Posted on 03/01/2005 6:55:46 AM PST by concrete is my business
After more than five centuries, Muslims of Al-Andalus (now Spain) still mark every year in anguish the mass exodus of their ancestors by Spanish authorities to North Africa.
The Moriscos, the name given to Muslims who were living in Spain after the fall of the last Muslim stronghold of Granada in 1492, were subjected to an array of persecution, torture, mass killings, forced conversions to Christianity, the notorious Spanish Inquisition and mass exodus that started in February 1502.
Today, up to four million grandsons of the Moriscos are living in North African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
“They used to commemorate every year these painful memories to keep the agonies of their forebears vivid,” Moroccan historian Bin Azouz Hakim, a specialist in the history of the Moriscos, told IslamOnline.net Sunday, February 27.
Morsicos’s descendants in Morocco, who are concentrated in cities like Tangier, Fes, Marrakesh and Rabat, mark every year the fall of Granada and Al-Andalus, which was regained in 1492 by Spanish troops in the long process known as the Reconquista under the Catholic monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.
The descendants, many of whom still have Spanish surnames, mark the anniversary with symposiums, Andalusian music and shows portraying the sufferings of their ancestors.
The northern city of Shafshoun, which was built by the Moriscos when they were forced to Morocco, still have the Moriscan aura with its Andalusian architecture and traditional Moriscan costumes.
“Apology”
In 2002, Hakim sent a message, inked by an elite of Moriscos, to Spanish King Juan Carlos asking for a public apology to the descendants.
The message, however, fell on deaf ears.
Hakim; nevertheless, sent another message to the king, asking him to explain why he rejected his call while he apologized to the Jews in a visit to Israel in 1992 for the mass exodus from Al-Andalus.
“I think because we don’t have a powerful lobby like the Jews, who make the best use of the past to get financial gains,” Hakim said.
“But the Muslims only want a moral compensation and that’s why, ironically, Spain is adamant,” he added.
The expert also opposed a Moroccan mediation effort to get the much-hoped apology.
“It is an inalienable right to the Moriscos. It makes no sense that the Spanish king had apologized to the Jews of what is now Israel, who have nothing to do with the Sephardim (the Jews of Al-Andalus), while is reluctant to say sorry to the Moriscos’s descendants.”
After an absence of almost 500 years, the Adhan (call to prayer) and the muezzin’s cry of 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) rang on July 10, 2003, from the minaret of the Great Mosque of Granada.
The site of the mosque was bought 22 years ago, when it was still a small plot of farmland squeezed between a convent and a church on the crest of the Albaicin, the last Muslim quarter of Granada.
Delusional doesn't begin to cover it. Maybe they should apologize for ravaging and occupying Spain.
Morsicos’s descendants in Morocco, who are concentrated in cities like Tangier, Fes, Marrakesh and Rabat, mark every year the fall of Granada and Al-Andalus, which was regained in 1492 by Spanish troops in the long process known as the Reconquista under the Catholic monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.
Note the word "Reconquista". What the muslims conveniently fail to report is that long before they were forced out of Andalusia, they first overran it! They were invaders to begin with.
How much one remembers is a function of how one wants to look.
Next thing ya know they will have Brodder Sharpton and Jessie Jackass over there demanding reparations.
What happened to the Spaniards that the Moors slaughterd? Do they get an apology? How about the Austrians that Seuliman slaughtered when he invaded? Would Native Americans have to apologize to Spain and England if they drove them back into the Atlantic?
Should have marched them off a cliff.
We, the people of Spain, apologize for not kicking your sorry butts out of our country sooner.
Sorry, best I could do.
This is a good subject to put forth for discussion, and it should include the full history of the moors (and later otto's) and their activities in europe......hopefully, as europe realizes they are under the 3rd wave of the assault from these people, they will deal with it appropriately again (as in "exodus" and WWI). Call it anything you want, but nothing less worked both times previously, why on earth would it now?
The jews were not conquerers. What these people want is the benefit of the advancement of western cultures without any of the efforts, sacrifices, wars that went with it. Spain would have been a backwater had it not been for movements like the Rennaissance, the Enlightenment and the re-conquista.
I am tired of revisionists telling me that during Spain's Islamic period, there was an incredible surge in the sciences, culture, etc. This naive arguement can only be surmised as long as muslims were in charge, when they were not, they had a nasty habit of fighting and killing all the time!
Anyhow all this is moot since spaniards will not stand up for their nation and in two generations, muslims will be the largest minority there. Bye Bye Andalucia it was nice for a while!
Get over it already, you bunch of medieval neanderthals.
Let me sum this up: "We, the descendents of the muslim hordes who invaded your lands, are angry that you reconquered your lands and evicted us to the dungheap that is known as North Africa. In the spirit of the worldwide Jihad currently exploding all over the world we will villify you to justify horrible acts of terror. P.S. We spit on the grave of El Cid."
Me cache en los Moros!
