Spanish Muslims’ liminal status tracked the feared power of the Ottoman Empire.

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Spanish Inquisition was economic control, and Ottomans sheltered its Jewish refugees — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 353; Muslims escaped full persecution in Spain through economic utility and Ottoman diplomatic leverage — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 132; Perceived Ottoman power positioned moriscos between inferiority and superiority

Broader Connections

• Perceived Ottoman power positioned moriscos between inferiority and superiority #expands (0.95)
• 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