Epilogue

Abstract

This chapter concludes with a reflection on the Morisco expulsion and the ways in which Moriscos read their banishment from Iberia in a providentialist and apocalyptic light, much as Christians interpreted the tolling Bell of Velilla. It distinctly traces apocalyptic narrative of Morisco history as it was lived and experienced by crypto-Muslim Moriscos throughout the sixteenth century. It has shown that many Moriscos articulated their political aspirations in the form of apocalyptic prophecies that promised a political victory of Islam in Iberia, and within the framework of a divinely ordained and impending end of time. Apocalyptic expectations were present in Iberia among Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike throughout the middle ages, but it was particularly from the fall of Granada in 1492 and the Spanish Muslims' forced conversion to Catholicism between 1501 and 1526, that this apocalyptic paradigm took force and became central to the identity and politics of a significant number of Moriscos. In their interpretation, the conquest of Granada was seen as a cataclysmic event.