Moriscos and the Early Modern Mediterranean

| In 1609, King Phillip III of Spain signed an edict to expel a community known as the Moriscos from the Iberian Peninsula. The Moriscos were Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity during the 16th century, after Christian kingdoms displaced the last remaining Muslim rulers in Iberia. The persecution and erasure of the Moriscos following the Reconquista are well documented in the historiography, where alongside Iberian Jews, they appear as victims of the fall of Islamic al-Andalus. But in this episode of Ottoman History Podcast, we’ll explore what these events looked like through the eyes of the Moriscos themselves and study their roles as political actors in the momentous political shifts of the 16th century. In this conversation with Mayte Green-Mercado about her book Visions of Deliverance, we discuss the circulation of Muslim and crypto-Muslim apocalyptic texts, known as jofores; and how these texts were catalysts for morisco political mobilization against the Spanish crown. We chart the formal and informal networks of communication between Moriscos, the Ottoman Empire, and the broader Mediterranean world. And we reflect on the challenges and benefits of using biased sources like the records of the Inquisition alongside other material.