Isabel & Islam

Isabel won the longest war in history achieving in 1492 what 24 generations of kings had been unable to do: she and Ferdinand won back Andalusia from the Moors. William Thomas Walsh describes how, “All Europe joyfully celebrated the reconquest of Granada...Men felt the regaining of Granada in the west was a compensation for the loss of Constantinople in the east…Bonfires blazed and churchbells rang deliriously from the Mediterranean to the North Sea.”

In Rome when Pope Innocent VIII received the news he and the cardinals made a solemn procession from the Vatican to the Spanish Church of St James. The celebrations in Italy and elsewhere lasted several days. Walsh writes, “When the news reached England, [King] Henry VII commanded all the nobles and prelates who were in the Court to march with the Lord Mayor and Aldemen of London in great solemnity to the Church of St Paul. There the Lord Chancellor addressed them, saying, ‘These many years the Christians have not gained new ground or territory upon the infidels, nor enlarged and set farther the bounds of the Christian world. But this is now done by the prowess and devotion of Fernando and Isabel, sovereigns of Spain, who to their immortal honour have recovered the great and rich kingdom of Granada from the Moors…for which this assembly and all Christians are to render [praise] and thanks to God, and to celebrate this noble act of the King of Spain…’”

In 2003 one of al-Qaeda chief theoreticians, Yussuf al-Ayyeri, wrote that democracy in Iraq would “represent Islam’s biggest defeat since the loss of Andalusia.”

Even at this epochal moment, Isabel was gracious and just. Isabel and Ferdinand’s terms of victory stated: “It is established and agreed that the governors and officers of justice appointed by Their Highnesses shall be such as will be capable of respecting the Moors, and treating them well.” Thus, according to French historian Louis Bertrand, the Moors “were of course granted complete liberty of conscience and freedom of public worship. They preserved their mosques, their minarets, and their muezzins. Conversions to Christianity were to be unforced. Christian soldiers were forbidden to enter the mosques without the permission of the faquis, to go into Moorish houses, steal fowl or beasts, or give balls or feasts against the wishes of the inhabitants.”

The terms further stated: “The Moors shall be judged by their own laws, in accordance with the decisions of their cadis. They shall maintain, and be maintained in, their usages and good customs.” Despite these generous conditions the policy failed. The Moors preferred not to live under Catholic monarchs and fought to regain dominion, aided as ever by armies from North Africa. Thus, in 1502, on political grounds the Moors were expelled.

[Image: The Rendition of Granada by Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, 1878]