in 1456, Negroponte (successfully) in 1470, Rhodes (unsuccessfully) in 1480, and, more alarmingly,

launched an assault on the Italian peninsula, capturing Otranto in 1480.43 Otranto was seen by many Christians, and

38 Pope Pius II, “De Captione Urbis Constantinopolis Tractatulus,” in Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to

the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Rennaisance Studies, 2007), ed. and trans.

Marios Philippides, pp.94–119; Tetaldi, “Tractatus de Expugnatione Urbis Constantinopolis,” Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.134–217; Imber, The

Ottoman Empire, p.29; Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), trans. Charles T. Riggs,

pp.12–89; Hodgson, Venture of Islam, p.560; Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1978) pp.85–96; John Freely, The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II (London: I.B. Taurus, 2009), p.45; Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe, p.26; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.94–95; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, p.106; K.E. Fleming, “Constantinople: From Christianity to Islam,”

The Classical World 97 (2003), p.71; Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.119–127; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, pp.56–57;

Ali Muhammad al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ w-‘awāmil al-nuhūḍ fī ‘asrihi (Beirut: Dar al-Marefa, 2007), pp.118–135;

Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). 39 Housley, The Later Crusades, p.99. 40 Master Henry of Soemmern, “Qualiter Urbs Constantinopolis Anno LIII A Turcis Depredata Fuit et Subiugata,” in Mehmed II the Conqueror

and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.122–

131; Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe , 1400–1536 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p.131; Robert Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967), pp.1–29; Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe, p.26;

Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.406–408; Nancy Bisaha, “ ‘New Barbarian’ or Worthy Adversary? Humanist

Constructs of the Ottoman Turks in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” in Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of

Other, eds. David R. Blanks and Michael Frasseto (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p.185; al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, pp.157–160. 41 Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, pp.30–45; Freely, The Grand Turk, pp.57–58; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.99–110;

Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.408–413; Ana Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith: The Attitude Towards Muslims in

Fifteenth-Century Spain (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp.10–11; Abbas Hamdani, “Ottoman Response to the Discovery of America and the New Route to India,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1981), p.325; Bisaha, “ ‘New Barbarian’ or Worthy Adversary?” p.186. 42 Coles, The Ottoman Impact on Europe, p.100. 43 Giacomo Rizzardo, “Caso Ruinoso della Cittade di Negroponte,” Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to

the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.220–247; Jacopo dalla Castellana, “Perdita di Negroponte,” Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and

Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.249–259; Guillaume Caoursin, “Obsidionis Rhoadiae Urbis Descriptio,” Mehmed II the Conqueror

and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.262–

313; Pietro Giustiniani, “Rerum Venetarum ab urbe Condita ad Annum M.D.LXXV,” Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some Western Views and Testimonies, ed. and trans. Philippides, pp.360–367; Kritovoulos, History of

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indeed by the Ottoman Empire itself, as a strategic foothold from which Italy, and Rome, would eventually be

conquered.44 In 1481, Mehmed II died and Otranto was reconquered by Christian forces, effectively ending the Ottoman

presence in the Italian peninsula. Mehmed was succeeded by his son Bayezid II (r.1481–1512), who would spend much of

his reign focused on the consolidation of the vast empire he inherited from his father, the Islamization of the newly

conquered territories, and on diplomacy with the Latin Christian states and the Papacy.45 The reign of Bayezid witnessed

the rise of a powerful Ottoman navy, the reduction of Venetian maritime power, and the capture of important Venetian

strongholds in the Peloponnese, the Aegean, and the Adriatic between 1499 and 1503.46 Although there was no major

wave of expansion during Bayezid’s sultanate, as there had been during Mehmed’s, Latin Christendom still viewed the

Ottomans as a looming threat that needed to be actively confronted.

The jihādī impetus of the Ottomans was one of the most important driving forces behind Mehmed’s conquests in

Italy, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. This rapid Muslim expansion into south-eastern Europe

threatened Christendom militarily as well as religiously, and pressured the Catholic states to counter the Turkish threat

emanating from the East. As a response to this challenge, there was a social, political, and religious revival of the

crusading ethos in the late fifteenth century within Latin Christendom, which was especially noticeable in Iberia with the

completion of the conquest of Granada and the mass conversion of the Muslims in Castile. The sack of the Mudéjar

quarter of Valencia in 1455, shortly following the fall of Constantinople, is indicative of a shift in the minds of many

Iberian Christians, who increasingly viewed the conflict with Islam as taking on “new cosmic proportions.”47 This led to

the development of a consciousness within Spain of a sense of mission to redeem Christendom by eliminating Islam in

Iberia, defeating the Ottomans, and, eventually, reconquering Jerusalem for Christianity.48 Aside from the events in

Mehmed the Conqueror , pp.93–222; Fernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos Vol. 1(Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1943), pp.277–278,

411–412, 435–438; Alonso de Palencia, Guerra de Granada (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1998), pp.9–16; Bernáldez, Historia de los Reyes Católicos Don Fernando y Doña Isabel, Vol.1, pp.135–139; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel,

pp.64–65; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, pp.29–37; Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, pp.131–132, 167–171, 202; Freely, The Grand

Turk, pp.165–167; Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, pp.390–393; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.111–112; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.211;

Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, p.432; Bisaha, “ ‘New Barbarian’ or Worthy Adversary?” p.193; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, pp.108, 137; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, pp.63–70. 44 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.64–65; Suárez-Fernández, Los Reyes Católicos, pp.27–29;

Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, pp.131–132; Freely, The Grand Turk, pp.165–167. 45 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, pp.37–44; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.112–114; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, pp.70–78. 46 Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Sea Power and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (New York: State University of New York Press,

1994), pp.89–107; Andrew C. Hess, “The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of Oceanic Discoveries,” American Historical

Review 75 (1970), pp.1905–1906; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.114–117; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, pp.110–111; Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla

al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.128–130; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, pp.75–76. 47 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, p.64; Mark Meyerson, “Seeking the Messiah: Converso Messianism

in Post-1453 Valencia,” in The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, Vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), ed. Kevin Ingram,

p.69. 48 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.223; Edwards, “Reconquista and Crusade in Fifteenth Century Spain,” p.181; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.371; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, p.436; Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, pp.76–78; Quesada,

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Valencia in 1455, this anti-Muslim sentiment and messianic vision was more pronounced within the Kingdom of Castile

than in the Crown of Aragón. This millenarianism was essentially nurtured by the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman

conquest of Otranto, and the rise of the Catholic Monarchs, and primarily manifested itself in the crusade against

Granada between 1482 and 1492.

A Sense of Mission: Spanish Millenarianism, 1480–1510

The successes and victories of the Ottomans in Europe and the Mediterranean were seen as God’s punishment

of the sins of Christians, and the Turks as flagellum Dei, “the Scourge of God.”49 In Iberia, this prompted an increasingly

millenarian worldview in which there was a shift away from convivencia, and a revival of the crusading ethos which

emphasized the establishment of an exclusively Catholic Christian society and kingdom in which Muslims (and Jews)

could not be accommodated.50 This necessitated, at the very least, the conversion or expulsion of the Jews and the

elimination of Islamic political power in the Iberian Peninsula; the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 by

the Catholic Monarchs underscored this internal religious transformation.51 The landing of Gedik Ahmet Pasha at

Otranto in Aragonese-ruled southern Italy in 1480 highlighted the proximity of the Ottoman threat for many Iberian

Christians, and the progression of the war against Granada became inextricably linked with the reconquest of Otranto in

1481.52

For the Catholic Monarchs, the conflict with the Hispano-Muslims and the war against the Ottoman Turks were

part of one broader struggle against a resurgent Islamic threat.53 That others in Latin Christendom shared this perspective

is clear from Pope Sixtus IV’s declaration of a crusade against Granada in 1482, which made explicit reference to the

Ottomans, drawing a direct parallel between the Hispano-Muslims of Iberia and the Turks in the East. This generated a

Las Guerras de Granada, p.212; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, pp.9–10; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.371; Echevarria, The

Fortress of Faith, p.202; Alan Milhou, Colon y su mentalidad mesianica en el ambiente franciscanista española (Casa: Seminario

Americanista de la Universidad de Valladolid, 1983), p.168. 49 Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, p.135; Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, p.39; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.8; Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith, p.10. 50 In addition to arousing Muslim apocalyptic expectations and triggering a revival of the crusading ethos which informed the Christian

millenarian worldview, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople had a profound impact on Jewish messianism in the Iberian Peninsula which

manifested itself in a number of ways. Many Iberia Jews viewed the Ottomans as the precursors of the Messiah and their actions as inaugurating an era which would bring about the defeat of Christianity. For more on this, see Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs,

pp.236–238; Meyerson, “Seeking the Messiah,” pp.51–82. 51 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.86–100; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.297; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.5;

Lunenfeld, Keepers of the City, pp.134–138; Rae, State Identities, pp.69–72. 52 Palencia, Guerra de Granada, pp.9–17; Suárez-Fernández, Los Reyes Católicos, p.28; Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, pp.131–132,

202; Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.111–112; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.212; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia, pp.64–65; Cook, The

Hundred Years War for Morocco, p.120. 53 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.61–62; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.432–435; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.570.

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conception within Iberian Christendom of a sense of mission to actively combat the dual “Moorish” and “Turkish”

threat that was perceived as endangering the existence of Europe. As such, Ferdinand and Isabella took a more active

role in encouraging, organizing, and participating in the counter-Turkish activities in the Mediterranean, as evidenced

from their logistical support for the Knights of St. John in Rhodes in 1480, the assistance rendered to Malta in 1488, and,

most significantly, the conquest of the island of Cephalonia from the Ottomans by the Castilian general Gonzalo

Fernández de Córdoba in 1500.54 The increasing Ottoman encroachment in the Mediterranean after 1480 led to the

Crown of Castile and Aragón to view the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada as a potential launching pad for any prospective

Muslim invasion of Iberia.55 This perspective informed the fifteenth and sixteenth-century Spanish view of the Hispano-

Muslims, specifically those in Granada and Valencia, as “fifth columns” who were potential allies of the Ottoman Empire

or North African corsairs who periodically raided the shores of Castile and Aragón.56 This fear was not unfounded,

because in addition to the explicit appeals sent from Granada to Constantinople in 1486 and 1501, there were reports in

circulation as early as the 1480s of links between the Mudéjars of Valencia and the Ottoman Turks, who seemed poised

to launch an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula with the assistance of the Hispano-Muslims residing there.57 Although the

validity of such reports are in question, it is clear that the Muslims of the coastal regions of Spain were a major security

concern for the Catholic monarchs because there were close ties, even coordination, between Muslims in Iberia and the

Ottomans in North Africa throughout the sixteenth century, and was an issue that continued to preoccupy the rulers of

Spain until the final expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609–1614.58

In addition to the direct political and military repercussions, the Ottoman expansion led to a revival of the

crusading ethos in Iberia on a social and cultural level, and is best exemplified by the dissemination of popular literature

such as Joanot Martorell’s Tirant lo Blanc.59 Recent scholarship and analyses have shown that the fall of Constantinople to

the Ottomans in 1453 was the inspiration for Martorell, who sought to portray a hero, Tirant, who embodied idealized

54 Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.435–436. 55 Housley, The Later Crusades, p.298; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.3; Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella, p.54; Fernández-

Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, p.92; Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith, p.210; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, p.30. 56 Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.9–10; Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, p.104; Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.178; Andrew C.

Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column in Sixteenth-Century Spain,” American Historical Review 74 (1968): pp.1–25; Zayas, Los

moriscos y el racismo del estado, p.105; Bruce Taylor, “The Enemy Within and Without: An Anatomy of Fear on the Spanish Mediterranean

Littoral,” in Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), eds. William G. Naphy and Penny Roberts, pp.78–99; Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco, p.141; Galán-Sánchez, Los mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.346–349; García-

Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, pp.300–301. 57 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia, pp.65–68. 58 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia, pp.95–97; Kamen, Spain, 1469–171, p.173. 59 Joanot Martorell, Tirant lo Blanc: The Complete Translation (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), trans. Ray La Fontaine.

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Christian values and defended Christendom against a joint Moorish-Turkish threat.60 The rise of a literary genre devoted

to the crusade against the Turks represents Christian anxieties about Ottoman power in the East and the sense of mission

that was developing in response to that threat. It has been argued that this genre not only reflected contemporary

attitudes but also sought to push a specific ideological, social, and religio-political agenda: the crusade.61 In other words,

the rise of popular (fictional) narratives such as Tirant lo Blanc corresponded “to a hybrid genre that [evolved] in response

to the present needs of society to rearticulate its historical identity in terms of communal myths.”62 Furthermore, Tirant lo

Blanc specifically sought to

“represent models of cultural identity and national mission for contemporary Catalan speakers of the

ruling and middle classes—the very groups in Aragonese society who provided the driving force for

expansion and who possessed the interpretative self-consciousness to manipulate circumstances to

reflect their dominant interests.”63

The fact that Tirant lo Blanc was written in Catalan and composed in Valencia around 1490 highlights the

relationship between real political events occurring in the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula and the

reconceptualization of Christian identity and sense of mission which developed in the period between 1453 and 1492 for

many Spanish Christians. Martorell constructs a narrative in which the Balkans, North Africa, the Aegean, the

Mediterranean, and Iberia were part of a unified theatre of operations in a larger struggle against a resurgent Islam. The

Aragonese, in particular, were heavily involved in the wars against the Ottomans in the Aegean, Italy and the

Mediterranean, and hence the worldview represented in this work of historical fiction would have appealed to the

Catalan-speakers of eastern Iberia. That Tirant lo Blanc was translated into Castilian shortly thereafter is indicative of the

predominance of these attitudes among Iberian Christians more broadly, not merely the Valencian aristocratic and

military elite. Admittedly, however, in the late fifteenth century the millenarianistic worldview in Tirant would have

resonated more profoundly with a Castilian audience than an Aragonese Christian one. For Martorell, Tirant was intended

to represent the hopes and desires of contemporary Iberian Christendom by validating and encouraging a worldview in

the tradition of the Reconquista, and incorporating much of the messianic and millenarian tendencies of the late fifteenth

century which called for the end of the Muslim presence in Spain, the recapture of Constantinople, and the reconquest of

60 Edward T. Aylward, Martorell’s Tirant lo Blanc: A Program for Military and Social Reform in Fifteenth-Century Christendom (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 1985), p.181. 61 Roberto J. González-Casanovas, “History as Myth in Muntaner’s and Martorell’s Story of (Re)Conquest,” in Tirant lo Blanc: Text and

Context (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), ed. Josep M. Solà-Solé, pp.71–91; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, p.210. 62 González-Casanovas, “History as Myth,” p.74–75. 63 González-Casanovas, “History as Myth,” p.73.

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Jerusalem. Although scholars need to be cautious in drawing too close a bond between literary representations and

political events, the rise of narratives, such as Martorell’s Tirant lo Blanc, is indicative of the social and cultural impact

which the events in the late fifteenth century had on Iberia and illuminates the millenarian environment in which the

Reconquista against Granada proceeded.

