Literature of the Converts in Early Modern Spain: Nationalism and Religious Dissimulation of Minorities

From medieval to early modern times, Spain witnessed a diversity of cultural, religious, and ethnic interactions. Pre-modern Spain is often viewed as a crucible for the three religious communities of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, either living in convivencia [coexistence], or fighting for reconquista [reconquest]. Certain historical patterns, such as the shu'ūbiyya [anti-Arab movement] with its ethnic underpinnings, recurred and reemerged in the more vicious ethnic prejudice of the Inquisition in early modern Spain. The Inquisition carried with it not only the residues of religious purification, but also the seeds of a growing sense of nationalism. Religious conversion became very controversial and resulted in new social and literary forms of self expression. The concept of taqiyya, or hiding one's religion under exigency (a concept and practice usually associated with Shi'ī Islam), prevailed among Muslim and Jewish convert-communities living under Christian rule from the fourteenth until the seventeenth century. Their literature-of the Moriscos and Marranos-is imbued with a spirit of equivocation and doubleness, and reflects the mood of that certain historical moment. It is a literature that represents their passive resistance against coercion and oppression in an attempt to galvanize their own sense of identity and enthonational heritage.

Ibn Khaldūn (1332 CE/732 AH-1406 CE/808 AH), the famous Arab/Muslim historian and sociologist, theorized that history acts in cycles vis-à-vis the rise and fall of political states. In this article I apply his assumption to the ways in which history seems to promote or witness certain recurring patterns such as the manifestation of ethnic prejudice in early modern Spain. This a/historical (neo-historical, or rather cultural) research makes use of historicism only to serve the purpose of comparing the literary production of both the Moriscos and the Marranos as self-expression against this new form of ethnic prejudice similar to but even worse than the shu'ūbiyya: both emphasize genealogy, lineage, and purity of blood as means of establishing the superiority of one group over the other.

This article does not, however, go as far as Américo Castro does in establishing a historical continuity or a causal relationship between the ideological heritage of the minorities and the ideology of the new ruling majority. Rather, by focusing on the relationship between nationalism and the dissimulation of religious belief that finds expression in new forms of literary production, this article reflects upon moments in history that mirror or parallel early modern Spain in the recurrence of ethnic prejudice only to reveal a history marked by repetition.

Ibn Khaldūn's theory maintains that once a political state reaches the peak of its power, it starts decaying and is overcome by a "less civilized" group of people that gradually assimilate the culture of the previous civilization, until they reach a state of luxury and then are also overthrown. This historical analysis of the rise and fall of political states only confirms that history acts in cycles and is made up of repetitions and some, not always so clear, continuities.

Theand the Shu'ūbiyya: A Historical Continuity

The concept of has its origins in pre-Islamic Arab culture and reflects the Bedouin tribal's need for loyalty to one's kin and affiliates. It has been suggested that the term is derived from "tribal consanguinity," or nasab. However, according to Fouad Baali, "it is a social, physical, and political phenomenon, manifesting itself most clearly among, but not confined to, the nomadic or tribal people."¹ Islam, advocating the brotherhood of all Muslims, did not approve of with its racial and ethnic connotations. So, "with the advent of Islam, and its bad manifestations were strongly condemned and Muslims were called upon to get rid of such backward tribal and group bias."² Ibn Khaldu n maintains that honoring "blood ties is something natural among men, with the rarest exceptions."³ He believes that remained after Islam, but was probably modified to mean a "sense of solidarity," a "group feeling," or a "group loyalty" (Rabī', 49).

Ibn Khaldūn bases his cyclical theory of...