Geopolitical ties to Muslim states shielded Spanish Muslims from Jews’ harsher treatment.

Evidence

Unlike Jews, Muslims were not immediately forced to convert in 1492 or face expulsion. Indeed it was not until 1500 that they faced the same fate. A majority of Muslims were agricultural workers or skilled artisans in the textile and silk industries and as such were not in direct competition with the Old Christians who had aggressively pushed the blood purity laws. The monarchy as well as feudal lords considered these Muslims to be a useful labor force and a source of fiscal revenue. Elite Muslims sold their lands and migrated to North Africa. Those who remained converted and exercised a degree of power in delaying various discriminatory practices and laws, such as the banning of Arabic and Muslim customs, as well as outright mass expulsion, which did not occur till the early seventeenth century. Their power was tied to their relationships with various Muslim kingdoms in the Mediterranean and Near East. Iberian elites believed that the Moors were the domestic representatives of powerful Muslim Mediterranean kingdoms (as well as the Ottoman Empire) and therefore had to accord these heretics different treatment from that of the Jews who lacked this kind of protection. Thus, geopolitical factors played a role in the differential treatment of Jews and Muslims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 132

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete instance of geopolitical leverage conditioning racism — directly parallel to the reader’s question about how changing power arrangements (post-1967, post-9/11, Gaza) shift which target group anti-Muslim racism hits and how hard. — connects to: Muslims’ perceived inferiority in Spain tracked the geopolitical power of Muslim states; Geopolitical leverage, not religion, drove Spain’s differential treatment of Jews and Muslims; Geopolitical fear of Muslim powers protected Iberian Moors from Jewish-style persecution (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the ‘useful labor force’ exemption logic recur in later periods — e.g., does perceived economic utility of a group blunt its racialization?

Broader Connections

• Geopolitical leverage, not religion, drove Spain’s differential treatment of Jews and Muslims #corroborates (0.90)
• Geopolitical fear of Muslim powers protected Iberian Moors from Jewish-style persecution #corroborates (0.88)
• Geopolitical leverage and economic value delayed Muslim persecution in Spain. #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 120
• Muslims escaped full persecution in Spain through economic utility and Ottoman diplomatic leverage #corroborates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 132
• Granadan diplomacy seeking Muslim allies nearly triggered reprisals on Spanish Muslims #complicates (0.75) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1551