There was a potent millenarianistic environment within the Kingdom of Castile which was contemporaneous

with the Ottoman expansion and the conflict with the Nasrids. In the late fifteenth century, and especially during the war

against Granada there was an expectation that the Catholic monarchs “would not only drive the Muslims out of Spain,

but would go on to conquer the whole of Africa, destroy Islam completely, reconquer Jerusalem and the holy places,”

and become “[rulers] of Rome, and of the Turks, and of the Spains.”64 Ferdinand, depicted in apocalyptic literature as a

“New David,” in particular, believed that the reconquest of Jerusalem from Islam was imminent and that Christendom

should devote its efforts to achieving this goal, a view shared by his contemporary Christopher Columbus.65 This

increasingly apocalyptic worldview within Iberia, especially among the ruling dynasty and its inner circle, has been

attributed by several scholars to the dominance of Franciscan millenarian spirituality in Spain during the late fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries, which was rooted in the broader background of Franciscan missionary activity since the thirteenth

century.66 This millenarianism manifested itself in the Papal-sanctioned Spanish crusade against North Africa which was

actively encouraged by Archbishop Jiménez de Cisneros and undertaken by the Catholic monarchs in the first part of the

sixteenth century, culminating in the capture of Mers-el-Kébir in 1505, Oran in 1509, Algiers in 1510, Tripoli in 1511, and

Tunis in 1535.67

64 Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.223; Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, pp.76–78; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.271–273;

Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, p.212; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.371; Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith, p.202;

Milhou, Colon y su mentalidad mesianica, pp.293–400, 435–449; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, pp.302–303; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.433–444. 65 Christopher Columbus, “Letter to the Catholic Monarchs (1493)”, in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.375; Christopher Columbus, “Letter

to Catholic Monarchs Advocating Crusade to Recover Jerusalem (1501),” in Documents on the Later Crusades, Housley, pp.169–173; Abbas

Hamdani, “Columbus and the Recovery of Jerusalem,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 99 (1979), pp.40–48; Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.223–225; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.311; Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, pp.76–78, 84; Liss, Isabel the

Queen, pp.271–273, 323–324; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, p.212; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.371; Hillgarth, The

Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.571; Echevarria, The Fortress of Faith, p.202; Milhou, Colon y su mentalidad mesianica, pp.167–68. For

more on the conceptions of the “New David” in late medieval and early modern Spain, see Milhou, Colon y su mentalidad mesianica, pp.230–251; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, pp.9–10. 66 Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.224–225; Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, pp.76–84; Milhou, Colon y su mentalidad

mesianica, pp.33–470;Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic,

1229–1492 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987) pp.128–131; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.303. 67 Edwards, Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, p.224; Beatriz Alonso Acero, Cisneros y la conquista española del norte de África: cruzada,

política y arte de la guerra (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2005); Housley, The Later Crusades, pp.305–313; Soyer, The Persecution of the

Jews and Muslims of Portugal, pp.274–278; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, pp.223–224; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, pp.143–162;

Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada, pp.223–224; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp.465–476; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.572–575; Ramon Menéndez Pidal, “The Catholic Monarchs According to Machiavelli and Castiglione,” in Spain in

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It was in this context of heightened millenarianism that by 1499, merely seven years after the conquest by Castile,

communal relations between Muslims and Christians in the newly-conquered Kingdom of Granada had deteriorated;

convivencia in the neighboring Kingdom of Portugal had in fact already collapsed, with the Portuguese Muslims (and Jews)

being forcibly Christianized by 1497.68 The Capitulation Agreements were regularly being violated by the Castilian

authorities and immense pressure had been placed upon the Granadans to embrace Christianity.69 In 1498, an agreement

was reached to partition the city of Granada into distinct Muslim and Christian sections, translating communal conflict

into spatial arrangements.70 The arrival of the Archbishop Jiménez de Cisneros around 1499 exacerbated these existing

tensions, and effectively led to the collapse of convivencia as a viable model.71 Jiménez’s forceful and heavy-handed

approach to conversion, his public bonfires of Muslim religious texts, and his use of questionable tactics in converting

mosques to churches and Muslims to Christianity were all viewed as violations of the 1492 Capitulations by the

Granadans.72 As a result, a revolt broke out in the predominantly Muslim Albaicín neighborhood of Granada and soon

spread to the rest of the city.73 Although this uprising eventually ended due to assurances given to Muslims by prominent

Christian and Castilian notables, it was soon reignited following the decision taken by the Catholic Monarchs, who had

been persuaded by Jiménez, to void the Capitulations on the basis that the Albaicín revolt violated the specific terms of

these agreements.74 This second rebellion was not limited to the city, but engulfed the entire Kingdom of Granada, and

the Fifteenth Century, ed. Roger Highfield, pp.409–412; Andrew Hess, “The Battle of Lepanto and its Place in Mediterranean History,” Past

and Present 57 (1972), p.60; Hamdani, “Ottoman Response to the Discovery of America,” p.329; Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the

Maghrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp.146–147; Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco,

p.138; Andrew C. Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp.38–44; Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.173–178; Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, pp.35–42; Meyerson, The

Muslims of Valencia, pp.74–76. 68 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.234–235; François Soyer, The Persecution of the Muslims and Jews of Portugal: King

Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp.241–281; Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, p.176; Beatriz Alonso Acero, Sultanes de Berbería en tierras de la cristiandad: exilio musulmán y asimilación en la Monarquía hispánica (Barcelona:

Edicions Bellaterra, 2006), pp.41–48.. 69 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.238–239. 70 Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta, pp.365–381; Quesada, La Guerra de Granada, p.90; Ángel Galán Sánchez, “Segregación, coexistencia y convivencia: Los musulmanes de la ciudad de Granada,” in Las Tomas: Antropología histórica de la ocupación

territorial del reino de Granada (Granada: Disputación de Granada, 2000), pp.326–332; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, pp.19, 52–60;

Fernández-Armesto, 1492, p.41. 71 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.54–55; Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta, pp.422–423; Villanueva, “On the Concept of Mudejarism,” p.45. 72 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.55–56; Jamal al-Din, Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.34–36;

Fernández-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella, pp.177–178; Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.331–334; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.77; Gaignard,

Maures et Chrétiens, pp.126–133; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.361–364; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.36; Purcell, The Great Captain, pp.128–129; Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.6–7; Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, pp.30–32; Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de

cruzada en España, pp.402–403; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, pp.474–475. 73 Razuq, Al-Andalusiyyin w-hijratahum ila al-Maghreb, pp.59–60; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.77; Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década

fraudulenta, pp.434–443; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.362–363; Aguilera, Granada Morisca, pp.72–74; Purcell, The Great Captain, p.130; Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, pp.32–34; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.45; Quesada, Las Guerras de Granada,

pp.226–228. 74 Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, pp.239–240; Harvey, Islamic Spain, p.334; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, pp.81–82; Liss, Isabel

the Queen, pp.375–376; Purcell, The Great Captain, p.130; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.7; Lea, The Moriscos of Spain, p.35; Soyer, The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal, p.271; Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, p.35.

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spread to the Alpujarras mountainous region by 1500.75 The suppression of the rebellion by the Castilian authorities was a

long and brutal process, with heavy casualties on both sides, and was not completed until 1501, by which time the

Hispano-Muslims of Granada were offered new and harsher terms of surrender: conversion or exile.76 The most serious

fighting during the rebellion occurred in the Alpujarras region, where many of the rebels had armed themselves and

sought shelter; the appeal to Bayezid II was sent specifically by this group of Hispano-Muslims only several months

before their final defeat by Castile.

1501 Qaṣīda to Sultan Bayezid II

This appeal was part of a broader literary-historical tradition of the Muslim of Spain appealing to foreign Islamic

powers to aid them during times of vulnerability. As early as 1064, with the fall of Barbastro, and, more significantly,

following the conquest of Toledo to Castile in 1085, poetic appeals played an important role in raising awareness about

the predicament of the Hispano-Muslims and requesting assistance from their co-religionists overseas. Such appeals were

usually effective in eliciting a response from the ummah (global community of Muslims), and in addition to the thousands

of mujāhidīn (holy warriors) who flooded into Spain over the centuries, two North African dynasties, the Almoravids

(1086–1147) and the Almohads (1149–1212), had launched invasions of Iberia to stem the tide of the Reconquista and

reinforce the Hispano-Muslims.

The text of the appeal is preserved in Azhār al-Riyād, a work by the 17th-century North African historian Aḥmad

al-Maqqarī, who provides a brief introduction to the context surrounding its composition, highlights the plight of the

Granadans, and indicates that it was sent to the Ottoman Sultan Abū Yazīd Khān, i.e. Bayezid II.77 Another version of

the poem is preserved by Moroccan author Muḥammad al-Talib ibn al-Hajj al-Sulamī (d.1857) in his book Riyād al-ward,

which contains four additional lines not found in al-Maqqarī which refer specifically to the fate of Málaga during the

suppression of the 1499–1501 insurrection in the Kingdom of Granada.78 Moreover, al-Sulamī provides a brief historical

75 Santa Cruz,Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, Vol. 1, pp.201–203; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel,

pp.55–56; Razuq, Al-Andalusiyyin w-hijratahum ila al-Maghreb, pp.60–61; Harvey, Islamic Spain, p.334; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.83;

Gaignard, Maures et Chrétiens, pp.133–134; Vilar Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta, pp.449–454; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.37; Purcell, The Great Captain, pp.130–132; Coleman, Creating Christian Granada, p.39; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.35–36; Lunenfeld,

Keepers of the City, p.145; Rummel. Jiménez de Cisneros, p.35. 76 Hurtado, Guerra de Granada, pp.101–105; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.55–56; Jamal al-Din,

Al-muslimun al-munasarun, pp.37–38; Merton, Cardinal Ximenes, p.83; Liss, Isabel the Queen, p.377; Sánchez, Los Mudéjares del Reino de Granada, pp.379–380; Aguilera, Granada Morisca, p.75; Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, p.37; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.7; Quesada, Las

Guerras de Granada, p.228–229. 77 Ahmad al-Maqqari, Azhar al-riyad fi akhbar ‘iyad, Vol.1 (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat Lajnat al-Ta'līf wa-al-Tarjamah wa-al-Nashr, 1939), pp.108–115. 78 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-Qantara 20 (1999), p.162.

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context explaining the circumstances surrounding the composition of the poem, and a conclusion asserting that the

forced conversions of the Hispano-Muslims of Granada resulted in “all of al-Andalus becoming a territory of unbelief”

and was “the greatest disaster to befall Islam since the tragedy of the loss of the Chosen One [Prophet Muhammad].”79

Another major difference between the two versions is that al-Maqqarī preserves a lengthy prose introduction to the poem

addressed to Bayezid II. In this paper, all references to the 1501 appeal to Bayezid II will be specifically to the qaṣīda as

preserved by al-Maqqarī, since, apart from the four lines only found in al-Sulami’s edition, it is the most complete and

widely accepted version by modern scholars.

Although al-Maqqarī does not provide an exact date for the qaṣīda, it is plausible to assume that it was composed

between January and June of 1501, since the text is silent about events occurring after mid-1501, while many of the

developments that transpired during early-mid 1501 are described in detail. The qaṣīda opens (lines 1–8) with a panegyric

praising Bayezid II as a ghāzī, exalting the conquests and exploits of the Ottoman state, and proclaiming the Ottoman

sultan to be “the best of Caliphs.”80 The poet goes on to describe the predicament of the Hispano-Muslims, emphasizing

their geographic and political isolation from the Islamic world, their suffering at the hands of the Castilians, and briefly

narrates the history of the decline of al-Andalus ending with the conquest of Granada, justifying the surrender of the city

and the subsequent Capitulation Agreements as necessitated by the position of weakness of the Granadans (lines 10–

32).81 The qaṣīda then turns its attention to the subject of the Capitulations, giving details about the nature of Mudéjar

status and the assurances provided by the Catholic Monarchs (lines 33–39).82 The tone of the poem suddenly changes

into a lament and bemoans the perceived betrayal of the Hispano-Muslims in Granada and the shift in the attitude of the

Castilian authorities from relative accommodation to aggressive conversionism. In this regard, the poet gives explicit

examples of the violation of the Capitulations by the Christians and provides a list of grievances, ranging from the

conversion of mosques into churches to the burning of Muslim religious texts (lines 40–66).83

In the next section, the qaṣīda underscores the coercive nature of the conversions of the Muslims to Christianity

in order to counter Castilian allegations during their diplomatic exchanges with Mamluk Egypt, described below, that the

79 Koningsveld and Wiegers, “An Appeal of the Moriscos to the Mamluk Sultan and its Counterpart to the Ottoman Court,” p.163. 80 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.109–110; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.364; James T.

Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” Al-Andalus 31 (1966), p.289. 81 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.110–111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.364–366; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” pp.289–290. 82 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.366; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 83 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.111–113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.366–367; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” pp.290–292.

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Hispano-Muslims had converted voluntarily. The poet emphasizes that despite having nominally been converted to

Christianity from “the fear of death and of burning,” the “faith of God’s Prophet has not been extinguished” among the

Granadans and that “in every glance, [the] recognition of God’s monotheism can be observed” (lines 84–91).84 To

eliminate any lingering doubts the Sultan may have had about these forcible conversions, the qaṣīda refers to the examples

of the Muslims of Huéjar, Belefique, Munyafa, and Anadarax—all sites of resistance against Castilian Christianization

during the war in the Alpujarras between 1500 and 1501—as a testimony to the extremely violent methods used by

Castile to coerce the Muslims into submission (lines 92–95).85 The poem then requests the intercession of the Ottoman

sultan on behalf of the Granadans by pleading with the sultan to exert pressure upon the Papacy, with whom he had

diplomatic relations, and the Spanish to reverse the turn of events and restore the Capitulation Agreements (line 97).86

There is even a suggestion that the sultan inflict reprisals on the Christians in the Ottoman Empire in order to express his

displeasure with the persecution of the Hispano-Muslims.87 The poet alternatively suggests that the sultan should

convince the Castilians to at least grant favorable terms to the Granadans to allow them to go into exile to North Africa

with their belongings (lines 98–99).88 The qaṣīda closes with a final plea and an expression of optimism that the Ottoman

sultan, praised as the best of kings and the most capable figure of alleviating their suffering, would be able to deliver the

Muslims of al-Andalus from their predicament (lines 100–105).89

The 1501 qaṣīda appears to have been modeled on the elegiac tradition of classical Andalūsī poetry, and

specifically on Abū Baqa’ al-Rundī’s “Rathā’ al-Andalus” composed around 1267, which is evident from its thematic

concerns, internal structure, and the language it employs.90 The motifs and imagery of a defeated and humiliated Islam

employed by the 1501 appeal is reminiscent of al-Rundī’s “Ratha’ al-Andalus” in which the loss of Andalusia and the

Christianization of the Islamic landscape is mourned. 91 In many respects, the thirteenth century and the late fifteenth

century were similar for Hispano-Muslims with significant territorial losses and military defeats, an increasingly Christian

84 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.368–369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” pp.292–293. 85 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 86 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 87 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.368; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.292. 88 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 89 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.115; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.369–370; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 90 Abu Baqa’ al-Rundi, “Lament for Seville,” in Hispano-Arabic Poetry, pp.332–337. 91 Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry, p.54.

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millenarian environment, and the perceived humiliation of Islam by the Christian conquerors being characteristic of both

periods. Hence, the themes of oppression, humiliation, and loss are dominant in both poems. Despite the clear structural

and thematic continuity however, one of the most important differences between al-Rundī’s lament and the anonymous

appeal of 1501 is that the former was operating largely within a rigidly fatalistic framework, and aside from explicit calls

for aid, remained pessimistic about the fortunes of Islam. On the other hand, the 1501 qaṣīda, although bemoaning the

fate of the Granadans, reflects a defiance of circumstances by the Hispano-Muslims and an attempt to alter their

predicament, rather than succumbing to fatalism.

In constructing the appeal in the form of a qaṣīda, the poet sought to emulate the panegyrics composed for

medieval Muslim monarchs by poets such as al-Mutannabī, the court poet of the Ḥamdanid dynasty, and Ibn Ḥanī’ al-

Andalusī, who was famed for his poetic praise of the Fatimid Caliphs in the tenth century. Unlike classical Arabic poetry,

however, which was known for its elegant phrases, creative vocabulary, and complex rhyming scheme, the qaṣīda

addressed to Bayezid II employs simple and clear language intermingled with emotion to make its case.92 As such, the

poet utilizes short, basic sentences and relies more on the content of his appeal than on its structure to evoke a response

from the audience, subordinating structural elegance to a substantive plea for help. Although it is difficult to verify with

certainty the authorship of the poem, it has been suggested by recent scholars on the basis of its style and content that

the poet likely belonged to the elite administrative or religious class of Granadan Muslims, and possibly to the El Pequeñí

family, affiliated with the inner circle of Boabdil, the last Muslim amīr of Granada.93

The 1501 appeal to Bayezid was not the first contact between the Hispano-Muslims and the Ottomans. As early

as 1486/1487, the Naṣrids had sent emissaries to the Mamluks in Cairo and the Ottoman court in Constantinople

requesting aid against the Castilians, who were on the verge of conquering the important coastal stronghold of Málaga.94

A third embassy was dispatched to the ruler of Tlemcen in Algeria, but much less is known about its content.95 The only

evident response to these embassies was that Bayezid II dispatched the Turkish admiral Kemal Reis to the western

92 Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry, p.69. 93 Koningsveld and Wiegers, “An Appeal of the Moriscos to the Mamluk Sultan and its Counterpart to the Ottoman Court,” p.185. 94Muhammad ibn Iyās, Bada’i’ al-zuhur fi waqi’ al-dhuhur Vol. 3(Cairo: Al-Hai’a Al-Misriyya Al-‘Ama li-al-Kitab, 1984), p.244; Palencia,

Guerra de Granada, pp.395–398; Abdeljelil Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya wa qadiyat al-Murīskīyīn al-Andalusīyīn (Zaghouan, 1989),

p.11; Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.66–68; Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib, p.148; Hess,

The Forgotten Frontier, p.60; Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.205; Razūq, Al-Andalusīyyīn wa hijratahum, p.64; Molly Greene, “The Ottomans in the Mediterranean,” in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2007), eds. Virginia K. Aksan and Daniel Goffman, p.107; Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco, p.120. Several scholars have

argued unconvincingly for an earlier 1477 appeal to Mehmed II, although there is no documentary evidence to support such an assertion. 95 Fernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, Vol. 2 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1943), p.313; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.386.

