Memories of the Morisco Expulsion in the Writings of Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ

ABSTRACT The Morisco expulsion of 1609–1614, enacted during the reign of Philip III, left tens of thousands deserted in foreign lands and uncertain of their futures. The vast majority of those expelled ended up in Tūnis. There a small circle of educated and respected leaders among the Moriscos sought to integrate their fellows into Maghribī life through the cultivation of friendships with prestigious leaders in Tūnis and by producing writings that were meant not only to demonstrate the dignity and nobility of the Moriscos but also to show their coherence as a distinctive people with a common origin that is rooted in the history of al-Andalus. To that end, Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ, an émigré from Murcia, composed Al-Anwār al-Nabawiyya fī Abā Khayr al-Barriyya (“The Prophetic Lights on the Fathers in the Best Land”), a manuscript that was meant to meet concerns over the Morisco presence in the Maghrib by invoking memories of al-Andalus and Granada. The analytic tools of memory studies thus allow one to see the extent to which memories of al-Andalus were creatively conceptualized and employed to create space for the Moriscos within Andalusī history and Maghribī society.