LOL :P
From: Islam's War Against The West-U. S. has fought Islamic terrorism before - The Barbary Pirates zianet.com ^ | zianet.com
In the fourteenth century, Eastern Europe was invaded by the Islamic armies of Emir Murad I. They destroyed everything in their path, and forcibly converted or killed all that stood in their way. Of those who refused to convert to Islam, the women were first raped and then sold into slavery, along with their children. The men not killed on the battlefield were castrated and blinded to make them docile slaves. Many Christian cities, along with their inhabitants, were burned to the ground by the invaders. The Turks nailed some 12,000 Serbians to crosses in mockery of their Christian Faith.
The Islamic invasion of Eastern Europe seemed unstoppable until 1389, when they reached the Kosovo Plain, in Serbia. Under the Serbian Prince Lazar, some 77,000 Christian knights and soldiers made a vow to one another and to Christ to die rather than "convert or die" under Islam. Upon hearing of the death of the Prince, a group of knights, outnumbered two hundred to one, charged through the enemy lines to the center of the enemy camp and killed the Emir.
Though they were themselves decimated, the Serbs killed so many Islamic soldiers that the Islamic advance into Europe was halted. This battle is considered by many Christian historians to be the single greatest sacrifice of Christian martyrs killed in a single day. Serbia remained in Muslim hands until the 19th century.
In 1453, after many years of resistance, Constantinople was finally conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Forty years later, in 1492, Islamic forces were finally defeated in Spain by the Christians, with legendary leaders such as "El Cid". Four hundred years of warfare between Muslim and Christian might help explain the Spanish intolerance for religious "heresy" exemplified in the Spanish Inquisition, and their forceable conversion of natives in the New World.
Meanwhile, Islam contined to expand in the East when the Turks, under their leader Suleiman the Magnificent, marched across the Danube River to defeat the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohacs, in 1526. Within three years they were at the gates of Vienna.
In 1529, in his treatise "On War Against the Turk," Martin Luther exhorted the rulers of Europe to put aside their petty rivalries and unite against the threat posed by Islam. He said that self-defense against the Muslim "abomination," who he called "blasphemers against Christ," was a divinely ordained application of the sword.
"Doubtlessly they know better than I how cruelly the Turk treats those whom he takes captive. He treats them like cattle, dragging, towing, driving those that can move, and killing on the spot those that cannot move, whether they are young or old."
Luther's call for unity was answered by an alliance of German, Austrian and Polish forces, which ended the siege of Vienna in 1529, that same year. With the death of Suleiman in 1566, Ottoman expansion ended for a time, until 1683, when they began the second Seige of Vienna. After they had forced a breach in the city walls, they were only able to occupy parts of the city for several weeks before being expelled by an alliance of European forces. Peace was finally established with the Peace of Karlowitz, signed in 1699, which gave the Ottoman Empire Macedonia and the Balkans, and Austria the provinces of Hungary and Transylvania.
Throughout these centuries of conflict between Christian and Muslim, besides the perils of land travel, any Christian Crusader or pilgrim who sailed the Mediterranean to the Middle East risked capture and enslavement by Muslim pirates. Among those captured was St. Vincent de Paul and Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. Both of these famous men, and many lesser ones, were ransomed over the course of centuries by the Roman Catholic Religious Order of Trinitarians.
Spain should never apologize for the Reconquista.
Not mentioned is the fact that they had actually been permitted to stay after the fall of Granada, and in fact did stay for quite some time. They were permitted to practice their religion and kept their property - most of them were small farmers or artisans. However, as usual, other Muslims arrived from abroad and stirred up the locals, resulting in several gruesome and bloody attacks on Christian communities in the southern Mediterranean part of Spain. Finally, when a plot was discovered to seize parts of the coast, the king ordered all Muslims to leave.
Unless these people are 500+ years old, none of them are "recalling" anything described here.
Today, up to four million grandsons of the Moriscos are living in North African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Yes, where some of them would go on to do things like wage a terror war of their own (at least in Algeria) and force out the pieds noirs. This was only 40-50 years ago but the French are "recalling" and whining about it far less than Muslims whine about "Andalusia". Why is that?
“They used to commemorate every year these painful memories to keep the agonies of their forebears vivid,” Moroccan historian Bin Azouz Hakim, a specialist in the history of the Moriscos
That sure sounds healthy!
In 2002, Hakim sent a message, inked by an elite of Moriscos, to Spanish King Juan Carlos asking for a public apology to the descendants. The message, however, fell on deaf ears.
For one thing, Juan Carlos had nothing to do with it, nor did anyone else living in Spain today.
Right On! Inferior people with an an inferior cult belief system.
The Spanish surrender monkeys have already lost Andalusia to the muslims, with a birth rate of 1.17 versus a zero growth rate of 2.1 the Sapnish will be populated with a muslim majority by 2050 if not sooner. The european spanish population will decline by 40 percent (40 million to under 25 million) by 2050 and the muslim numbers swell from a around a million to over 27 million due to a birth rate of 6 and EU immigration policies.
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