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Mediterranean in 1487 on a reconnaissance mission with the task of defending the Muslims of Spain.96 Although not able

to reverse the tide of the Reconquista in Granada, Kemal Reis raided several Christian settlements in Aragón and the

Balearics, and transported significant numbers of Muslims and Jews to North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. The

Egyptian Mamluks, on the other hand, were not in a position to provide any assistance to the Hispano-Muslims, and

were less inclined to support the Granadans against the Castilians and Aragonese, considering how the latter were aiding

the Mamluks in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire.97 In 1501, when the Alpujarras rebels sent an ambassador

with a qaṣīda to the Ottomans in Constantinople, embassies were again also sent to Mamluk Cairo and to North Africa

(probably Tlemcen) with a similar plea for aid.98

The qaṣīda’s reaction to the shift in Castilian policy from accommodation to conversion reflects the coalescence

of a distinctly Hispano-Muslim narrative, a renegotiation of the principle of justice, and the alienation of this specific

group of Granadans from the territory of Iberia, which was reconceptualized as a land of unbelief and exile. The attitudes

and themes found throughout the poem are bound together by the underlying logic that the Hispano-Muslims in

question absolutely rejected the legitimacy of the post-1501 status quo in Granada and sought to reincorporate

themselves into dār al-Islām. Thus, the notion of Islamic solidarity and consciousness in which the Hispano-Muslims

renegotiated their position in relation to Christian Spain, as well as the broader Islamic world, lies at the heart of the text.

In appealing to Bayezid II, the qaṣīda is demonstrative of these issues, in addition to reflecting the projection of Ottoman

power, grandeur, and legitimacy among the besieged Mudéjars of the Alpujarras.

The Hispano-Muslim Narrative: Conversion and Coercion

Following the forceful conversions of 1499 and 1501, there was a crystallization of a narrative emphasizing the

righteousness of Hispano-Muslims, and the injustice and treachery of the Castilians. The development of such a

conception was both polemical and practical, and served to counter the Castilian narrative that was put forth, discussed

96 Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel, pp.67–68; Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic

Period, p.148; Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, p.60; Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.206; Acero, Cisneros y la conquista

española del norte del África, p.209; Andrew Hess, “The Battle of Lepanto,” p.57; Greene, “The Ottomans in the Mediterranean,” pp.107–108; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.334–335; Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.11. 97 Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, p.386; P.S. Van Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth

Century: The Views of the Four Chief Judges in Cairo,” in Poetry, Politics, and Polemics: Cultural Transfer between the Iberian Peninsula

and North Africa, eds. Otto Zwartjes, Geert Jan van Gelden, and Ed de Moor, p.137. 98 Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” p.138. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, writing after the

second war of the Alpujarras in 1568–1570, makes note of this extensive Hispano-Muslim diplomacy: “Habían ya muchos años antes enviado

a solicitor con personas ciertas no solamente a los principles de Berbería, mas el emperador de los turcos dentro en Constantinopla, que los

socorriese, y sacase de serbidumbre, y postreamente al rey de Argel pedido armada de levanter y poniente en su favor” (Mendoza, Guerra de Granada, p.111)

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below, as well as to create a point of departure for the Hispano-Muslims, which would allow them to more effectively

articulate their specific grievances. Hence, most of the qaṣīda was devoted to a presentation of the Hispano-Muslim

version of the events that transpired in Granada between 1492 and 1501. Following the Castilian shift towards aggressive

conversion, the Hispano-Muslims had dispatched an embassy to Cairo, leading the Mamluks to express concern over the

treatment of Muslims in Granada by the Catholic Monarchs and threaten reprisals against the Christians of Jerusalem.99

This prompted an exchange of embassies between 1499 and 1502 between Egypt and Spain.100 In the course of this

diplomacy, the Castilian emissary, Pedro Mártir de Angleria, explained that most of the Muslims of Granada had

converted to Christianity voluntarily, while others were coerced as punishment for their rebellion, asserting that the issue

was an internal Iberian affair, and emphasizing that the position of Muslims in Iberia should not impact the Mamluk

treatment of their Christian subjects in Egypt and Syria.101 There was even a subtle suggestion by Pedro Mártir that

Spain’s powerful army and navy would be able to assist the Mamluk Sultan in his struggle against the Ottomans.102 The

increasing encroachment by the Ottomans in northern Syria, and the assurances granted by the Castilians meant that

there was no further inquiry or action taken by the Mamluks into the question of the Hispano-Muslims.103

The qaṣīda to Bayezid II makes explicit reference to these exchanges, and seeks to counter the version of events

given by Pedro Mártir by presenting a distinctly Hispano-Muslim narrative.104 The poet argued that the Mamluk envoys

had been deceived by the Castilians, with the poet asserting that the Christians had in fact “lied about [the Granadans]

with the greatest falsehood” in claiming that that the Hispano-Muslims had voluntarily accepted Christianity.105 In

99 Already in 1489, the Mamluk Sultan, in an embassy to the Papacy, had expressed his discontent with the treatment of the Hispano-Muslims,

and threatened to retaliate against the Christians in Egypt and Palestine (Fernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, Volume 2, pp.395–398. 100 Koningsveld and Wiegers, “An Appeal of the Moriscos to the Mamluk Sultan and its Counterpart to the Ottoman Court,” p.184; Leonard

Patrick Harvey, “The Moriscos and their International Relations,” in L’expulsio dels Moriscos: Conseqüéncies en el món cristià (Barcelona:

Generalitat de Catalunya, 1994), pp.136–137; Vilar-Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta, pp.536–539; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.2–5; Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” p.137; Razūq, Al-Andalusīyyīn wa hijratahum, p.65. 101 Santa Cruz,Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, Vol. 1, pp.267–73; Pedro Mártir, “Embassy to the Sultan of Egypt,” in Documentos sobre

relaciones internacionales de los Reyes Católicos Vol. 6, 1501:29–32, pp.266–270; Liss, Isabel the Queen, pp.2–5; Koningsveld and G.A.

Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” p.137; Harvey, “The Moriscos and their International Relations,” pp.136–137; Vilar-Sánchez, 1492–1502: Una década fraudulenta, pp.13–14; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.335–336; Pedro Mártir, De Orbe Novo: The

Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D’Anghera (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1912), ed. and trans. Francis Augustus MacNutt, pp.28–29. For

the full text of Pedro Mártir’s mission to Egypt, see Una embajada de los Reyes Católicos a Egipto (Valladolid: Consejo Superior de

Investigaciones Científicas, 1947), ed. Luis García y García. 102 Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” p.137; Harvey, “The Moriscos and their International

Relations,” p.137 . 103 Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” p.138; Pedro Mártir, De Orbe Novo, p.29; Leonard

Patrick Harvey, “The Political, Social, and Cultural History of the Moriscos,” in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Leiden: Brill, 1992), p.207. 104 Harvey, “The Moriscos and their International Relations,” p.137; Harvey, “The Political, Social, and Cultural History of the Moriscos,”

p.207. 105 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293.

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addition to rejecting these accusations, the poet categorically stated that “by God, [the Granadans] will never [willingly]

accept the [Christian] declaration of faith” and that “it was [only] the fear of death and of burning that had caused [them]

to convert.”106 To underscore the insincerity of the conversions, the poet alludes to the coercive methods used by the

Castilians against the Granadans, and rhetorically suggests that the Sultan to “ask Huéjar about its inhabitants: how they

became captives and slaughterlings under [the burden] of humiliation and misfortune,” and to “ask Belefique what was

the outcome of their affair: they were cut to pieces by the sword.”107 Both Huéjar and Belefique were sites of massacres

of Muslims by Castile during the suppression of the insurrection in the Alpujarras. More vividly, the qaṣīda recalled the

fate of Andarax, whose “people were consumed by fire” and “became like charcoal” when Castilian troops used

gunpowder and cannons to blow up a mosque in which Muslim women and children had sought refuge.108 The poet

further details how religious books were publicly burnt, and how fasting, praying and the invocation of the Prophet

Muhammad were strictly banned practices, and punishable by death in order to make plain the atmosphere of intolerance

and coercion in Granada.109

The narrative presented within the qaṣīda to Bayezid II was therefore essentially one of persecution and injustice,

in which Muslims were being violently massacred and coerced into Christianity by Castile, and mosques were being

converted to churches in an attempt to eradicate Islam from Granada. This description, which is corroborated by

contemporary Hispano-Muslim and Castilian chronicles, sought to clarify the events in Granada between 1499 and 1501

for the Mamluks and Ottomans, so as to eliminate any doubts about the circumstances surrounding the mass conversion

of the Hispano-Muslims to Christianity.110 Although it was unlikely that either the Ottomans or Mamluks believed Pedro

106 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 107 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 108Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, p.43. 109 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.112; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.366–367; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” pp.290–291. 110 Diego Hurtado de Mendoza elaborates on the Alpujarras campaign of 1500–1501 by explaining how the Castilian general Gonzalo

Fernández de Córdoba and the Count of Tendilla used extreme force in suppressing the Hispano-Muslim rebellion, referring explicitly to place-

names mentioned by the appeal, including Huéjar and Andarax (Hurtado, Guerra de Granada, pp.101–102). Moreover, the chronicler Alonso

de Santa Cruz makes reference to the events in Andarax : “algunos cristianos se salieron de ejercito por robar y entrar do estaban moros, los cuales, como se viesen maltratados, se comenzaron a revolver con los cristianos, lo cual, como fuese mal sentido en el ejercito, fueron muchos

soldados allá, y mataron muchos moros y moras en número de mas de tres mil animas, y en solo la mezquita murieron mas de seiscientos que

estaban allí recojidos, que fue cosa de gran lástima” (Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, 1:203). Translation: “The next day, after the

Moors had handed in their arms, some of the Christians broke away from the army and made their way into where the Moors were being held, to pillage. When these Moors perceived that we were being ill-treated, they began to struggle with the Christians. When the main body of the

army got to hear of this, many more soldiers went across to join in, and they killed many Moors, both men and women, to the number of more

than three thousand souls, and in the mosque alone there died more than six hundred women who had taken refuge there. This was a terrible

thing.” The details about the rebellion of the Alpujarras presented in the qaṣīda are further corroborated by the contemporary Hispano-Muslim chronicle Nubdhat al-‘asr (Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, pp.39–46).

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Mártir’s version of events, it was essential for the Hispano-Muslims to prove that they had not voluntarily converted to

Christianity, but had been compelled to do so, in order to put to rest any accusations of apostasy.111 Apostasy would have

essentially negated any sympathy that Muslims overseas would have had for the Hispano-Muslims, and placed them

outside the fold of Islam. By responding to Christian allegations, therefore, the appeal was asserting that far from being

an exclusively internal Iberian affair, the situation in Granada was a matter of concern for all Muslims. Hence, in this

broader context, the emphasis on the forced conversion of the Granadans by Castile appears not merely as a rhetorical

argument, but as an attempt to counter serious accusations made about the Hispano-Muslims that would have effectively

undermined any potential sympathy and support from either the Mamluks or the Ottomans. That the Hispano-Muslims

successfully made their case to the Mamluks is clear from the description of the fall of Granada in the chronicle of the

early sixteenth-century Mamluk historian Ibn Iyās:

“[In the year 1499] news arrived from the West that the ifranj [Castilians; literally “Franks”] had

conquered Granada, which was the home of the king of al-Andalus, and put the Muslims to the sword,

and said: ‘Whosoever enters into our religion, we shall leave him [alone], but who does not do so we

shall kill him.’ So a large group of [Hispano-Muslims] entered into their religion out of fear of

dying…”112

Although Ibn Iyās conflates the conquest of Granada by Castile with the forcible conversions of Muslims, no

such connection is directly made within the qaṣīda itself, which demarcates between the brief period of convivencia in

Granada shortly following its conquest and the beginning of the Christianization process in the late 1490s. Drawing on

notions of Islamic consciousness and solidarity, the qaṣīda sought to demonstrate to Bayezid II that despite being forcibly

converted to Christianity, the Hispano-Muslims had preserved their faith, undeterred by the various obstacles and

challenges. The poet expresses his contempt for Christianity by describing it as a religion of “unbelief, idolatry, and

falsehood” while emphasizing that the “faith of God’s Prophet [i.e. Islam] has not been extinguished” among the

Hispano-Muslims in order to assuage any lingering doubts Bayezid II may have had about the religious faith of the

Hispano-Muslims.113 In this regard, a recurring theme in the poem was the contrasting of Islam, a religion of light and

truth, with Christianity, a false belief. To further express the commitment of the Granadans to Islam, the poet asserts that

the suppression of Islam by Castile was so intolerable that it would be preferable for the Hispano-Muslims to immigrate

111 Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry, p.69 112 Ibn Iyās, Bada’i’ al-zuhur fi waqi’ al-dhuhur Vol. 3, p.448. 113 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.368–369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” pp.292–293.

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to North Africa since “expulsion is better than remaining in unbelief, enjoying power but having no religion.”114 The

utilization of imagery in which Muslim children were forcibly Christianized, young women violated by priests, sacred

scriptures desecrated, minarets converted to bell-towers, mosques turned into churches, and ribāṭs (Islamic frontier-

fortresses) transformed into Christian strongholds was meant to depict a reality in which not only Muslims, but Islam

itself had been humiliated and subjugated. This latter notion was appealing to the ghāzī ideals of the Ottomans, who

would have been horrified by the idea of Muslims, not least the once-proud Hispano-Muslims of Spain, being mistreated

by Christians. Such sentiments also echo fatwas and Islamic anxieties about the plight of Muslims in dār al-ḥarb, and the

Mudéjars in particular.

The emphasis on themes of humiliation, oppression, forced conversion, was meant to resonate deeply with

Bayezid II by appealing to the underlying notion of Islamic solidarity, the sultan’s piety, and the shared religio-cultural

heritage of both the Hispano-Muslims and the Ottoman Turks. Moreover, this ideological and religious dimension of the

text was intended to appeal to the Ottoman conceptions of themselves as protectors of Islam by invoking the jihādī ethos

and the role of Bayezid II as a ghāzī, whose duty it was to alleviate the suffering of fellow Muslims. Significantly, this

Hispano-Muslim narrative, which was forwarded by the qaṣīda and presumably by Hispano-Muslims exiles in North

Africa, would become the dominant Muslim understanding of the plight of their co-religionists in Iberia and was

influential in inflaming anger and hostility towards Spain. Indeed, in Muslim naval and military activities in the western

Mediterranean, the narrative of the Castilian persecution of the Hispano-Muslims was the essential legitimizing

framework for the raids against Spain and its interests. As such, the plight of the Iberian Muslims was a dominant motif

in the Gazavatname of Hayreddin Barbarossa, the main Ottoman Muslim admiral operating against Spain in the

Mediterranean.115A parallel may even be drawn between the way in which narratives of Turkish atrocities against

Christians in the Balkans and other regions under Ottoman rule fuelled the crusade in Latin Christendom, and the

relationship between the “humiliation and oppression” of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and the anti-Christian polemic

that developed as a result, which would be very important in supplementing and legitimizing the ideological and military

jihādī drive against Christian Europe, and Spain in particular.116 The engagement of the appeal with this broader context

114 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 115 Sayyid Muradi, Gazavât-i Hayreddın Paşa (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1997), trans. Miguel A. de Bunes and Emilio Sola, p.43;

Taylor, “The Enemy Within and Without,” p.85; Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, pp.137–138; Rhoads Murphey, “Seyyid Muradi’s Prose

Biography of Hizir ibn Yakub, alias Hayreddin Barbarossa: Ottoman Folk Narrative as an Under-Exploited Source for Historical

Reconstruction,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54 (2001), pp.530–531. 116 Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.215.

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of Muslim sentiment and Islamic solidarity was therefore one way in which the poet sought to transform the existing

reality from a local Iberian affair into one of an “Islamic cause,” in which the Ottomans and other Muslims would

become heavily involved.

