Spain rejected letting Moriscos emigrate for strategic and theological reasons

Evidence

If Christian Spaniards were no longer willing to share their state with Muslims, why, we must inevitably wonder, did they not simply allow such unwelcome neighbors to leave, to go away to live as Muslims elsewhere? That briefly had been the policy when the Granadans were first forcibly converted in the early years of the sixteenth century. It had run up against two types of objection, one strategic and the other theological, and so had been abandoned. In strategic terms it was argued that one should avoid strengthening the Islamic countries by presenting them with extra population (with people, moreover, who would take with them Spain’s secrets). As for the theological arguments, they were complex, but they centered on the impossibility of allowing the Moriscos to leave with their children. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1353

Categorization

• XREF: The strategic objection — refusing to let a rival gain population — parallels later mercantilist populationist thinking and general state logic against emigration.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1353