Mudéjar
Their status, modelled after the dhimmi, established a parallel society with its own religious, legal, administrative and fiscal autonomy and institutions, while being subject to their Christian kings and lords.
Another term with the same meaning, ahl al-dajn ("people who stay on"), was used by Muslim writers, notably al-Wansharisi in his work Kitab al-Mi'yar.
This protected status suggested subjugation at the hands of Christian rulers, as the word dajn resembled haywanāt dājina meaning "tame animals".
The 10th and 11th centuries saw the rise of Christian principalities in León, Castile, Asturias, Navarre, Aragón, and Catalonia, leading to the development of the Mozarabic style.
[8] These kingdoms started retaking these territories and especially from the eleventh century onwards, larger groups of Muslims, who lived in these regions, came under Christian rule and became known as Mudejar.
As the newly acquired territories often lacked labour force, those that were willing to make themselves useful or had services to offer which made them valuable might be allowed to stay if they practised their religion discreetly.
[17] Then, king Alfonso X of Castile aimed to reconstruct Andalucia and Murcia by expelling the Mudéjar and persuading Christians to settle in the newly evacuated areas.
[20][21] At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Mudéjar had apparently arrived in a stable equilibrium with the Christian-dominated society they lived in: they enjoyed a clearly defined and legitimate legal status with broad rights and privileges and had maintained their religious and personal liberties as well as cultural identity.
At the same time, anti-Mudéjar violence, often fuelled by fears of the Mudéjar being a fifth column or spiriting Christians away to the slave markets of Granada or the Magrhib, was often directed against the morerías.
[20] These tensions intensified in the fifteenth century in which economic competition and depression, religious reactionism, continuing civil disorder and a growing threat of a war with the sultanate of Granada undermined the Christian-Muslim relations and stoking the perception of Muslims as disloyal, generically distinct foreigners.
[26] Especially the relation with the Ottoman Empire, whose advances threatened the Aragonese possession of Sicily, rendered the sultanate of Granada more formidable and the allegiance of the Mudéjar more uncertain.
[28] During the decade long war of the united crowns of Aragon and Castile against the sultanate of Granada, the Aragonese policy regarding Mudéjar did not change and they were not viewed as a military problem.
These capitulaciones were far more detailed and generous than those which had been current in the peninsula since the eleventh century, including security and freedom of movement for all Muslims, Islamic law in its broadest possible sense and visible signs of Christian domination to be minimised.
[37] Just a couple of years prior, in 1497, Islam had been outlawed by Portugal, possibly as king Manuel I aimed to obtain rights of sovereignty over the kingdom of Fez from the pope.
[42] The death of Ferdinand II in 1516 sparked another political transformation in which Spain became part of the Hapsburg bloc, set against the equally powerful Ottoman Sultanate and its ally France, and was ruled by Carlos I who was little disposed to tolerate "enemies of the faith".
The existence of Mudéjar posed series of problems for their religion as Islam pays great attention to models of conduct provided by good Muslims of the past.
[46] The fatwa of Ibn Rabi, a thirteenth century native of Cordoba, classified Mudéjar and their obligation to emigrate according to a graduate scale of sin.
Ibn Rabi did not mention the potential for the Mudéjar's continued adherence to Islamic law for this would have undermined his intention to push them towards emigration, which was based on his political agenda.
[52] Sometimes Mozarabic Christians were employed in the government of the Mudejar as they were familiar with their language and customs and the Muslim elites would often flee as Islamic law forbade them to submit to the authority of infidels.
[53] Especially in the crown of Aragon, where the king could not tax without the consent of the cortes, the Mudéjar aljamas formed an important and flexible component of the royal fisc.
Despite their expulsion at the end of the Morisco period, the Mudéjars in Aragon left evidence of their style in architecture,[7] while in Catalonia only some reminiscences of this can be appreciated in some Gothic churches and cathedrals in some shires of Lleida.
The autochthonous Muslim community, largely composed of a mix of skilled artisans, laborers, and peasants, although progressively diminishing throughout the Middle Ages by emigration to the neighbouring Kingdom of Aragon, to the nearby increasingly powerful and numerous Aljamas of Aitona and Serós, and to Islamic countries (Al-Hijrah) as well as by increasing conversions to Christianity, was nevertheless also being reinforced by immigration of Navarrese and Aragonese Muslims (Mudéjares) and by intermittent arrivals of Valencian, Granadan, and North African origin, these being mostly slaves or former slaves.
The Morería had its Mosque (Al-Masjid), its baths (Al-Hammam), its cemetery (Al-Maqbara, in the outskirts of the city), its Halal butchery, its market or Assoc (As-Suq) and its bakery.