Significant light is shed on the relevance of the qaṣīda when it is compared with another contemporary

document, the anonymous Hispano-Muslim chronicle Nubhat al-‘Aṣr, written in North Africa shortly after 1501. The

version of the events presented within this work, as well as its tone, themes, and even in the examples it cites, strongly

resembles the qaṣīda.117 This chronicle narrates an identical series of events as the 1501 appeal: the military defeat of the

Hispano-Muslims followed by the surrender of Granada and the Capitulation Agreements in 1492, before describing the

“treachery” and “deceit” of the Castilians, who are depicted as aggressively and violently Christianizing Granada and

carrying out massive atrocities against the Muslims population of the Alpujarras, Huéjar, Andarax, and Belefique.118 There

is also a very striking similarity to the qaṣīda in the tone and imagery utilized by the chronicler of Nubhat al-‘Aṣr:

“All of al-Andalus was transformed into a Christian territory and there was none who publicly declared

‘there is no God but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God’…[church] bells were placed in

[minarets] which had been used to call the faithful to prayer, images and crosses now adorn its mosques

in which the remembrance of God was invoked and the Qur’an recited. Alas, how many weeping eyes

and sad hearts there are…their hearts burn and their tears flow copiously as they watch their sons and

daughters worship crosses and prostrate themselves before idols and eat pork and drink wine…”119

In addition to corroborating much of the historical information presented within the qaṣīda, this chronicle can provide

important insight into a larger phenomenon occurring within the Hispano-Muslim community at the turn of the fifteenth

century. Although it is plausible that both the 1501 qaṣīda and Nubhat al-‘Aṣr were authored by the same group of

Hispano-Muslims, or perhaps the same individual, especially in light of the detail provided about the rebellion of the

Alpujarras, it is nevertheless clear that the forceful conversions in Granada were an ideological watershed in the history of

the Hispano-Muslims. The recurrence of similar themes and imagery, the repetition of an identical series of events, and

even the utilization of identical terminology (“betrayal,” “oppression,” “injustice”) suggests the coalescence of a distinct

Hispano-Muslim narrative and self-perception following the events of 1499–1501 in which a specific group of

117 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, pp.44–49. 118 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, pp.39–46. 119 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, pp.44–45.

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Granadans, who sought to openly maintain their faith, refused to accept the legitimacy of the post-1501 regime in Spain.

In many ways, this Hispano-Muslim narrative that crystallized in the immediate aftermath of the forcible conversions

would be very influential in informing the identity and self-conception of the Moriscos throughout the sixteenth century,

even with all the novelties of that period.

Justice, Oppression, and Dār al-Islām

In essence, the basic underlying theme in the appeal is the question of justice. By decrying the perceived injustice

(dhulm) of the new Castilian regime in Granada after 1501, the poet was positioning himself within the broader context of

aggressive Christianization and Castilian millenarianism (crusade), and in relation to the Islamic understanding of justice.

The notion of justice greatly informs the self-perception of the Hispano-Muslims of Granada. As stated earlier,

Mudéjarism, the accommodation of Muslims as tolerated, albeit subordinated, minorities under Christian rule was not a

new phenomenon. This arrangement was validated within the qaṣīda itself as a legitimate modus operandi which had been in

place in Iberia for over four centuries. Nevertheless, the poet feels a need to justify to Bayezid II the reasons for the

acceptance by the Muslims of Mudéjarism, which is depicted as the lesser of two evils and necessitated by extreme

circumstances. In this regard, the poet was engaging with the long standing intra-Muslim debate regarding the obligation

of minorities under non-Muslim rule to undertake hijrah (emigration) to Islamic lands. The conquest of the kingdom of

Granada and the subsequent shift in Castilian policy from accommodation to Christianization had a profound impact on

revitalizing these pre-existing debates and created a rift within the community over which course of action to take.

The main argument, represented by Mālikī jurists such as al-Wansharīsī (d.1508), asserted that it was absolutely

forbidden to reside under Christian rule as this placed Muslims at the mercy of their “infidel” overlords, an intolerable

arrangement which made it virtually impossible for them to fulfill their religious obligations.120 Moreover, willingly

remaining under Christian authority “border[ed] on infidelity” and was “manifest proof of the vile and base spirit” of the

Mudéjars, according to al-Wansharīsī.121 Opposed to the very principle of convivencia, al-Wansharīsī viewed the

communities of Mudéjars in Iberia as “a loose and threatened appendage of the body religious, estranged from the moral

120 Nirenberg, “Christendom and Islam,” p.165; Harvery, Islamic Spain, pp.56–60; Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate

to Islamic Territory,” p.258; P.S. van Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, “The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars in the Light of a New Source,” Al-Qantara 17 (1996), pp.52–55; Miller, Guardians of Islam, pp.22, 39–40; Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The

Juristic Discourse on Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law and Society 1 (1994),

pp.150–151, 153–156. 121 Nirenberg, “Christendom and Islam,” pp.164–165; Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate to Islamic Territory,” p.258; Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.22.

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center, and separated from dār al-Islām by more than a geopolitical frontier.”122 Hence, argued this school of thought,

emigration to Islamic lands, or hijrah, was the only viable option; for scholars such as al-Wansharīsī, “the territory of

Islam, even though unjust, was superior to non-Muslim territory, even though just.”123 As Kathryn Miller has

demonstrated, the debate over hijrah and Mudéjarism was very prominent among Hispano-Muslims throughout the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.124 Indeed as early as the thirteenth century, the Andalusī Mālikī jurist Ibn Rabī‘(d.1320)

issued an extensive fatwa and treatise (composed in 1266, possibly in the context of the aftermath of the 1264 Mudéjar

revolt in southern Iberia) rejecting the legitimacy of Mudéjarism, explaining the reasons why it was invalid according to

Islamic law, and asserting that hijrah to Islamic territory was the only permissible course of action that could be

undertaken.125 Following the end of Islamic political power in the Iberian Peninsula with the conquest of Naṣrid

Granada, which provided a refuge for Mudéjars wishing to leave Christian territory, it was emphasized that it became

incumbent upon the entire Hispano-Muslim population of Spain to undertake hijrah to North Africa. Needless to say,

with the forcible conversion of Muslims in Castile, these Islamic scholars were confirmed in their anxieties and

reservations about Mudéjarism. Furthermore, they asserted that it was absolutely forbidden for Muslims to dissimulate

and covertly maintain their religion while outwardly conforming to Christianity. Hijrah was the only legitimate option.

The other, less dominant, argument, promoted primarily by the Mufti of Oran, Aḥmad al-Maghrāwī al-Wahrānī

(d.1511), stated that there was no obligation upon the Mudéjars to emigrate from Iberia. Following the conversion edicts

of 1501 and 1502, al-Wahrānī issued a fatwa in 1504, which was translated into Aljamiado and widely disseminated

throughout Iberia even as late as 1564, in which the practice of dissimulation, taqīyya, was validated, hence permitting

Hispano-Muslims to reside in Iberia, as long as their inner intentions remained inclined to Islam and rejected Christian

122 Miller, Guardians of Islam, pp.39–40. 123 Manuela Marín and Rachid El Hour, “Captives, Children, and Conversion: A Case from Late Nasrid Granada,” Journal of the Economic

and Social History of the Orient 41 (1998), pp.468–469; Miller, Guardians of Islam, pp.20–24; Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” p.154; Razūq, Al-Andalusīyyīn wa hijratahum, p.148–151; Echevarria, Fortress of Faith, p.183. The obligation of hijrah was

based on the precedent of the Prophet Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622, an experience reflected in two main Qur’anic

verses: Q.4:97–100: “Those whose lives are terminated by angels while in a state of wronging their souls, the angels will ask them, “What was

the matter with you?” They will say “We were oppressed on the earth!” They [the angels] will say “Was God’s earth not spacious enough for you to emigrate therein? For these, the final abode is Hell, a miserable destiny” and Q.8:72: “Surely those who believed and emigrated, and

strove with their money and their lives in the cause of God, as well as those who hosted them and gave them refuge and supported them, they

are allies of one another. As for those who believe and do not emigrate with you, you do not owe them any support until they do emigrate.

However, if they need your help, as brethren in faith, you shall help them, except against people with whom you have signed a peace treaty.” There also exists a large corpus of ḥadīth advising against living among “infidels” and enjoining hijrah to Islamic lands. One such ḥadīth states

“Whoever associates with an infidel and lives with him, he is like him” (Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.28; Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and

Muslim Minorities,” pp.143–144). 124 Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate to Islamic Territory,” pp.266–288. 125 Koningsveld and. Wiegers, “The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars,” pp.22–38; Miller, Guardians of Islam, pp.29–31, 44–46.

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doctrine and practice.126 This has been interpreted as a rebuttal to al-Wansharīsī’s uncompromising position towards the

Hispano-Muslims of Iberia.127 Indeed, this approach gradually became more widespread, with a particular fatwa issued by

Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī (d.1550) stressing that Muslims under Christian rule were obliged to preach the Islamic message,

and that the territory they lived in could be legitimately regarded as part of dār al-Islām.128 That this was a major issue for

the Hispano-Muslims after their Christianization in the early years of the sixteenth century is reflected in a set of

questions and subsequent fatwas exchanged between some Valencian/Granadan Muslims and the four chief jurists of

Egypt around 1510.129 Several key scholars have reconstructed these intra-Muslim debates by utilizing such sources as

fatwas, letters, and other texts from the period.130

The 1501 poet was therefore clearly positioning his argument and narrative within a long-standing debate. In this

regard, one of the primary concerns of the poet was to vindicate the position of the Granadan leadership and population

for agreeing to Mudéjarism, which was controversial and contested in Islamic law, by underscoring the total political and

military defeat of Granada. The qaṣīda explains that for centuries the Andalusīs had engaged in jihād against the Christians

of Spain, and had “withstood [the Christian] armies and killed group after group of them” until the balance of power

shifted in favor of the Christians, who fought against the Muslims “with zeal and resolution like locusts in the multitude

of their cavalry and weapons.”131 The technological superiority of Castile is also highlighted as the poet explains that the

126 Devin Stewart, “The Identity of ‘the Mufti of Oran,” Abū l-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Abī Jum‘ah al-Maghrāwī al-Wahrānī,” Al-Qantara 27

(2006), p.266–271; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.60–64; Miller, Guardians of Islam, pp.114, 181; Harvey, “The Political, Social, and Cultural

History of the Moriscos,” pp.210–11; Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” pp.156–157. 179–180; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.24; Cook, The Hundred Years War for Morocco, p.141. 127 Stewart, “The Identity of ‘the Mufti of Oran’,” pp.299–300. 128 Koningsveld and. Wiegers, “The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars,” p.50; Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.28; Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and

Muslim Minorities,” pp.159–160. The eleventh-century Shāfi‘ī jurist al-Māwardī (d.1058) is also relevant in this regard, as he is said to have asserted that “if [a Muslim] is able to manifest [his] religion in one of the unbelievers’ countries, this country becomes a part of dār al-Islām.

Hence, residing in it is better than migrating because it is hoped that others will convert to Islam [through him]” (Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law

and Muslim Minorities,” p.150). 129 Koningsveld and Wiegers, “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century,” pp.138–152; Koningsveld and Wiegers, “The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars,” pp.38–49; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.65–69. 130 Kathryn A. Miller, Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and the Muslims Communities of Late Medieval Spain (New York, 2008);

Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore, 1984); Kathryn A. Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate

to Islamic Territory: Two Fatwas from Fifteenth-Century Granada,” Islamic Law and Society 7, Islamic Law in Al-Andalus (2000): 256–288; Manuela Marín and Rachid El Hour, “Captives, Children, and Conversion: A Case from Late Nasrid Granada,” Journal of the Economic and

Social History of the Orient 41 (1998): 453–473; Khaled Abou El-Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Discourse on

Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,” Islamic Law and Society 1 (1994): 141–187; P.S. Van

Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers; “Islam in Spain during the Early Sixteenth Century: The Views of the Four Chief Judges in Cairo,” in Poetry, Politics and Polemics: Cultural Transfer between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa (Amsterdam, 1996), eds. Otto Zwartjes, Geert Jan

van Gelder and Ed de Moor, pp.133–152; Devon Stewart, “The Identity of the Mufti of Oran, Abu l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Jum’ah al-

Maghrawi al-Wahrani (d.917/1511,” Al-Qantara 27 (2006): 265–301. 131 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.365; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290.

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Christians “[brought] many large cannons that demolished the impregnable walls of the towns.”132 It was in this context,

argues the poet, when “[the Hispano-Muslim] cavalry and foot soldiers had perished…and no rescue was forthcoming

[from Muslims overseas]” that the Granadans “complied against [their] will, with [Castilian] demands (for surrender), out

of fear of disgrace and fearing for [their] sons and daughters, lest they be taken captive or cruelly slaughtered.”133 In

emphasizing these seemingly overwhelming odds that the Granadans faced, the qaṣīda intended to covey the impossible

situation of pre-1492 Granada and to evoke pity for the Hispano-Muslims from the readers/listeners. Thus, the poet was

justifying the surrender of Granada as necessitated by circumstance, and validating the acceptance of Mudéjar status as a

last resort. To further legitimize this decision, the qaṣīda includes a description of the Capitulation Agreements, and the

favorable conditions under which the Hispano-Muslims were permitted to reside within Granada; the poet especially

highlights the terms related to the toleration of Islam and the permission of the Hispano-Muslims to maintain their faith

and customs.134 He further explains that Ferdinand of Aragón (“their Sultan”) had personally signed the treaty of

protection and had assured the Muslims that their religious rights would be fully safeguarded.135 The validation of

Mudéjarism within the poem is most evident from the request by the poet for Bayezid II to intercede on behalf of the

Granadans by convincing the Catholic Monarchs to reinstate the Capitulation Agreements.136 It appears that the poet was

suggesting that, in the absence of direct military intervention (“no rescue was forthcoming [from Muslims overseas]”), the

accommodation of Muslims as tolerated subjects under Christian authority was the most viable option. In this sense, the

faction in question refuses to accept the validity of al-Wansharīsī’s fatwa that it was illegitimate for Muslims to reside

under non-Muslim rule.

Although the collapse of Islamic political power in Iberia was lamented as a major tragedy by many Hispano-

Muslims, the conquest of Granada in 1492 was not the primary concern of the poet. Rather, the major issue was the

perceived treachery of the Castilians in repealing the Capitulation Agreements, violating the rights of the Granadans, and

essentially overturning the traditional and mutually accepted social order. The poet asserted that it was indeed the

Christians—specifically the Castilian leadership—that violated the agreements that were in place, and not, as Pedro Mártir

132 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.365; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 133 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.366; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 134 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.366; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 135 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.366; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 136 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293.

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had told the Mamluks, the Hispano-Muslims. Moreover, it is explained that almost immediately following the conquest of

Granada, the “deception and treachery” of the Castilians became apparent as they forcibly converted Muslims to

Christianity and effectively banned the practice of Islam in Granada.137 In this regard, the qaṣīda argues that the Hispano-

Muslims had not acted in any way so as to warrant such treatment at the hands of the Christians. The conception of

betrayal was therefore closely tied with the understanding of justice.

As far as the poet was concerned, the breach of the Capitulations by the Castilians constituted a violation not

only of the long-standing tradition of convivencia, but also of the central precept of religious faith: “as for him who grants a

treaty, then betrays it, that is a deed forbidden by every faith/nation.”138 The language of the qaṣīda places important

emphasis on this theme of betrayal and conveys the Hispano-Muslims’ outrage at the perceived Castilian treachery. The

poet exclaims from the outset that the Hispano-Muslims had been “betrayed (ghudirna) and converted to

Christianity…oppressed (dhulimna) and treated in every shameful way.”139 Thus, the themes of justice, betrayal (ghadr), and

oppression (dhulm) were central to the argument of the poet. The use of these loaded terms, especially “dhulm,” which

connotates an intolerable situation of tyranny, is indicative of the extreme way with which the events in Granada between

1499 and 1501, and the subsequent status quo, were perceived. Moreover, the utilization of such language would have

been intended to resonate profoundly within the court of the Ottoman sultan, as the elimination of injustice and

prevention of the oppression/dhulm of Muslims was the obligation of a Muslim sovereign. This point shall be revisited

when the position of the Ottoman sultanate in relation to the appeal is elaborated further.

