Moriscos
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Morisken , also called Moriscos ( Spanish morisco = "Moorish"), were former Muslims who had converted to Christianity and lived in Christian-ruled areas of Spain .
Settlement area
After Muslims from the Maghreb and Arabia subjugated most of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century, with the fall of Moorish rule in Spain, many Muslims came under the rule of Christian Castile , as in January 1492 with the capture of Granada , the last Muslim Dominion on the Iberian Peninsula, the Reconquista ended.
Despite all the guarantees of religious freedom granted in the Treaty of Granada (1491) , the forced conversion of the Mudejares by the Catholic Church and the expropriation of Muslim religious institutions soon began (formally in 1502) .
After an uprising in Granada around 1499 , the monarchy also ordered the forced conversion of Muslims or their deportation . In the period that followed, although many Muslims converted to Christianity, they continued to practice Islam in secret, which in turn was persecuted by the Inquisition .
Another uprising of the Moriscos in the Alpujarras south of Granada under the leadership of Abén Humeya against Spanish oppression (1569-1571) led to the fact that many Moriscos were resettled in the areas of Castile and Aragon .
Culture
The Spanish government imposed severe restrictions on the moriscos to ensure that they no longer secretly adhered to Islam, which it actually did: the moriscos had to leave the doors of their homes open on Thursday evening and Friday morning so that soldiers could go in and out, to make sure they did not bathe, as is customary among Muslims before the Friday community prayer. Muslims found reading the Koran or doing ritual washing ( wudū ' ) could be killed immediately.
But even under these extremely difficult circumstances, the Moriscos for the most part clung to their faith for decades, even if their opportunities for congregational prayer or the pilgrimage to Mecca were limited:
Morisks secretly worked on church holidays and celebrated Fridays more than Sundays. Even if their children were baptized for baptism, they symbolically wiped off the baptismal water and gave them Moorish names that were used in the initiated circle. The boys were also secretly circumcised. Even if weddings were carried out in public according to Christian rites, a wedding in the Muslim style often followed at home, in traditional Moorish clothing and with ritual dances.
language
A decree issued by King Philip of Spain in 1566 instructed the Moriscos to adopt the Spanish language, clothing and customs. However, the Morisks continued to produce so-called aljamiados , books that were written in Spanish using the Arabic alphabet and were used to enable secret instruction in the Islamic faith.
The expulsion of the moriscos
In 1609, King Philip III signed of Spain an edict prepared by the Duke of Lerma , which ordered the expulsion of all moriscos from Spain. They were given three days to organize their belongings and board ships that took them to North Africa or the Ottoman Empire .
While the Jews were expelled from Spain primarily because of their beliefs , the Moriscos were understood as the fifth column during an intense struggle against the Ottoman Empire, especially since they had violently rebelled twice.
In the years between 1609 and 1611, the last 275,000 moriscos were expelled from Spain. Many settled in Morocco (e.g. in Chefchaouen ) as well as in Tunisia and Algeria and significantly influenced the culture of these countries through their Andalusian traditions.
Influence on European culture
At that time the Moriskentanz was popular in southern Germany . The famous morris dancers, which were created for the old town hall in Munich by Erasmus Grasser around the year 1480, are now exhibited in the local city museum. Even Orlando di Lasso wrote music for Moriskentänze.
The morris dance ( moreška in Croatian ) has been performed on the Croatian island of Korčula on July 29, the feast day of the martyr Theodor , since the 15th century until today , as is the morris dance in England .
Population genetics
Genetic tests, based on the distribution of certain markers in the genome of present-day residents of the Iberian Peninsula, confirmed that North Africans colonized the Iberian Peninsula from the south, and after a rapid expansion to the north, withdrew again to the south until they finally, more than 700 years after theirs Arrived, were expelled from Andalusia again and could not spread their genes further.
Although the Muslims were present in the north of the Iberian Peninsula for the least amount of time, tests showed no south-north gradient in the North African gene markers. Rather, the highest proportions of people of North African descent (> 20%) can be found in Galicia and northern Castile , while the proportion is much lower in Andalusia .
The proportion of people of North African descent is relatively high in the western half of the peninsula, while it is comparatively low in the eastern half. This distribution could reflect the forced relocations of the Moriscos and suggests that the expulsion of the Moriscos from 1609 onwards was implemented very effectively in Valencia and western Andalusia, while in Galicia and Extremadura people with Arab ancestors could survive, probably there Population there is more dispersed.
See also
literature
- Stephan Ronart, Nandy Ronart: Lexicon of the Arab World. Artemis, Zurich (among others) 1972, ISBN 3-7608-0138-2 .
- Xavier Casassas Canals: Los Siete Alhaicales y otras plegarias de mudéjares y moriscos. Almuzara, Córdoba 2007, ISBN 978-84-96710-83-2 .
- Thomas Kuster: The Moreskentänze (r): A form of princely amusement. In: Maximilian I. - Triumph of an emperor: rulers with European visions. Edited by Tyrolean art cadastre (among others), Tyrolean provincial government, Innsbruck 2005–2006, ISBN 3-902112-03-4 , pp. 42–48.
- Katharina Kuffner: The last Moors. History of the Moriscos in four sentences. Turia + Kant, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-575-1 .
- Mercedes Gárcia-Arenal, Gerard Wiegers (Ed.): The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: A Mediterranean Diaspora. Brill , Leiden & Boston 2014. ISBN 978-90-04-25920-1 (print); ISBN 978-90-04-27935-3 (eBook)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Scienzz-Magazin : - When Spain wanted to become “blood clean” - 400 years ago 300,000 baptized Muslims were deported from the Iberian Peninsula to North Africa (German)
- ↑ The American Journal of Human Genetics : The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula (English)
- ↑ The American Journal of Human Genetics : The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula (English)
- ↑ C. Capelli, V. Onofri, F. Brisighelli, I. Boschi, F. Scarnicci, M. Masullo, G. Ferri, S. Tofanelli, A. Tagliabracci, L. Gusmao, A. Amorim, F. Gatto, M Kirin, D. Merlitti, M. Brion, AB Verea, V. Romano, F. Cali, V. Pascali: Moors and Saracens in Europe: Estimating the medieval North African male legacy in southern Europe. In: European journal of human genetics: EJHG. Volume 17, number 6, June 2009, pp. 848-852, doi : 10.1038 / ejhg.2008.258 , PMID 19156170 , PMC 2947089 (free full text).
- ↑ The American Journal of Human Genetics : The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula (English)
Web links
- Munich Morisk dancer: Erasmus Grasser's Morisken ; Morisk dance with a historical background
- Website of the Kaltenberg Moriskentancer
- Aljamiado-morisco manuscripts
- The jousting game Moreska on the island of Korcula