The Return of Muslim Granada

Abstract

This chapter examines how the newly converted Muslims of Castile dealt with the trauma of forced assimilation into Catholic society from the 1530s to the 1560s. It looks at the cultural resources that the Morisco rebels relied on to construct that rhetoric and discourse of mobilization, focusing on the cultural idioms with which the Moriscos who participated in the rebellion expressed their grievances—the apocalyptic prognostications known as “jofores.” The “jofores” that circulated during the rebellion were aimed at creating affective associations that would reinforce the Muslim identity of the Morisco rebels and their potential supporters. This chapter also analyzes the significance of apocalyptic prophecy in mobilizing the Morisco population for collective action. More specifically, it demonstrates that the rebellion of the Moriscos in the Alpujarras mountains was encouraged by a discourse of martyrdom that was articulated in an apocalyptic key, an element that has hitherto been overlooked in the historiography of the Alpujarras revolt.