This preoccupation with justice further manifests itself in the contrast which the poet makes between the

tolerance of al-Andalus and the perceived betrayal and persecution of the contemporary Christian regime. The qaṣīda

asserts that when the Christians had initially been conquered by the Andalusīs in the past, they had been “under the

safeguard of [Islam] and the protection of glorious kings [the Umayyad Caliphs?] who fulfilled their promises” and under

Islamic rule “[the Christians] were neither converted from their faith, nor expelled from their homes, nor did they suffer

betrayal or dishonor.”140 This section of the appeal is perhaps one of the most potent representations of Hispano-Muslim

self-righteousness. Not only is it asserted that under Islamic rule, Christians had not been ill-treated, but the poet

137 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.111; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.366; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.290. 138 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.368; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.292. 139 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.110; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.365; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289. 140 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.368; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.292.

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expresses a sense of betrayal by implying that Muslims under Christian rule expected similar treatment, but were severely

persecuted instead. In this way, the poet strongly contrasts the righteousness and justice of the Hispano-Arab monarchs

and the period of al-Andalus with the betrayal and treachery of the Castilians, who had committed “a disgraceful,

infamous deed; unlawful everywhere.” Indeed, the depiction of Andalusī sovereigns as just rulers who honor their

agreements and deal fairly with their subjects, and the description of the Castilians as violators of oaths and tyrants,

whose deceit and oppression are manifested in their treatment of the Hispano-Muslims, the qaṣīda was making an

important declaration about justice.

By contrasting the tolerance of al-Andalus during the Middle Ages with the forced conversions, persecution, and

oppression of Christian rule, the poet was suggesting that the implementation of a just social order could only be possible

under Muslim rule, and asserting that tolerance and equity were uniquely Islamic ideals. Implicit in this declaration was

that non-Muslims, particularly Christians, were incapable of justice towards Muslims, as proven by the betrayal and

forced conversion of the Hispano-Muslims. In contrasting Muslim “justice” with Christian “injustice,” and Andalūsī

“tolerance” with Castilian “intolerance,” therefore, there was an affirmation of Islam as being the only legitimate and

acceptable religio-political system, thus underscoring the shared Islamic consciousness of the Hispano-Muslims and the

Ottomans.

The inclusion of this implicit declaration of Islamic superiority reveals that there existed a conflicted perception

of the ideal of justice within the poem itself, and, by extension, among the Hispano-Muslim community of Granada. In

the qaṣīda, justice is reconceptualized from being a relative notion, manifested in the acceptance of Mudéjarism by the

poet as a legitimate arrangement, to a more Islamic conception of justice, in which the ideal social order could only be

achieved under Islamic rule. This renegotiation of the ideal of justice should be interpreted as a Hispano-Muslim

response to the shift in Castilian religious policy from relative accommodation to aggressive conversion, a change that

stemmed from the heightened millenarianism and sense of crusading mission within Castile. Thus, with the elimination of

convivencia as a viable modus operandi and socio-political alternative, the Hispano-Muslims were faced with the dilemma of

engaging in taqiyya (religious dissimulation) or re-affiliating themselves with Islamic civilization. Many Moriscos, as the

Hispano-Muslims in Castile were known after 1502, opted for the former option, considering their attachment to their

homeland, the harsh conditions which they would have to face to emigrate from Iberia, and the fact that such an

existence had been validated by certain religious scholars, specifically al-Wahrānī. A particular faction of Hispano-

Muslims, however, refused to accept the legitimacy of the new regime, and either resorted to violence to restore what

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they viewed to be their rights as preserved in the Capitulation Agreements or emigrated to North Africa, where they

inflamed the jihād against Spain, thus becoming “the greatest and cruelest enemies the Christians had in Barbary.”141

Indeed, this latter group was so adamant about rejecting the legitimacy of the post-1501 status quo that in the appeal to

Bayezid II they declared that “expulsion is better than remaining in unbelief, enjoying power but having no religion,”

clearly positioning themselves within the long-standing intra-Muslim debates discussed above.142

Hence, it can be seen that their experience vis-à-vis the aggressive Castilian Christianizing drive during 1499–

1501 led to a profound shift in Granada and immensely affected the self-perception of the Hispano-Muslims. This was

most clearly manifested in a revival of notions of Islamic solidarity and consciousness, in which a certain faction of

Hispano-Muslims sought to actively affiliate themselves with Islamic civilization, and the Ottoman Empire in particular.

This distinctly Islamic conception of justice required, at least in the minds of this particular group of Hispano-Muslims, a

formal association with Islam. The forced conversion of the Granadans and the increasing repression which they faced

under Castilian rule was the necessary catalyst for crystallization of this particular worldview among the Hispano-

Muslims. In this way, the qaṣīda reflects an important ideological shift in which reaffiliation with Islamic civilization was

viewed as an ultimate moral value that outweighed any consideration of substantive justice in the context of the post-

1501 reality in Granada. As such, there seems to be an inherent contradiction and an inherent struggle within the poem in

which, on one hand, the poet is justifying and defending convivencia as an arrangement, explicitly rejecting the hard-line

Mālikī position, while on the other hand asserting a vision of justice which corresponds closely to the uncompromising

position of jurists such as al-Wansharīsī. On a different level, the rise of a narrative in which the tolerance of al-Andalus

was idealized and contrasted with the perceived injustice of the present regime in early modern Spain was an important

theme and motif in Morisco polemics throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is best exemplified by

Miguel de Luna’s Historia verdadera del rey Don Rodrigo. 143 In this regard, the qaṣīda provides an insight into the coalescence

of a distinct Hispano-Muslim narrative and consciousness which would develop more fully throughout the Morisco

period.

141 Razūq, Al-Andalusīyyīn wa hijratahum, pp.144–147; Ernle Bradford, The Sultan’s Admiral: The Life of Barbarossa (New York: Harcourt,

Brace and World Inc., 1968), p.23; Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.205; Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, p.174; Muhammad Hajji, “Al-Murīskīyyūn w-al-jihād al-baḥrī fī al-maghreb al-kabīr,” in Al-Murīskīyūn fī al-Maghreb: al-Nadwa al-thanīya (Rabat:

al-Akadimiya, 2001), pp.59–73; Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column,” pp.7–8. 142 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 143 Monroe, Hispano-Arab Poetry, pp.70–71; Chejne, Islam and the West, p.30.

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Alienation and Exile: Iberia as Dār al-Kufr

Following the forcible conversions of 1501 and 1502, there was a reconceptualization by Hispano-Muslims of

the territory of Iberia itself, which was transformed into a land of unbelief and exile. This alienation from their homeland

necessitated the reaffirmation of Islamic solidarity and renewed affiliation with dār al-Islām. Throughout this paper, the

terms “Islamic solidarity” and, indeed, “Islamic world” have been used rather loosely, and require some elaboration. It

would be incorrect to interpret the qaṣīda as advocating a reaffiliation with dār al-Islām in the sense that a heightened

Islamic consciousness was only prompted by the forcible conversions. All Muslims were considered to belong to a single

community, and traditionally dār al-Islām had been understood as encompassing the regions of the world in which Islamic

law, or sharī‘ah, was the law of the land.144 Alternatively, dār al-Islām designated all regions where Muslims lived, regardless

of whether they resided in Muslim or non-Muslim territory, as long as the individual was able to manifest his or her

religion.145 This latter interpretation was not without controversy, however, as indicated by the intra-Muslim debates

about the obligation of hijrah and the legitimacy, or illegitimacy, of Mudéjarism. The Ḥanafī school of thought, to which

the Ottomans belonged, in particular, stressed that “wherever Muslims reside, they belong to dār al-Islām.”146 This

probably led Bayezid II to be more receptive to the plight and narrative of the Hispano-Muslims, as he would not have

questioned the legitimacy of the residence of Muslims in Christian Iberia as rigorously as Mālikī traditionalists such as al-

Wansharīsī may have done.

As indicated earlier, the issue at hand was not necessarily the arrangement of residing under Christian authority,

but rather, the forcible Christianization of the Hispano-Muslims, which was interpreted as severing their ties to the

ummah. For centuries, the Hispano-Muslims, in both Granada and elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula, had maintained

close religious, cultural, economic, and intellectual ties with their co-religionists overseas. However, the events of 1499–

1501 were viewed by the group of Hispano-Muslims that issued the appeal as rupturing their bond with dār al-Islām, and

as a result, they sought to reaffirm and reestablish their ties to the wider Islamic world in light of the events that

transpired. This development, which essentially ended the existence of Islam as a public religion in Granada, was seen as

ending the possibility of Iberia being considered an inseparable part of dār al-Islām. This did not mean that the Muslims

residing there were no longer part of the ummah, but it created a situation whereby, according to these Hispano-Muslims,

a group of Muslims existed as exiles in territory that could no longer be considered Islamic in any sense of the word. By

144 Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, pp.162–164; Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” p.142. 145 Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” p.150. 146 Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” p.165.

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invoking this underlying Islamic solidarity throughout the appeal, these Hispano-Muslims were demonstrating their

insistence on remaining part of the larger body of Muslims, the ummah. For the particular faction in question, therefore,

remaining part of dār al-Islām was contingent upon their ability to manifest their religion, which necessitated a return to

the pre-1501 status quo. This renegotiation of their position vis-à-vis dār al-Islām and Iberia led to their formal

identification with the former and their complete alienation from the latter, which was reconceptualized as a land of exile

and slavery.

The language and imagery of the 1501 qaṣīda reaffirms this position. Referring to himself and his fellow

compatriots, both the Alpujarras rebels and the larger Granadan populace, as “slaves who have remained in a land of

exile in al-Andalus in the West, which the swelling sea of Rūm as well as a deep, gloomy, and fathomless ocean

encompasses,” the poet laments the predicament that had befallen the Hispano Muslims.147 This reflects the perception

of the Hispano-Muslims who felt themselves to be dislocated, both geographically and spiritually, from dār al-Islām

following their forcible Christianization. Indeed, the self-designation as slaves is very telling about the way in which these

Hispano-Muslims viewed their new position in Iberia, which was transformed into a land of torment and enslavement. In

other parts of the qaṣīda this perspective becomes clearer, with the poet bemoaning how the Hispano-Muslims of

Granada “[had] become slaves; not captives who may be ransomed, nor Muslims who pronounce the declaration of

faith.”148 This phrase is perhaps one of the most important indications of this Hispano-Muslim reconceptualization of the

territory of Iberia, and their specific position with regards to the latter, in the poem. Consequently, for the poet, aside

from the possibility of the restoration of Mudéjarism, which he urged Bayezid II to encourage Ferdinand to do, the only

remaining option for the Hispano-Muslims was hijrah to North Africa, since “expulsion is better than remaining in

unbelief, enjoying power but having no religion.”149

According to the qaṣīda, therefore, a formal manifestation of Islam was essential for the Hispano-Muslims to

legitimately remain part of dār al-Islām. This meant that this particular faction rejected taqīyyah as a possibility and, unable

to reconcile the apparent contradiction of crypto-Islam, prioritized their religious identity and obligations as being vastly

more important than their continued residence in what they now considered to be dār al-kufr (the territory of unbelief).

147 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.110; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.364–365; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289. 148 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.367; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.291. 149 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.114; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.369; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293.

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This perception was not particular to the qaṣīda but is also reflected in Nubhat al-‘Aṣr which asserts that following the

suppression of the various uprisings and the forced Christianization of Granada, “true belief and the light of Islam were

extinguished from al-Andalus.”150 This reinforces the notion that following the forcible conversions of 1501, there was a

reconceptualization of Iberia by many Hispano-Muslims as a territory exterior to dār al-Islām, both geographically and

spiritually. For the group of Hispano-Muslims who sent the appeal, this unquestionably meant that hijrah to Islamic lands

was the only possible option.

Unlike the Alpujarras rebels, many Hispano-Muslims saw no contradiction in remaining part of the ummah and

accepting their Morisco status. Those who remained in Iberia preserved their Islamic faith, by engaging in taqiyyah, and

not only reconciled themselves to the possibility of remaining in “infidel territory”, but viewed their religious

commitment as being enhanced by this experience. Several scholars have brought attention to the concept of the gharīb,

or stranger/outsider, in medieval Islam. The notion of al-ghurabā’ (the strangers) derives from a hadith attributed to the

Prophet Muhammad: “Islam began as a strange thing and will end as a strange thing, so blessed be the strangers (ghurabā’)

of my nation, indeed Paradise is for the strangers (al-ghuraba’).” The gharīb was thus a figure who persevered in

maintaining his or her faith in extreme circumstances, and was viewed as a pious and righteous figure in Islam. In the late

eighth century, Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq, a figure revered by Sunnī and Shī‘a Muslims alike, elaborated on this concept, stating that

“the true stranger (al-gharīb) is he who resides in the land of unbelief.”151 Al-Wahrānī, in his treatise and fatwa endorsing

crypto-Islam, explicitly addressed the Hispano-Muslims as the “blessed ghuraba’ who do what is right when others fall into

corrupt ways.”152 Hence this long-standing concept was transformed in the sixteenth-century Morisco context and, as

Leonard Patrick Harvey has suggested, took on apocalyptic implications with ghuraba’ being “entrusted with a special

honorable role in stressful times leading up to Judgment Day.”153 As such, the concept of ghuraba’ played a critical role in

informing Morisco identity and crypto-Islam, although a further investigation into this phenomenon is outside the scope

of this paper. The existence of large communities of Hispano-Muslims who were able to reconcile between their status as

Moriscos and their belong to dār al-Islām sheds significant light on the position of the Alpujarras rebels relative to the

larger Hispano-Muslim community, and demonstrates that the interpretation of the former that the 1501 conversions

severed the ties of the Muslim community of Spain to the ummah was not a perspective that was shared by other

Hispano-Muslims who opted to remain in Iberia.

150 Anonymous, Kitāb nubdhat al-‘aṣr, p.45. 151 Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,” p.148. 152 Harvey, Muslims in Spain, pp.60–63. 153 Harvey, Muslims in Spain, p.63.

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The 1501 qaṣīda provides unique insight into the renegotiation by a particular group of Hispano-Muslims of their

position vis-à-vis dār al-Islām and Iberia. It is crucial that the reconceptualization of Iberia as a land of unbelief did not

occur following the fall of Granada to Castile in 1492. Rather, it was the end of Islam as a public religion following the

events of 1499–1501, which was interpreted as severing the link between the Muslim community of Iberia and dār al-Islām

that led to this position. The appeal can be considered a central text for understanding the crystallization of this

perspective for the more militant Hispano-Muslims, especially those who voluntarily sought shelter in North Africa or

were forcibly ejected from Iberia throughout the sixteenth century. Many of those Moriscos and Mudéjars who fled to

North Africa played an important role in the ongoing jihād against Spain, which intensified in the early sixteenth century

following the Castilian and Aragonese conquest of key Maghrebī cities, including Melilla, Oran, Bougie, and Algiers.154 In

fact, jihād was one of the main reasons why many Hispano-Muslims undertook hijrah to North Africa. As early as the

fifteenth century, ‘Alī al-Barmūnī, a Mudéjar from Barcelona, encouraged his fellow Mudéjars to emigrate to dār al-Islām,

referring explicitly to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, to participate in jihād against Christian Spain.155 His declaration,

which survives in writing and was circulated widely among the Mudéjar communities of Aragón and Castile, linked the

obligation of hijrah with jihād, glorified self-exile for this purpose, and exalted martyrdom.156

Clearly, the position of the Alpujarras rebels differed from this perspective, since their emphasis was primarily on

the ability of Muslims to manifest their religion while others, such as al-Barmūnī, stressed the inseparability of dār al-Islām

and Islamic political sovereignty. Following the forcible conversions of 1501, however, such differences became

inconsequential as this faction of Hispano-Muslims emphasized the necessity of hijrah to Islamic lands in order to

manifest their religion. Undoubtedly, the seventh-century experience of the Prophet Muhammad, who abandoned his

homeland of Mecca for Medina in 622—the first hijrah of Islam—and waged jihād against non-Muslim Mecca until its

conquest in 630 served as an inspiration for these militant Hispano-Muslims and informed their actions to join their co-

religionists in North Africa. The reconceptualization of Iberia as a territory of unbelief, the reaffirmation of their

allegiance to dār al-Islām, and the deep-rooted hatred of Spain (and Christianity) which these Hispano-Muslims had

developed by the close of the fifteenth century, reflected in the 1501 qaṣīda, certainly encouraged the participation of large

numbers of Hispano-Muslims in the North African jihādī drive against Spanish interests.

