A converted Muslim financier partnered with Spain’s top Christian civil servants

Evidence

In this connection in 1508 he was in partnership to import leather goods from Morocco with such famous Christian servants of the Crown as Hernando de Zafra and Francisco de Cobos and was also involved in handling ransom payments. (Without background information one cannot be sure whether this was an aspect of the slave trade or a public-spirited enterprise directed at getting captives home and exchanging prisoners. At this time one activity could shade into the other.) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 225

Categorization

• CANDY: A twice-converted Muslim mogul doing business with Europe’s premier bureaucrats is a compact, eyebrow-raising dinner-party vignette.