A MUSLIM FIFTH COLUMN: MORISCO RELIGION AND THE PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITY IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY SPAIN __________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Eduardo J. Hernandez May 2016 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Zain Abdullah, Advisory Chair, Temple University Department of Religion Dr. Khalid Blankinship, Temple University Department of Religion Dr. Terry Rey, Temple University Department of Religion Dr. Michelle Byng, External Member, Temple University Department of Sociology © Copyright 2016 by Name All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Muslims of the newly conquered territory of Granada rebelled against their Catholic Castilian and Aragonese masters. The Muslims of Granada were subsequently given the choice of expulsion or conversion, with many choosing to remain and convert to Catholicism. Beginning with these initial conversions, the question of Morisco Muslim-ness is one that has historians for years. For many scholars, Morisco religiosity represents a form of syncretic religion that blends both the Catholic and the Muslim in specific instantiations of religious practice. For others, the Moriscos represent a crypto-Islamic community that practiced a form of taqiyya, or the Islamic practice allowing Muslims to conceal their religious affiliation under duress or the threat of death. What these analyses fail to take into account is the performative aspects of Morisco religious practice at the boundaries of Catholicism and Islam. This dissertation intends to look at Moriscos as a suspect community from the perspective of the Spanish state, but also from the vantage point of the Moriscos themselves, who attempted to navigate the boundaries of Catholicism as articulated in legislation, polemical texts, and inquisitorial trials, while framing their religious practice in terms of cultural preservation. Similarly, this dissertation will examine the methods employed by the Moriscos in their performance of an oppositional Muslim identity set in direct contrast to a developing Spanish nationalism. Performance here is being employed to investigate how Moriscos, who represented a “fifth column” for the nascent Spanish state, constructed fluid identities that fluctuated in response to the socio-cultural and/or political context. iii For my daughters. Amhara Sky, Adelaide Soraya, and Antonia Shireen. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I suppose that the process of being thankful in academia should begin with an affirmation of our teachers both great and small and that acknowledging our place within an intellectual lineage is important. Like a Sufi silsila, academia is about apprenticing with the greats and receiving an ijazah/degree in order to go out and "do" what we've learned in classrooms, offices or even over coffee or tea. It is in that spirit that I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study with the wonderful faculty at Temple University, and especially my committee members Drs. Terry Rey, Michelle Byng and Khalid Blankinship. I have not only learned from them what was covered in our course materials, but also what it means to be a scholar and professor invested in the learning and growth of their students. And, from Dr. Zain Abdullah I have learned how to tirelessly pursue excellence and to be tenacious in achieving what some would deem impossible. Dr. Abdullah believed in me at times when I doubted myself and for that I am forever grateful and honored to be his student. I would also like to acknowledge the support I have received from my graduate classmates in the department, who have supported and listened to me throughout the entire writing process. Their camaraderie and encouragement have sustained me when I tired of writing and wanted to procrastinate, or suffered from any one of the many ailments that befall students at the end of their tenure at an institution of higher learning. I am forever grateful to Amy Defibuagh, Mohamed Hasan, Vinnie Moulton, Adam Valerio, and Adan Stevens-Diaz, for being my sounding boards and steadfast interlocutors. Your words of advice throughout my time at Temple have proven v invaluable. And to Linda, I must also send a heartfelt thanks for all the tireless work she did pushing and prodding to ensure that I finished and got through to the end. Lastly, I'd like to thank my family in their myriad iterations and forms – both extended and close. Thank you and know that without you as my collective village this doctoral student would not have been elevated to candidacy. I am in your debt. But, I would be remiss if I did not thank my sister Ana Yajaira for being a constant inspiration, my brother Pedro Julio for being my childhood protector and my brother Gaston Fabian for being as great a companion in adulthood, as we were when children. And to my mother - I'd like to thank you for believing in me since my first breath. You always knew that education was the key to freedom and I've attempted to live out your dreams by taking my educational career as far as it could go. And finally, I'd like to thank my wife and children. My wife Melissa and three daughters Amhara, Addie, and Shireen are without a doubt the reason why I've dreamt of the stars and landed on mountains. I love you all dearly. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 The Problem of Morisco Religious Identity ............................................................1 On Morisco Studies .................................................................................................9 Morisco Religion as Identity Performance ............................................................14 2. MUSLIM IDENTITY AND THE STATE IN IBERIA ..............................................21 In Umayyad al-Andalus .........................................................................................21 Mudejarismo ..........................................................................................................34 In Nasrid Granada ..................................................................................................38 Under the Catholic Monarchs ................................................................................42 In Hapsburg Spain ..................................................................................................50 3. MORISCO RELIGIOUS PERFORMANCES ............................................................54 Fatwas in Sixteenth Century Spain ........................................................................56 The Oran Fatwa: Authorship and Challenges ............................................60 The Oran Fatwa: Reception and Use .........................................................66 Moriscos and the Performance of Christianity ......................................................69 vii On Performing Christianity ................................................................................................71 Morisco Conversion ...................................................................................76 Moriscos and the Performance of Islam ................................................................82 Aljamiado Literature ..................................................................................88 El Mancebo de Arevalo .............................................................................92 4. ANTI-MORISCO LEGISLATION ...........................................................................105 Legislation as Symbolic Violence .......................................................................106 Legislating Religious Boundaries ............................................................113 Legislating Sexual Prohibitions ...............................................................119 Legislating Cultural Prohibitions and a Morisco Response .....................126 Regulating the Boundaries of Spanish Identity and the Religious Field .............137 5. ANTI-MORISCO INQUISITORIAL TRIALS .........................................................141 The Spanish Inquisition .......................................................................................148 6. ANTI-MORISCO POLEMICS ..................................................................................167 Justifications for Expulsion ..................................................................................171 Apologists and Proponents of Expulsion .............................................................176 Morisco Difference and Race ..............................................................................184 7. CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................198 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................212