154 Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.205. 155 Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.129; Harvey, Islamic Spain, p.59. 156 The document is preserved and translated in Harvey, Islamic Spain, pp.59–60.

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The Ottomans: Legitimate Caliphs and Protectors of Islam

It has been demonstrated that in appealing to Bayezid II, the poet emphasized the shared Islamic heritage of the

Hispano-Muslims and the Ottomans, the perceived injustice and oppression of the situation in Granada, and reflected an

insistence on remaining part of dār al-Islām. By presenting a distinct Hispano-Muslim narrative, appealing to notions of

Islamic solidarity, and employing rhetoric to which the Ottomans would be receptive, the 1501 appeal sought the

intercession of the Ottoman sultan in order to transform the existing reality in Iberia from an internal Castilian-Granadan

affair into one of an “Islamic” cause, which inevitably would draw the Ottomans into conflict with Latin Christendom in

the western Mediterranean. In doing so, the qaṣīda reflects the projection of Ottoman power, grandeur, and legitimacy

among a certain faction of Hispano-Muslims in Granada at the turn of the sixteenth century. In addition to being an

ideological watershed in other regards, therefore, the text reflects a crystallization of a Hispano-Muslim worldview in

which the Ottomans figured very prominently.

Following the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultanate was transformed into the most

powerful state in the Islamic world, with the conquest enhancing the perception of the Ottomans as defenders of the

faith and holy warriors, thus legitimizing their position as the leading Islamic power. Moreover, the fear which the

Ottoman expansion evoked in Latin Christendom, particularly in Iberia, greatly informed the decision of the Hispano-

Muslims to invest immense energy and effort to align themselves with the successes of this dynasty. The period in

question, 1492–1502, was a critical time for the Ottomans, as it witnessed the consolidation of Ottoman naval power at

the expense of Venice, the renewal of warfare against the Mamluks (which would end in the Ottoman conquest of Egypt

around 1517), and the rise of the Shī‘a Safavids in eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan.157 The latter development was

important because it led to an important ideological transformation in the Ottoman Empire, which began to

conceptualize itself as the champion of Sunnī Islam and cast itself as the (only) legitimate heir of the Caliphs in the

Islamic world, thereby asserting its claim to lead the Islamic world.158 Another important factor was the death of Cem

Sultan (d.1495), who had limited Bayezid II in his diplomacy and stance towards Europe, an event that left the sultan free

to resume an aggressive policy towards the Christian states in the Mediterranean.159 Thus, by 1502–1503, with the end of

the Ottoman-Venetian war and faced with appeals for aid from both the Hispano-Muslims and the Muslim polities of

North Africa, the Ottomans began to look to the western Mediterranean, where numerous Muslims from Ottoman lands,

157 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, pp.40–44; Fernández-Armesto, 1492, pp.110–111; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.1, pp.75–78. 158 Markus Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict,” in Legitimizing

the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power (Leiden: Brill, 2005), eds. Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski, pp.160, 163. 159 Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East, p.215.

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such as ‘Uruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, had already begun to organize themselves into ghāzī squadrons in order to assist

their co-religionists in the Iberian Peninsula and thwart Spain’s imperial ambitions in North Africa .160 It was by appealing

to the Ottoman self-image as defenders of the faith and the legitimate Caliphs of Islam, and combining a sense of Islamic

consciousness with millenarian/apocalyptic expectations, while simultaneously engaging in religious polemics against

Christianity, decrying Castilian treachery, and emphasizing the supreme justice of Islam, that the author makes his case to

Bayezid II.

A contrast of the appeal sent to Bayezid II with the version of the qaṣīda addressed to the Mamluk sultan

demonstrates why the 1501 appeal in particular represented an ideological watershed and a critical juncture in the history

of the Hispano-Muslims, which would have broader implications for Ottoman-Hispano-Muslim relations throughout the

sixteenth century. In the qasīda addressed to the Mamluks, the poet praised the Mamluk sultan as the sovereign ruler of

Egypt and Syria, emphasizing his position as protector of the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.161 Exalting the

monarch and his realm was a recurring motif within the qaṣīda genre of Arabic poetry, as can be seen from the verses of

al-Mutannabī, Jarīr, al-Farazdaq, Ibn Hanī’, Abū Tamam, and many others throughout Islamic history. In this regard,

there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the way in which the Mamluks were depicted by the poet.

On the other hand, the text addressed to the Ottomans is preceded by an elaborate prose introduction lauding

Bayezid II and the Ottoman Empire in extremely praiseworthy terms, reflecting the high regard with which the poet held

the Ottomans. In the opening lines of the qaṣīda itself, the poet hails Bayezid II as “the best of Caliphs,” and exalts the

sultan for “cloth[ing] the infidel in a robe of humility.”162 The Ottoman state is further asserted to be glorified and

assisted by God, who has “adorned [the Ottoman sultanate] with armies” and “granted [it] victory in every region.”163 In

addition, the poet prays that God extend the rule of Bayezid II and the power of the Ottoman dynasty over all other

nations.164 This ornate introduction finally ends with the poet bestowing peace and blessings upon the “men of religion

and piety” and “whosoever among the counselors [was] gifted with sound judgment” in the Ottoman court, a reference

160 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, p.76. 161 Van Koningsveld and Wiegers, “An Appeal of the Moriscos to the Mamluk Sultan and its Counterpart to the Ottoman Court,” pp.168–169. 162 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.109; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.364; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289. 163 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.109; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.364; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289. 164 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.109; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.364; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289.

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to the orthodox Sunnī ‘ulemā’ among Bayezid’s advisers.165 Both the Ottoman and Mamluk versions end similarly, with

Bayezid II and the Mamluk sultan being accorded customary praises, in which the poet asks that God prolong the

prosperity of their rule, grant them victory over their enemies, before making a final plea for an intercession on behalf of

the Hispano-Muslims of Granada.166 Beyond these rhetorical flourishes, the 1501 appeal contains two key themes that

highlight the attitude of this Hispano-Muslim faction’s attitude towards the Ottomans: appeal to the ghāzī ideals of the

Ottoman Empire and the image of Bayezid II as the protector of Islam.

As indicated above, the Ottoman sultanate was initially established through the ghāzī/jihādī impetus. Indeed,

Osman himself validated his sovereignty to his contemporaries by claiming his right to rule was based on his prosecution

of the ghāza against the Byzantines.167 Hence, almost since the inception of their dynasty, the Ottomans legitimized their

rule and established their claim to lead the Muslim community by claiming to be ghāzīs engaged in jihād.168 Despite the

transformation of the Ottomans into an imperial state following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, these ghāzī

ideals still played an important role in legitimizing the authority of the sultan.169 The notion of a ghāzī-sultan was not only

prominent in the Ottoman self-image, but also in the way that the House of Osman was perceived by the broader

Muslim world, where jihād against the “infidel” was viewed as an important duty.170 The author of the qaṣīda to Bayezid II

was clearly aware of the importance of the notion of jihād, both for the Ottomans and for the Muslim community as a

whole, and engages with it in seeking the intervention of the sultan.

In the prose introduction, the poet praises Bayezid II as a ghāzī and “subduer of the infidel enemies of God,”

whose power and legitimacy “continue to stand out by virtue of the holy war,” which in turn “deprives the enemies of

religion of their strength.”171 The opening lines of the poem itself further stresses Bayezid’s role as a holy warrior, exalting

the sultan for having “clothed the infidel in a robe of humility,” a clear reference to the victories and success of the

165 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.109; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.364; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.289. 166 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.115; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, pp.369–370; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.293. 167 Aşıkpaşazade, Die altosmanische Chronik des ‘Asikpasazade, ed. F. Giese, Chapter 14. 168 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, p.127; Colim Imber, “Frozen Legitimacy,” in Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power,

pp.100–101; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.96. 169 Tursun Beg, History of Mehmed the Conqueror (Chicago: Bibliotecha Islamica, 1978), trans. Halil Incalcik and Rhoads Murphey, p.43;

Imber, The Ottoman Empire, pp.120–121; Kenan Inan, “The Incorporation of Writings on the Periphery in Ottoman Historiography: Tursun

Beg’s Comparison of Mehmed II and Bayezid II,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 9 (2003), p.109; Rhoads Murphey, Exploring

Ottoman Sovereignty: Tradition, Image and Practice in the Ottoman Imperial Household, 1400–1800 (London: Continuum, 2008), p.97; Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, pp.91–97; Hakan Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate: A Framework for Historical Analysis,” in

Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power (Leiden: Brill, 2005), eds. Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski, pp.42–

43; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.96; Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” 165. 170 For jihād and its traditional position in Islam, see Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, pp.164–173. 171 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.108–109.

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Ottomans against Christendom. The poet, therefore, was directly engaging with the Ottomans in their capacity as ghāzīs

by emphasizing how the ghāza legitimized Ottoman power. In addition to recognizing the Ottomans as ghāzī warriors,

these phrases reflect an awareness by the poet of the anxiety that the Ottoman expansion had generated among many

Latin Christians, especially those in Iberia— considering the active involvement of Castile in the war against the

Ottomans—and the unease with which the latter may have regarded the Ottoman conquests in the East. Considering

how most of his appeal is devoted to the humiliation of Muslims at the hands of Christians, the use of such imagery and

language in lauding the Ottoman sultan for his victories against Christians—most recently against Venice in 1500—can

be interpreted as a form of empowerment for the Hispano-Muslims as they sought to identify with the success of a

powerful Islamic state. This focus on Bayezid II as a ghāzī warrior was intended to resonate deeply within the Ottoman

court and invoked a sense of religious obligation, that of jihād, to persuade the Ottomans to take action against the

Castilians. Furthermore, the emphasis on the Ottomans as ghāzīs also serves as a recognition of their legitimacy as a

dynasty with exemplary Islamic credentials. This was hardly negligible, considering the importance of the Ottoman self-

perception as defenders of the faith throughout fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.172

There was a direct correlation between the role of the Ottoman sultan as a ghāzī and his responsibility as the

defender of the faith, as the protection of dār al-Islām and jihād against the infidel were considered to be two of the most

important duties of the imām, the leader of the Islamic community.173 Hence, the engagement of the qaṣīda with the ghāzī

ideals of the Ottoman Empire invoked the responsibility of the sultan as the protector of Muslims, especially those who,

like the Granadans, were vulnerable and required assistance.174 The prose introduction lauds Bayezid II as the “Sultan of

Islam and of Muslims,” “the Protector of Honor,” and “the Establisher of the Rights of the Oppressed in the Face of the

Oppressor.”175 The Hispano-Muslim author even refers to him as “Our Pillar, Our Cavern and Our Aid, Our Lord Abū

Yazīd Khan,” a phrase which elevates Bayezid II to a position of responsibility for the fate of the Granadans and reflects

the reverence in which he was held by the poet.176 The emphasis on the humiliation of Islam in Iberia and the extremely

oppressive environment in which the Muslims in Granada found themselves is related to this depiction of Bayezid II as

the defender of the faith. As such, the focus by the poet on themes such as the forced unveiling and sexual violation of

young Muslim girls, the violent massacres committed against Muslims in places like Huéjar, Belefique, and Andarax, as

172 Gábor Ágoston, “Information, Ideology, and the Limits of Imperial Power: Ottoman Grand Strategy in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg

Rivalry,” in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), eds. Virginia K. Aksan and Daniel Goffman, pp.95–96; Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.43. 173 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.42. 174 Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, p.58. 175 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.108–109. 176 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.109.

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well as on the transformation of mosques into churches and the mass burning of Islamic texts was intended to resonate

deeply with the Ottoman sultan, whose self-image as a ghāzī and his expected duty of protecting Islam from aggression

were at stake. In this regard, the religiosity and piety of the sultan were clearly being invoked, with the poet emphasizing

that if Bayezid II were to witness the intolerable situation of the Hispano-Muslims, his eyes would “overflow with

abundant tears.”177 This strongly resembles the closing lines of Nubdhat al-‘asr: “for such [things], let every eye burst with

tears of blood!” and is reminiscent of the phrase found in al-Rundī’s lament for Seville, where he exclaims that “the heart

melts with sorrow at such [sights], if there is any Islam or belief in that heart!”178 Although it may initially appear that the

references to the Ottomans as protectors of the faith and ghāzī warriors were merely rhetorical and literary topoi common

within the qaṣīda genre, the appeal in fact represents the rise of a new paradigm and frame of reference and demonstrates

the growing importance of the Ottoman sultanate for this faction of Hispano-Muslims as they sought to re-affiliate

themselves with Islamic civilization, with which the Ottomans were directly identified.

The Shadow of God on Earth: Hispano-Muslim Millenarianism and the Ottoman Sultanate

The engagement with the Ottomans in their capacity as ghāzīs and protectors of Islam are two thematic aspects

of a larger picture in which this particular faction of Hispano-Muslims had begun to look towards the Ottomans as the

legitimate sovereigns of the Islamic world and sought to affiliate themselves with the fortunes of the dynasty. This led to

an increased, even apocalyptic, expectation of deliverance through the efforts of the Ottomans.179 The heightened

millenarianism was by no means restricted to the more militant segments of the Hispano-Muslim populace, as even those

Granadans who had opted to remain in Iberia and engaged in taqīyya placed their hopes in the Ottomans, as can be seen

from the numerous Morisco prophecies in the sixteenth century.180 Indeed, in 1504 the muftī of Oran, al-Wahrānī, in a

letter to the Hispano-Muslims of Granada, sought to encourage the Moriscos: “I pray that God may so bring it about that

Islam may be worshipped openly without ordeals, tribulations or fear, thanks to the [efforts] of the noble Turks

[Ottomans].”181 Clearly, the perception of the Ottomans as a significant and important force that had the potential to

shift the balance of power in the western Mediterranean in favor of Muslims was a very potent notion in the early

sixteenth-century among Muslims in Spain and North Africa.

177 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, p.113; Anonymous, “Verses to Bayezid II,” in Medieval Iberia, ed. Constable, p.367; Monroe, “A

Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire,” p.292. 178 al-Rundī. “Lament for the Fall of Seville (1267).” In Medieval Iberia, p.222. 179 Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.26–28. 180 García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.315. 181 Quoted in Abdeljelil Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmāniyya, p.12; Harvey, Muslims in Spain, p.63. For more on al-Wahrānī, see Stewart, “The Identity of ‘the Mufti of Oran’,” pp.271–298.

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The rise of the Ottoman Empire in the late fifteenth century, and notably its conquest of Constantinople, had a

tremendous impact on the self-image of the Ottoman sultanate and how it was perceived by Muslims. The significance of

the conquest of Constantinople is highlighted by the fact that this had been a major goal of Muslims since the rise of

Islam in the seventh century.182 Moreover, the theme of the eventual conquest of the Byzantine capital had developed an

apocalyptic and eschatological character in the contemporary Islamic milieu and imagination.183 There existed a rich

compendium of sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad foretelling the conquest, and asserting that only a righteous

dynasty and just army (“blessed is the amīr who is its amīr, blessed is the army that army”) would finally capture

Constantinople.184 In some hadīth, it was even specifically asserted that the city would fall to the Muslims after two failed

efforts; the “first two attempts” were traditionally interpreted as the Umayyad sieges of Constantinople in 674–678 and in

717-718.185 In the ninth-century philosopher al-Kindī even identified the conqueror of Constantinople as the Mahdī, who

would renew the faith of Islam and establish justice on earth, inaugurating an era of global peace and prosperity; in the

fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun also cited an alleged prophetic hadīth to this effect.186 Hence, upon the conquest of the

city in 1453, Mehmed II, fully aware of the existence of these prophecies, capitalized on his victory by sending

messengers throughout the Islamic world, including Granada, announcing the end of the Byzantine Empire and the

conquest of Constantinople.187

The conquest of the city by the Ottoman sultanate was interpreted in this eschatological-historical context, as a

fulfillment of Islamic prophecy, by contemporary Muslims. Consequently, in addition to transforming the Ottoman

Empire into the most powerful and important Islamic state, this event greatly informed the increasingly apocalyptic

perception of the Ottomans that developed among many contemporary Muslims, as it was believed that the conquest of

Constantinople signified the approach of the Last Hour.188 The existence and circulation of the ḥadīth mentioned above,

182 Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp.60–64; Kafadar,

Between Two Worlds, p.152; al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, pp.110–111. 183 El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp.64–71; al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, pp.110–111; David Cook, Studies in

Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2002), p.167; Hayrettin Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ‘Abbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009), p.47. 184 Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, p.85; Hodgson, Venture of Islam, p.561; El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp.62–70; Fleming,

“Constantinople: From Christianity to Islam,” p.69; al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, p.110; Abū-Sa‘īd, Ḥamed Ghneīm, Al-

Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ: Ṣafḥāt majīda fī al-jihād w-nashr al-Islām (Cairo: Dār Al-Thaqāfa l-al-Teba‘ah w-al-Nashr, 1999), p.75. 185 al-Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, p.110; Ghneīm, Al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, pp.77–82; Cook, Studies in Muslim

Apocalyptic, p.53. 186 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, p.55; Fleming, “Constantinople: From Christianity to Islam,” p.77; El Cheikh,

Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp.215–217. 187 Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, p.35; Shai Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East: The Ottoman Mamluk War, 1485–

1491 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), p.77; Abu-Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.125–126; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, p.55; al-

Salabi, Sīrat al-Sultān Muḥammad Al-Fātiḥ, pp.115, 140, 160–166; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.96; El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the

Arabs, pp.215–216. 188 El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp.70, 215–217.

