Forced conversions made Moriscos perpetual targets of treason suspicion

Evidence

The Muslims of Spain after 1500 had no state of their own. And they had been forced to change their religion, so their religious status was not their own either. What is more, the change that had been forced on them was, by the canon law of the Church that now claimed them as its members, a step that could never be reversed. Yet both they and their Christian neighbors knew very well where their true religious loyalties lay. In consequence, their political loyalty could easily be impugned. The catchphrase “Tan moros como los de Arg´el” (“Just as much Muslims as the people in Algiers”) was not just an accusation relating to their religious faith, although it was that. Algiers was the enemy across the water: the place that corsairs came from. The words stigmatized the Moriscos as the Enemy Within: in league with the enemy overseas (Perceval 1997, esp. 87–124). They were under suspicion of being traitors. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1540

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how coerced conversion creates chronic suspicion of disloyalty — parallels The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s tension around Muslims’ divided loyalties after 9/11.
• DEFINE: Explains the Spanish catchphrase ‘tan moros como los de Argel’ — accusers framing Moriscos as the enemy within.