Spain’s post-1500 Muslims were all forced religiously to live as secret converts

Evidence

The special characteristic that marks off Spain’s Muslim communities in this final period, distinguishing them not merely from their forebears in the medieval Iberian Peninsula but also from other orthodox Muslim communities in any other place in the world at any time was that they were all perforce crypto-Muslims. They were subjects of a Christian monarch who lived their true religion secretly because, during most of the period that concerns us, they were regarded by their Spanish rulers as having been legally converted to Christianity. They were, in the expression then in use, nuevos cristianos convertidos de moros (“New Christians, converted from being Moors”) and fell under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. (As unconverted Muslims they would not have been answerable to that tribunal, which was, in theory at least, purely concerned with internal Church discipline. Once they became converts, however, there was no doubt that they were subject to its ministrations.) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 45

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines crypto-Muslim status and explains the Inquisition’s jurisdiction as tied to nominal conversion.