Isabella especially took it as her duty, as sovereign of one of the largest and most influential of Spain’s Christian states, to lead the global war against all Muslims—whether in Castile, across Iberia, in North Africa, in the Ottoman Empire, or anywhere else. (Ironically, there were more Christians in the Ottoman Empire at the time than in the whole of Spain.) For both Ferdinand and Isabella, any Muslim anywhere was a potential threat, but they regarded those living under their own rule as the most dangerous.