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signifying that the city would be conquered by the Mahdī or his precursor, underscored the connection between this event

and the rise in millenarian thought.189 Following the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the

destruction of the universally-accepted Sunni Caliphate in 1258, and the gradual erosion of Muslim power in the Iberian

Peninsula during the same period, the rise of the Ottomans signaled an immense political change, mirrored in the rise of

millenarianism, in the Islamic world. For the first time since the heyday of the Umayyad dynasty, Islam was on the

offensive against Christendom, resulting in massive conquests; this was an especially important transformation in light of

the relative decline and traumatic experience of Islam in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, the fall of

Constantinople to the Ottomans (and their subsequent conquests in the Mediterranean and the Balkans) was instrumental

in projecting the legitimacy and power of Ottoman sultanate throughout the Islamic world.190

Although Islam, as a religio-political system, had a millenarianistic disposition since the seventh century, the

Ottoman conquest of Byzantium was a key event in activating this apocalyptic perspective among many Muslims in the

fifteenth and sixteenth century.191 Several scholars have indicated that the millenarian atmosphere following the conquest

of Constantinople created an increased expectation of the arrival of a figure that would inaugurate a messianic era.192 As

Mercedes García-Arenal explains, “the great Ottoman expansion, the Christian conquest of all Spanish peninsular

territory and the taking of this struggle to North Africa were seen [by both Muslims and Christians] as a clearing of the

stage for a final, decisive confrontation between Christendom and Islam which fed the feeling that a messianic age was

drawing near.”193 Furthermore, Cornell Fleischer has asserted that at the turn of the sixteenth century, “the central

Islamic world, and particularly [the] Ottoman Empire, in contest with both aggressive Christian powers and a nascent

Safavid state, was ripe for a messianic leader.”194 Indeed, already in the early sixteenth century Bayezid II was explicitly

referred to as mehdi-yi ahd (Mahdī of the covenant), while Selim I was praised as mehdi-yi akhir-i zaman (Mahdī of the End of

Times).195 Moreover, the title of sahib-qiran (“Lord of the Conjunction” or “World Conqueror”), which designated a

temporal leader with messianic qualities who would precede the Mahdī, was associated with the Ottoman sultans Bayezid

II, Selim I, and Süleyman I, underscoring the perception of a millenarian age.196 The association of messianism with the

189 Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.47. 190 Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, p.58; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.97. 191 Shaukat Ali, Millenarian and Messianic Tendencies in Islamic History (Lahore: Publishers United, 1993), pp.13–72. 192 Cornell Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleyman” in Soliman le Magnifique et

son temps (Paris, 1992), ed. Gilles Veinstein, p.162; Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.47. 193 García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.302. 194 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.162. 195 Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” p.160; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.292. 196 Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” p.161; Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.162–163; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.293.

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Ottoman dynasty certainly did much to enhance their legitimacy and claims to leadership of the ummah.197 Although the

Ottomans were neither the first nor the last sovereigns in Islamic history to depict themselves as messiahs, as this

paradigm of legitimation had in fact existed as early as the Umayyad period (ca.661–750), the late fifteenth and sixteenth

century marks the most significant revival, deployment, and acceptance of this concept in the Islamic world since the

early Abbasid era.198

Even though the articulation of the Ottoman sultan as a messianic figure would become more pronounced and

developed more fully during the sultanate of Süleyman (r.1520–1566) in the mid-late sixteenth century, the 1501 qaṣīda

provides one of the earliest indications of the position which the Ottoman Empire had begun to occupy in the minds and

worldview of many non-Ottoman Muslims.199 This is particularly significant in light of the fact that the poet was writing

almost sixteen years before the Ottoman conquest of the Arab heartland of the Islamic world, and the establishment of

Ottoman sovereignty over the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. As noted above, as early as 1504, the view of

the Ottomans as defenders of the faith who would deliver the Muslim faithful from their predicament in the western

Mediterranean was articulated by the muftī of Oran, and perhaps others among the elite in North Africa, reflecting the

fact that this perspective was not exclusive to the Alpujarras rebels. During the sultanate of Selim I (r.1512–1520),

especially following his offensive against the Safavids (ca.1514–1515) and the conquest of Mamluk Egypt and Syria

(ca.1516–1517), when Selim acquired the titles mahdi-yi akhir-i zaman and mu’ayyad min Allāh (“succored by God”), and

during Süleyman’s reign, this millenarian notion of the sultan as the legitimate Caliph, “Shadow of God on Earth,” and

Mahdī reached its peak and played a central role in Ottoman imperial ideology.200

In light of these later developments, the reference by the poet to Bayezid II as “the best of Caliphs,” an

association of the most prestigious and significant title in the Islamic world with the Ottoman dynasty, underscores the

significance of the millenarian expectation and perception of Ottoman power within the 1501 appeal.201 Caliph, or khalīfa,

signified the rightful successor of the Prophet Muhammad and the deputy of God on Earth, and thus designated the sole

legitimate leader of the community of believers.202 Although the Ottomans, beginning in the fifteenth century, had

197 Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” p.169; Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.161. 198 Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.2. 199 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” pp.164–174; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.294; Cornell Fleischer, “Shadow

of Shadows: Prophecy in Politics in 1530s Istanbul,” International Journal of Turkish Studies (2007): 51–62.. 200 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” pp.25–28; Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” p.163; García-Arenal, Messianism and

Puritanical Reform, p.291–294; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.1, pp.80–85. 201 For the significance of the title of Caliph, see Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of

Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp.4–23. 202 Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, pp.24–42.

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claimed various titles, including khalīfa, Kaiser-i Rūm, and imām, there is little indication of whether these were anything

more than literary or rhetorical devices in Ottoman dynastic politics.203 Moreover, there was no concerted Ottoman effort

to legitimize themselves as Caliphs of Islam until the reign of Süleyman, whose claim to the title of khalīfa was formulated

by the Chief Mufti, Şeyhülislam Ebu’s-Su‘ud.204 To my knowledge, the 1501 qaṣīda is the first reference to any Ottoman

sultan as Caliph by non-Ottoman Muslims. To be sure, there is no parallel between the designation of the Mamluk sultan

as the sovereign of Egypt, and the proclamation of Bayezid as Caliph. In bestowing this title upon the Ottoman sultan,

the qaṣīda was declaring Bayezid II to be the universal ruler of all Muslims, with the implication that he was the only

legitimate sovereign of the Islamic world.205 It was essentially the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans that

enabled this perspective among Muslims, who began to view the Ottomans as the pre-eminent ghāzīs of the Islamic world

who would restore the power of Islam to its former standing.206 This recognition is especially significant in light of the

fact that a “Shadow Abbasid Caliphate” existed in Mamluk Cairo, which was largely rejected by Muslims, hence further

downplaying any notion of Mamluk authority or legitimacy in the wider Islamic world.207 In this regard, the praise of

Bayezid as Caliph was certainly relevant in light of the beginning of the second (and final) Ottoman-Mamluk war in 1501.

Ever since the end of the universally-accepted (by Sunni Muslims) Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, the emphasis on the title of

Caliph had largely faded from the Islamic political scene as a legitimizing determinant of sovereignty. Therefore, the use

of the title in relation with Bayezid II is significant, and cannot be explained merely as a literary device. The ascription of

a variety of titles to Bayezid II reinforces the claim, and is best represented in the prose introduction to the appeal itself:

“To the lofty Court—may God bestow upon it happiness, let its words stand before all men, flatten its

regions, honor its upholders and debase its enemies!—, the Court of Our Lord, the Pillar of Our

Religion and our World, the Sultan, Victorious King, Helper of the World and of Religion, Sultan of

Islam and of Muslims, Subduer of the Infidel Enemies of God, Cavern of Islam, Helper of the Religion

of our Prophet Muhammad, Reviver of Justice. Establisher of the Rights of the Oppressed in the Face

of the Oppressor, King of the Arabs and of non-Arabs, of the Turks and the Daylamites, Shadow of

God on his Earth, Upholder of His Sunnah and Law, King of the Two Continents, Sultan of the Two

Seas, Protector of Honor…Our Lord and Our Pillar, Our Cavern and Our Aid, Our Lord Abū Yazīd

203 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, pp.125–126. 204 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, p.126; Imber, “Frozen Legitimacy,” p.106; Colim Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp.98–114; Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy,” 162–163; Abderrahmane el Moudden, “The Idea of Caliphate

between Moroccans and Ottomans: Political and Symbolic Stakes in the 16th and 17th Century-Maghrib,” Studia Islamica 82 (1995), p.106. 205 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.21; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, p.126. 206 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, p.60; Housley, The Later Crusades, p.96. 207 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.22.

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Khan…May his lofty decisions continue to stand out by virtue of the holy war, so that the enemies of

religion be deprived of their strength…”208

The acknowledgement of Bayezid II as the “sultan of Islam and of Muslims,” “the best of Caliphs,” and “the

King of Arabs and non-Arabs” at a time when the Ottoman sultanate controlled neither the holy cities of Mecca, Medina,

and Jerusalem, nor the Arabic-speaking regions of the Islamic world reflects a universalism in the way which the poet

perceived the Ottoman sultanate. This is representative of a significant ideological shift in the larger Islamic world, which

viewed the emergence of the Ottomans in the fifteenth century as an imperial power to be one of the most important

political transformations in the Islamic world since the Mongol invasions. This perspective crystallized following the

conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453, and was reflected in the increased millenarianism and apocalyptic

expectation associated with the Ottoman sultanate in the aftermath of this event. The depiction of Bayezid II as a ghāzī,

his position as the defender of the faith, and as the “Upholder of His Law and Sunnah” justifies the usage of the epithet

of “Caliph” by the poet to describe the Ottoman sultan, as these were the responsibilities of the rightful khalīfa of the

ummah.209 Throughout the sixteenth century, the idea of Caliphate, based on the notion of the sultan as the defender of

the faithful rather than genealogical descent from Muhammad, would be an important guiding principle in Ottoman

policy towards the Muslim polities in the western Mediterranean, where direct Ottoman control was often tenuous.210

Hence, it is significant that this conception of Ottoman authority was evident among Muslims in the western

Mediterranean as early as 1501, rather than being solely a later imposition from Constantinople on the territories claimed

by the Ottomans in North Africa.

The understanding of the Ottomans as the rightful leaders of the Islamic community was a very potent notion in

the early sixteenth century. During this period, a Hispano-Muslim exile residing in the Levant, ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-

Lakhmī al-Ishbīlī, composed a panegyric for the Ottoman sultan Selim entitled Al-durr al-muṣān fi sīrat al-muzaffar Salīm

Khān.211 Al-Ishbīlī praised Selim as a just Caliph who was sent by God to eradicate unbelief and elevate the true faith.212 In

addition to being hailed as the legitimate sovereign of all Muslims, Selim was also depicted as the mujadid (“Renewer of

Faith”), invoking a ḥadīth of the Prophet Muhammad in which he states that God would send a mujadid at the beginning

208 Al-Maqqari, Azhar al-Riyad, Vol.1, pp.108–109. 209 Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p.43. 210 El Moudden, “The Idea of Caliphate between Moroccans and Ottomans,” p.104. 211 ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-Lakhmī al-Ishbīlī, Al-durr al-muṣān fi sīrat al-muzaffar Salīm Khān (Cairo: `Issa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1962). 212 Al-Ishbīlī, Al-durr al-muṣān, p.1.

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of every Islamic century in order to revitalize the faith.213 Lutfī Pasha (d.1563), a member of the Ottoman court during

Süleyman’s reign, also credits Selim I with being the mujadid who would renew the religion of Islam and inaugurate an era

of justice.214 This representation of the sovereign as the mujadid was not unique to Selim, since other rulers, including

Selim’s contemporary Shaybānī Khan (d.1510), and the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mūn (d.833) had also claimed the title.215

The increasing importance of the title of mujadid was closely tied with the need to establish a paradigm of legitimation

which would essentially elevate the sovereign to a position of unquestioned religious and political authority.216 As the

mujadid, Selim was viewed as a figure that would bring order and justice into the world, and set the stage for the coming

of the Mahdī. It appears therefore that during the period between the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Selim’s conquest

of the Arab lands of the Middle East there was a crystallization of an ideological view in which the Ottoman sultans were

viewed as reviving the faith of Islam and were perceived as inaugurating an Islamic era of prosperity. As Cornell Fleischer

has observed, “it had become commonly expected, in Islamdom, as in contemporary Christendom, that political

ambitions and accomplishments be conjoined with spiritual authority” since “a special link to the divine legitimated

political action, while political success reinforced reputations for sanctity.”217 The figure of the mujadid, and the emphasis

on the Ottoman sultans as the imāms or Caliphs of the Islamic world was closely linked with the ideal of justice.

As outlined throughout this paper, justice was an important concern of this faction of Hispano-Muslim, and as

such is a prevalent theme within the qaṣīda. By praising the Ottoman sultan as a “Reviver of Justice” and the “Supporter

of the Rights of the Oppressed in the Face of the Oppressor,” the poet represents the person of Bayezid II as embodying

the Islamic principles of justice and righteousness. This was an important notion in Islamic political theory, as the

function of the ruler in providing justice was considered to be one of the legitimizing attributes of the sovereign.218 The

just leader was essentially viewed as the “Shadow of God on Earth” (a phrase employed by the poet in his introduction),

a figure who established God’s will in the world by providing justice and order. This phrase is specifically utilized in

connection with Bayezid II by the late fifteenth-century Ottoman historians Tursun Beg and Neşri, who declare the

Sultan to be zill Allāh, thus legitimating his mandate to rule, and underscoring his responsibility to dispense justice (‘adl)

and alleviate oppression (dhulm).219 In a sense, the use of zill Allāh in the prose introduction preceding the qaṣīda reflects

213 Al-Ishbīlī, Al-durr al-muṣān, p.1; Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.133. 214 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.163; García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.291. 215 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.161; Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, pp.3, 133. 216 Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.133. 217 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” 161. 218 Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” p.164; Inan, “The Incorporation of Writings on the Periphery in Ottoman Historiography,” p.113. 219 Tursun Beg, History of Mehmed the Conqueror, p.21; Inan, “The Incorporation of Writings on the Periphery in Ottoman Historiography,” p.115.

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an awareness by the Hispano-Muslim poet of the Ottoman sultan’s own self-representation and may indicate a sensitivity

to the importance of legitimacy within the Ottoman state, especially following the rise of the Safavids in 1499. The

concept of “Shadow of God on Earth” reflects strong Persian, specifically Sassanian, and Turco-Mongol political

influences, and is representative of the rise of a new paradigm of legitimation following the important political

transformations in dār al-Islām after 945, when the Abbasid Caliphate lost most of its real authority, and especially after

1258, when the Caliphate was eliminated altogether.220 This particular notion of political authority was further reflected

within Sunnī Islamic theology with a ḥadīth attributed to the Prophet Muhammad asserting that “the governmental

authority (sultān) is the Shadow of God on Earth; all of His servants who are oppressed shall turn to it,” thereby closely

associating justice with political authority.221 It was this conception of justice in relation to which the 1501 poet was

positioning himself, as he sought to invoke the position of Bayezid II as the de facto, if not de jure, imām of the ummah,

whose obligation it was to come to the aid of his fellow Muslims in Iberia.

