This work is a study of Islam in medieval Christian Spain, focussing on the Mudejar religious authority Yca Gidelli (fl. 1450) and his Islamic writings in Spanish. On the basis of published and unpublished sources in Spanish and Arabic, it sheds new light on the religious history of the Muslim minorities.

A sweeping reinterpretation of Spanish literature, showing the great debts to Arab culture that Spain incurred through the 800 years of Islamic presence in Iberia. By so doing it redefines the ground of the study of Spanish literature.

On December 18, 1499, the Muslims in Granada revolted against the Christian city government's attempts to suppress their rights to live and worship as followers of Islam. Although the Granada riot was a local phenomenon that was soon contained, subsequent widespread rebellion provided the Christian government with an excuse—or justification, as its leaders saw things—to embark on the systematic elimination of the Islamic presence from Spain, as well as from the Iberian Peninsula as a whole, over the next hundred years. Picking up at the end of his earlier classic study, Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500— which described the courageous efforts of the followers of Islam to preserve their secular, as well as sacred, culture in late medieval Spain—L. P. Harvey chronicles here the struggles of the Moriscos. These forced converts to Christianity lived clandestinely in the sixteenth century as Muslims, communicating in aljamiado— Spanish written in Arabic characters. More broadly, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, tells the story of an early modern nation struggling to deal with diversity and multiculturalism while torn by the fanaticism of the Counter-Reformation on one side and the threat of Ottoman expansion on the other. Harvey recounts how a century of tolerance degenerated into a vicious cycle of repression and rebellion until the final expulsion in 1614 of all Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. Retold in all its complexity and poignancy, this tale of religious intolerance, political maneuvering, and ethnic cleansing resonates with many modern concerns. Eagerly awaited by Islamist and Hispanist scholars since Harvey's first volume appeared in 1990, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, will be compulsory reading for student and specialist alike. “The year’s most rewarding historical work is L. P. Harvey’s Muslims in Spain 1500 to 1614, a sobering account of the various ways in which a venerable Islamic culture fell victim to Christian bigotry. Harvey never urges the topicality of his subject on us, but this aspect inevitably sharpens an already compelling book.”—Jonathan Keats, Times Literary Supplement

Shortly after the conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic kings, Muslim subjects in Spain became known derogatorily as Moriscos, Moros, Muhammadans, Hagarans, and Saracens, despite the fact that they were forced to accept the sacrament of baptism. They were relegated to the margin of Christian society, considered aliens in their own land, and subjected to strictures and persecution. In turn, the Moriscos developed their own attitude, which they expressed in an extensive literature in Alijamiado, their Spanish dialect written in Arabic script. This literature was for the most part inspired by Arabic models reiterating Islamic values through the vehicles of history, legends, epic tales, stories, wisdom sayings, and sorcery. Written mostly during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Aljamiado literature is significant for the study of cultural change. Islam and the West: The Moriscos is the first comprehensive study of this long-neglected subject. Chejne surveys and analyzes the self-expression of the Moriscos and assesses their status as a minority struggling for survival, placing them in the social context of ideological conflict, the clash of religions and cultures, and differing perceptions. This book provides a more complete picture of the literatures and cultures of medieval Spain.

This work is an academic pursuit that aims to produce innovative scholarly general interest that explores, through a fresh perspective and from a historical approach and a multidisciplinary angle, an understudied subject of Colonial and Early Independent Mexico’s History: Islam.

Islam in Spanish Literature is a sweeping reinterpretation of Spanish literature, taking as its given the enormous debt to Arab culture that Spain incurred through the eight centuries of Islamic presence on the Iberian Peninsula. This volume takes up the thread of the work of the Arabist Miguel Asín Palacios, the first to comment extensively upon the marked Islamic features in many Spanish classics. After an initial survey of the presence of Islam and Judaism in Spanish history and culture, succeeding chapters explore the Muslim context of Juan Ruiz, the author of the Libro de buen amor; St John of the Cross; St Teresa de Jesus; the anonymous sonnet "No me mueve, mi Dios"; aljamiado-morisco literature and then "official" Moorophile literature, standing in such dramatic contrast to one another; and last, the novelist Juan Goytisolo, who, writing today, continues to reflect upon the impact of the East on Spanish culture. It is no exaggeration to state that this book redefines the ground of the study of Spanish literature; it will be hard for the contemporary reader ever again to read it with innocence, as a literature exclusively "European."

This account of Muslim life in late medieval Spain is “a beautifully written account of an enthralling subject” (The Observer). From an acclaimed scholar in the field, this is a richly detailed account of Muslim life throughout the kingdoms of Spain from the fall of Seville, which signaled the beginning of the retreat of Islam, to the Christian reconquest. Together with L.P. Harvey’s following volume, Muslims in Spain 1500–1614, it provides an in-depth look at the experiences of this population from the late medieval to the early modern period. “Harvey not only examines the politics of the Nasrids, but also the Islamic communities in the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula. This innovative approach breaks new ground, enables the reader to appreciate the situation of all Spanish Muslims. . . . An absorbing and thoroughly informed narrative.” —Times Higher Education Supplement “[A] clearly written, comprehensive, and illuminating study detailing the final three centuries of the Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula.” —Library Journal “Masterly narrative history . . . an outstanding work.” —Muslim World Book Review “Few historians in the English-speaking world could give a coherent account of the political history of Muslim Granada. Harvey does this skillfully.” —History Today