Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

by Raymond Ibrahim

When it surrendered in 1492, Granada’s nearly half-million Muslim population had nowhere else to go—except the deserts of Africa—and so chose to remain. Although they were initially granted lenient terms, including the right to travel abroad and practice Islam freely, these mudejares proved far from “tamed.” They launched many hard-to-quell uprisings—several “involving the stoning, dismembering, beheading, impaling, and burning alive of Christians”130—and regularly colluded with foreign, mostly Muslim, powers (first North Africans, later Ottoman Turks) in an effort to subvert Spain back to Islam.† A final “Muslim uprising in 1499, and the crushing of this revolt in 1501, led to an edict that Muslims had to convert to Christianity or leave the peninsula.”131 Contrary to popular belief, the motivation was less religious and more political; it was less about making Muslims “good Christians” and more about making them “good citizens.”