In addition to transforming the Ottoman state from a ghāzī sultanate into an imperial entity with far reach

aspirations and claims to legitimacy, the conquest of Constantinople 1453 had a tremendous impact on the perception of

the House of Osman among many Muslims in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Ottoman victories against

Christendom and the image of the sultan as the defender of the faithful were inextricably linked, and led to the

crystallization of a perspective in which the Ottomans were viewed as fulfilling the obligations of the archetypical Islamic

authority, the Shadow of God on Earth. Moreover, the interpretation by many Muslims of the fall of Constantinople

within an eschatological-historical framework generated an atmosphere of heightened millenarianism and apocalyptic

expectation, which in turn enabled a variety of perspectives of the Ottoman sultan, ranging from his being the legitimate

imām of the ummah to being viewed as the mujadid of Islam, or, in the case of Süleyman, the Mahdī himself. Although these

conceptions would crystallize more concretely throughout the sixteenth century, and would become more potent

following Selim’s conquest of the Arab heartland of the Islamic world in 1517, the 1501 Hispano-Muslim appeal provides

an early indication of this view of the Ottomans. By underscoring the legitimacy and Islamic credentials of the Ottoman

sultan, focusing on his piety, justice, prosecution of jihād, and his capacity as the protector of Islam and Muslims, the

1501 qaṣīda sought to transform Bayezid II into the sole legitimate sovereign authority in the Islamic world. In many

ways, this reflects the Ottoman self-image, especially following the conquest of Constantinople and rise of the Safavids,

220 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.21. 221 Karateke, “Legitimizing the Ottoman Sultanate,” p.21; Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, p.45; Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, pp.15–16.

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of themselves as an Islamic empire and the defenders of the faith, and demonstrates the projection of Ottoman power to

the shores of the western Mediterranean long before the beginning of any direct Turkish military or political intervention

in the region. Hence, the prevalence of these themes within the qaṣīda represents a significant ideological watershed in the

history and worldview of the Hispano-Muslims as they increasingly sought to affiliate themselves with Islamic civilization,

which was closely identified with the Ottoman sultanate.

Conclusion: Hispano-Muslims and the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century

The 1501 qaṣīda to Bayezid II is a significant historical document because it represents one of the only

contemporary reflections of the Hispano-Muslims on the end of al-Andalus, the collapse of convivencia, and the forcible

conversions between 1499 and 1501 in Granada. Rather than suggesting that the Hispano-Muslims were passive victims

of Castilian Reconquista or unwilling agents of Ottoman jihād, the text represents an attempt by a particular faction to

transform the existing reality from a local Iberian affair into a broader “civilizational” conflict by actively engaging with

both of these forces. It was by constructing a narrative of victimization in which not merely Muslims but Islam itself was

humiliated and subjugated that these Hispano-Muslims invoked the Ottoman sultan’s obligation as the legitimate imām,

and hence the defender of the faithful, in order to ensure that he would come to their aid that the text exhibits this

transformative agency.

The forcible Christianization of Granada between 1499 and 1501, an initiative rooted in the increasing

millenarianism within Christian Spain, prompted the rejection of the legitimacy of the new state of affairs in Iberia after

1501 by a certain faction of Hispano-Muslims, and informed their decision to reaffiliate themselves with Islamic

civilization. Neither repudiating convivencia as an illegitimate arrangement nor accepting the validity of the use of taqīyya to

maintain their existence as a besieged crypto-Muslim minority in Christian territory, the perception of justice within the

1501 qaṣīda was conflicted and is difficult to categorize, as it did not fully conform to the established theological

arguments of the period represented by al-Wansharīsī or al-Wahrānī. This is reflective of the renegotiation of the

principle of justice by the Alpujarras rebels, who believed that the ability of Muslims to manifest their religion required a

formal identification with Islam, but did not assert that such a manifestation of faith necessitated hijrah to Islamic lands.

The 1501 conversion decrees, however, led to the rejection of dissimulation as a possibility, and compelled these

Hispano-Muslims to concede that hijrah was their only possible option as they believed it was the only way for them to

maintain their ties to dār al-Islām and manifest their religion. Consequentially, Iberia was reconceptualized as dār al-kufr, a

land of unbelief and exile, in which no Muslim could legitimately remain, while hijrah to dār al-Islām became an obligation

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which would allow the Hispano-Muslims to maintain their religion and engage in jihād, while encouraging their co-

religionists to do likewise, against Christian Spain, an entity towards which they harbored an intense personal and

religious hatred.

In addition to reflecting on the transition of the Hispano-Muslims from Mudéjars to Moriscos at the close of the

fifteenth century, the 1501 qaṣīda is indicative of a particular Hispano-Muslim perception of the Ottoman sultanate in the

beginning of the sixteenth century. In fact, the text presents historians with one of the earliest indications of a Hispano-

Muslim-Ottoman relationship that would develop more fully during the Morisco period. Throughout the sixteenth

century, the Hispano-Muslim view of the Ottomans as the legitimate imāms of the Islamic world, who would revive Islam

by defeating the enemies of the faith and delivering the believers from their oppression, became more pronounced in

light of the political developments that transpired in the Mediterranean. Between 1504 and 1514, Ottoman involvement

in the western Mediterranean increased dramatically as Uruj (d.1518) and Hayreddin (d.1543) Barbarossa and other sea-

ghāzīs from the Aegean began to actively take an interest in the Hispano-Muslim cause and to organize naval actions

against Spanish interests in North Africa, inspired both by jihād and the lucrative opportunities of raiding.222 Hayreddin’s

submission to the Ottoman sultan in 1519, and the establishment of an Ottoman naval base around 1529 in Algiers and

Peñón, across the straits from Iberia, certainly strengthened the perception that the Ottomans would deliver the Hispano-

Muslims; the alliance between the Ottomans in North Africa and the Hispano-Muslim exiles residing there underscored

this association between Ottoman involvement and the Hispano-Muslim cause.223 More significantly, the Ottoman-

Spanish imperial rivalry in the western Mediterranean and North Africa had important implications for the Hispano-

Muslims, and the decisive engagements at Tunis (1535), Preveza (1538), Algiers (1541), Tripoli (1551), Mostaganem

(1558), Djerba (1560) and Lepanto (1570) were closely monitored by the Moriscos who resided in Iberia, leading to an

increasingly millenarianistic expectation, which reached its peak during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman, as

evidenced from various Morisco prophecies of liberation.224 Indeed, Hayreddin’s transport of numerous Moriscos from

222 Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column,” p.8; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.1, p.76; Acero, Cisneros y la conquista

española del norte de África, pp.209–225; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.1, p.96. 223 Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column,” pp.7–8; Taylor, “The Enemy Within and Without,” p.85; Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, pp.62, 69–70; Acero, Cisneros y la conquista española del norte de África, p.262; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.1, pp.96–97;

Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.15, 29. 224 Özlem Kumrular, Las relaciones entre el imperio otomano y la monarquía católica entre los años 1520–1535 y el papel de los estados

satellites (Istanbul: Editorial Isis, 2003); Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib, pp.148–158; Greene, “The Ottomans in the Mediterranean,” pp.108–111; Bradford, The Sultan’s Admiral, pp.111–185; Jacques Heers, The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480–1580

(London: Greenhill Books, 2003), pp.61–176; Taylor, “The Enemy Within and Without,” p.92; Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, pp.71–99; Abu-

Aliyah, Al-dawla al-‘Uthmaniyya, pp.178–192; Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column,” pp.9–12; “Profecia Morisca” in García-

Arenal, Los Moriscos, pp.57–62; Kamen, Spain, 1469–171, p.173, 176; Chejne, Islam and the West, pp.26–28; Miller, Guardians of Islam, p.178.

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Iberia to North Africa—70,000 individuals in 1529 alone—increased the apocalyptic perception of Ottoman power

among the Hispano-Muslims, and was viewed as the realization of their hopes for deliverance.225 The relationship

between this millenarianism and the predicament of the Hispano-Muslims is elaborated upon by Mercedes García-Arenal:

“Messianic hope becomes a particularly strong identity myth for the excluded victims of persecution,

marginalization or expulsion, and this hope feeds and at the same time nourishes on feelings of

alienation and opposition to ruling society or those in power against whom millenarian forecasts and

predictions represent a chance to take revenge. Desire for liberation is linked with the need to re-

discover a sense of self-respect and dignity as much as to alleviate feelings of guilt associated with having

endured the kind of forced conversions imposed upon Iberian Muslims and Jews.”226

There were important continuities between the context of the 1501 qaṣīda and the Morisco period, underscoring

the importance of the text as an ideological watershed which represents the coalescence of a specific Hispano-Muslim

identity in which the Ottomans figured very prominently. Throughout the sixteenth century, the Hispano-Muslims of the

coastal regions of Andalusia, Catalonia, Aragón, and Valencia maintained close ties and cooperated with the sea-ghāzīs

operating in North Africa and the Mediterranean, thus underscoring the development of the relationship between the

Hispano-Muslims and the Ottomans, and demonstrating that a certain faction of Hispano-Muslims sought to realize the

ultimate objective of ensuring Ottoman assistance to the Muslims in Iberia.227 In order to achieve this end, the Hispano-

Muslims—the dissimulating Moriscos in Iberia and the exiles in North Africa alike—would continue to actively appeal to

the Ottoman sultanate, most significantly in 1541 and 1567, to come to their aid, as they did in 1486 and 1501. This

continuity acquires greater significance in light of the fact that many of the themes and strategies employed by the 1501

qaṣīda would be utilized by the Hispano-Muslims throughout the sixteenth century and retained their resonance,

highlighting the importance of this particular appeal as an ideological watershed. The 1541 appeal sent by Hispano-

Muslims from Granada to the Ottoman sultan Süleyman makes this development most apparent.228 In this prose appeal,

preserved in the Topkapi Palace archives in Istanbul, the anonymous author implores the sultan to aid the “wretched,

dislocated slaves in al-Andalus, who number more than 364.000,” echoing the 1501 appeal’s reconceptualization of Iberia

225 Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.16. 226 García-Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform, p.306. 227 Hess, “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column,” pp.8–13; Taylor, “The Enemy Within and Without,” pp.84–88. 228 For a published version and analysis of this appeal, see Abdeljelil Temimi, “Une lettre des Morisques de Grenade au Sultan Su leiman al-Kanuni en 1541,” Revue d’Histoire Maghrebine 3 (1975): 100–106.

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as a land of exile, isolated from dār al-Islām, and its characterization of the Muslims there as existing in a state of slavery.229

In order to garner the sultan’s support, the appeal stresses the “oppression of the treacherous, idolatrous enemies of

religion,” who “humiliated and burnt [at the stake]” the Hispano-Muslims in Iberia, which strongly resembles the

language and concerns of the qaṣīda sent from Granada to Bayezid II forty years earlier.230 It is notable that rather than

merely echoing earlier sentiments, in the 1541 appeal there was an even stronger contrast between unrelenting Castilian

oppression and the uncompromising righteousness of the Hispano-Muslim cause, firmly grounded in a particular

conception of justice, than there had been in the 1501 qaṣīda.

As in 1501, the author of the 1541 appeal also expresses the desire of the Hispano-Muslims of Spain (referring to

both Castile and Aragón) to undertake hijra to North Africa—despite the emotional and material hardships this

entailed—as life under Christian rule was unbearable and characterized by injustice; according to the appeal, “large

numbers [of Hispano-Muslims]” were transported to the safety of North Africa through the efforts of Hayreddin

Barbarossa.231 The latter, referred to as “the honorable minister” and representative of the sultan, is praised as a mujāhid

(holy warrior), the champion of Islam (nāṣir dīn illāh), and the sword of God against the disbelievers (sayf Allāh ‘ala al-

kāfirīn), who established justice, vanquished the oppressors, and upheld the faith.232 To further emphasize this

interrelationship between jihād and the protection of the Hispano-Muslims, the author exalted Ottoman-ruled Algeria as a

fortress of Islam, from which Hayreddin launched his activities against Spain, which in turn “terrorized the enemies [of

the faith] and facilitated the rescue of the innocent Andalusīs”.233 The Hispano-Muslim emphasis on the Ottomans as the

defenders of the faith had by the middle of the sixteenth century crystallized into a more potent view of the Ottomans as

the Shadow of God on Earth, which acquired explicit messianic overtones by the reign of Süleyman. The 1541 appeal,

like its 1501 counterpart, considered the Ottoman sultan to be “Our Lord, the Sovereign of the Two Seas and the Two

Continents, the Shadow of God, the Supreme Caliph, and the Sultan of Islam and Muslims,” thus simultaneously the

sahib-qiran, imām of Muslims, and the sole legitimate authority in the Islamic world, while also bestowing upon Süleyman

229 “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.36; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.79. 230 “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, pp.36–37; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla

al-Uthmānīyya, pp.79–80. 231 “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, pp.36–37; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.79. 232 “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, pp.36–37; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla

al-Uthmānīyya, p.79. 233“1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, pp.36–37; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.81.

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more elaborate titles alluding to his Mahdī-like status, underscoring the development of a certain Hispano-Muslim

millenarianistic outlook.234

Unlike the 1501 qaṣīda, however, which merely praised the Ottoman sultan for fulfilling God’s commands in

prosecuting jihād, the 1541 appeal attributes the Ottoman victory against the Spanish fleet at Algiers in 1541 to divine

intervention, invoking Sūrah 105 from the Qur’an, asserting that God had punished the Spanish in the same way he had

punished the “people of the elephant” mentioned in the Qur’an by sending against them a “tumultuous wind” and

“destructive waves,” a reference to the storm that contributed to the Spanish defeat.235 This comparison served as an

assertion by the author that God had directly aided the Muslims in their confrontation with the Christians, reflecting the

Hispano-Muslim perception that the Ottoman state was divinely-aided, reinforcing its messianic qualities, and evoking an

image of a clash of two religio-political systems, Islam and Christianity, contrasted as belief and unbelief, rather than

merely a naval engagement between two empires. As such, the absence within the appeal to any references of historical

convivencia is significant. The view of the 1501 appeal which expressed the possibility that the Hispano-Muslims would be

accommodated within Christian Spain, as they had been prior to 1499, had vanished by 1541, and was replaced by an

uncompromising millenarian outlook in which the ultimate victory of Islam and the eventual defeat of “ḥizb al-Shayṭān”

(“the Devil’s sect,” as the Castilians were called in the 1541 appeal) was near. In the view of these Hispano-Muslims,

therefore, there was no question about the necessity to affiliate themselves with the Ottomans, who were the legitimate

imāms and who had the ability to deliver the Hispano-Muslims by bringing about the ultimate defeat of Christian Spain.

The 1541 appeal thus exhibits many of the thematic concerns and motifs of the 1501 qaṣīda, demonstrating the

continuity in the Hispano-Muslim strategy in appealing to the Ottomans. Indeed, it further reflects the increasing

significance of the Ottoman state, the borders of which now extended to the Straits of Gibraltar. Significantly, the

increasingly hostile environment and persecution within Christian Spain, which institutionalized anti-Morisco

sentiment—by means of the synods of Granada (1526), Toledo (1539), Guadix (1554), and Madrid (1566)—more

aggressively than in 1501/1502, in an attempt to establish a homogenous Catholic state, was an important determinant in

enabling the apocalyptic perception of the Ottomans as saviors of Iberian Islam which many, although not all, Hispano-

Muslims maintained. As such, during this period Castilian Reconquista—especially its more violent manifestation in the

234 “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, pp.34–36”; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.81. 235“1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in Temimi, Al-dawla al-Uthmānīyya, p.37; “1541 Appeal to Süleyman,” in al-Hamīd, Mawqif al-dawla al-

Uthmānīyya, p.80. Sūrah 105 is referred to as the “Chapter of the Elephant” and, according to Muslim tradition, details the Ethiopian attack

against Mecca in 570 (or 572) which ended when God miraculously sent an army of birds which pelted the army’s elephants with stones, thus forcing them into retreat.

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persecution of the Hispano-Muslims—and Ottoman jihād became more closely intertwined than they had been at any

point during the fifteenth century. Although the relationship between the Ottomans and the Hispano-Muslims would

continue throughout the Morisco period, culminating in the Second Alpujarras rebellion in 1568, until the final

expulsions of 1609–1614, the thematic continuities of persecution, justice, exile, and the perception of the Ottomans as

potential deliverers would remain consistent. This historic development thus significantly illuminates the importance of

1501 as an ideological watershed in the history of the Hispano-Muslims which allows historians to more fully appreciate

the importance of the 1501 qaṣīda as demonstrative of many of the themes which would be developed more fully during

the Morisco period.

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