A term has been used to refer to the Christian community of al-Andalus which, despite its Arabic origin, we do not know how it was used in Andalusi lands
Javier Albarrán
University of Granada
In the Historia de los mozárabes de España (1897), Francisco Javier Simonet had already pointed out that, in spite of the Arabic origin of the term “mozarab”, there was no evidence of its use in any Andalusi source to refer to the Christians of al-Andalus. In fact, the earliest appearance of the word in the Iberian Peninsula is found in a document from the year 1026 belonging to the archive of a monastery in Leon, San Cipriano de Valdesalce. According to the nineteenth-century Arabist, etymologically the term derives from the passive form of the verb ‘ariba or ‘aroba, and can be translated as “arabized”. Simonet also emphasized the unconditional Christian (and Catholic) faith of this group. Therefore, for this author, the term “mozarab” was of Islamic origin and was used to designate the Hispanic Christians who lived in al-Andalus.
The fact that the term does not appear in the Andalusi texts —in its presumed Arabic version, must‘arib— to refer to the Christians of native origin who lived in Andalusi territory and who, therefore, were Arabized, has not been an obstacle for the great majority of authors to label this social group as “mozarabs”. That is to say, a term has been used to name the Christian community of al-Andalus which, despite its Arabic origin, was not used in Andalusi territory with the meaning commonly given by historians, and which, moreover, has been used to assign two markers that are fundamentally cultural: religion (Christian) and language (Arabic).
Who, therefore, were the Mozarabs of al-Andalus?
Although we have not preserved any Andalusi text in which must‘arib refers to the Christian community of al-Andalus, there are others in which the term refers to a very specific reality and can help us to understand how this concept was used in al-Andalus. On the one hand, in works such as the History of the Prophets and Kings by the Iraqi al-Tabari (d. 923), which circulated widely in al-Andalus, must‘arib refers specifically to those tribes of the Arabian peninsula, especially in the south, who were not considered pure Arabs, and were therefore “Arabized”. On the other hand, in oriental lexicographical texts such as that of al-Azhari, also transmitted through Andalusi territory, the must‘arib is described as “he who is not of purely Arab descent but who has been introduced among the Arabs, speaks their language and imitates their appearance”. The word, therefore, was free of any religious significance, designating “only” the linguistically and culturally Arabized. This meaning passed into the dictionaries composed in al-Andalus, such as that of Ibn Sida (d. 1066).
Meanwhile, in the geographical work of al-Zuhri (12th century) the term is used, as it was used by al-Tabari, to differentiate, in the context of the lineages descended from Noah, the “pure Arabs (al-‘arab al-‘ariba)” —the Qahtanis— from the “Arabized Arabs (al-‘arab al-must‘ariba)” —the offspring of the Syriacs and sons of Ishmael. The existence of this differentiation among Islamic authors was already pointed out by theMaronite priest of Lebanese origin M. Casiri (d. 1791), stating that this was the origin of “mozarab”. The Spanish version of al-Zuhri’s work, preserved in a 15th century manuscript, translates this distinction as “alarabes de Aravia la mas alta” and “alarabes de Aravia la mas baxa”. That is to say, not only is there no trace of the meaning traditionally attributed to the term “mozarab” in the Andalusi context, but the use of must‘arib appears circumscribed to the framework of the distinction between these ancient Arab tribes.
On the other hand, this use by al-Zuhri of the term must‘arib —commonly found in oriental texts on Arab genealogies—, and its translation into Spanish without using the word “mozarab”, leads us to think either that the association of “mozarab” with the original Arabic word had already disappeared when this translation was made, or that we should perhaps question whether the term “mozarab”, as it is used in medieval Christian documentation, really derives from the Arabic must‘arib. For example, the Vocabulary attributed to Ramón Martí (13th century) —an unconfirmed attribution— does not translate must‘arib by “mozarab” either, but by arabicus, “Arabized”. Without attempting to insist on any single etymology —for the moment— it is worth remembering that in the Middle Ages other options were proposed: Jiménez de Rada, for example, proposed a Latin origin from “mixti arabes”. Later, authors such as the chancellor Ayala followed this explanation with a definition of the term that coincided with medieval historians’ traditional use of it: “Mozarabs means Christians mixed with Arabs”.
Therefore, I believe that the lexicographers’ formulation “he who is not of purely Arab descent but who has been introduced among the Arabs […]” is the one that should guide the conception of the “community of Mozarabs” of al-Andalus —unless we choose to avoid the use of the term altogether, perhaps the better option—, thus breaking the Christian/Arabization linkage that has lasted until now.
That is to say, most of the Andalusi Christians were Mozarabs, but they were not the only Mozarabs. The Arabized Jews were also Mozarabs, as were the Islamized and Arabized Berbers, or the natives converted to Islam and, once again, Arabized. In other words, the Andalusi Mozarabs were those individuals characterized by their Arabization, regardless of their religion. In this way we can underline the most important specificity of the term “mozarab”, namely, Arabic, and leave aside the religious dimension, an issue that, from Simonet to contemporary authors, has acquired an important ideological significance in national-Catholic trends viewing the Mozarabs as the guardians of the Catholic faith and of the true Spanish national spirit.
The Arabic language —and all the cultural manifestations associated with it— thus emerges as a first-level marker of differentiation in al-Andalus, used even by the Christians themselves who lived in Andalusi territory: when Alvaro de Cordoba, in his Indiculus Luminosus, criticizes his co-religionists for preferring Arabic to Latin, the differentiating element he highlights is language. Likewise, in the Andalusi biographical dictionaries, one of the usual criteria for evaluating scholars and, therefore, a marker of differentiation between them, was the extent of their knowledge of Arabic. The historiographical “Christianization” of the term “mozarab” in reference to al-Andalus leads to the loss of these nuances regarding the use of the language by the different Andalusi social groups and its significance as an element of contrast. This does not mean, of course, that religion did not establish borders between communities in al-Andalus, although it is most likely that the term “mozarab” did not reflect them. In the Christian case, Eva Lapiedra has already collected in her Cómo los musulmanes llamaban a los cristianos hispánicos (Alicante, 1997) all the terms used in the Arabic chronicles referring to them, highlighting as a religious reference that of nasrani, Nazarene.
The other side of this same coin is the term ‘ajam, a term usually translated as “barbarian”. Although it is sometimes associated with Christian elements, the truth is that on many other occasions it identified people who were not Arabs nor did they speak Arabic. In other words, it designated those who were not Arabized, regardless of their religion. Language, therefore, did not define religious affiliation, and it could even be a more decisive element of terminological differentiation: in this lexicon, Arabization may have been more decisive than Islamization itself, or the absence of it.
On the other hand, closely linked to this last process, that of Islamization, is the issue of the survival of Christian communities in al-Andalus. In this sense, Simonet also introduced an idea that has survived in the popular imagination: “the fierce Almoravids thought only of destroying them completely, and if they did not succeed, the situation of those unfortunate Christians became more hazardous and miserable every day”. The North Africans, therefore, imbued with an unprecedented religious fanaticism, had, according to Simonet, the aim of eradicating the Andalusi Christians. Thus, the nationalist interpretation of the nineteenth-century Arabist was reinforced at a time, moreover, when colonial conflicts with Morocco were ongoing: the North Africans/Moroccans, were new foreign invaders, who threatened the true Spaniards, the Mozarabs. Although this interpretation is outdated, some authors continue to support it, and it even appears as the first definition of the word “Mozarab” in the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary of the Spanish Language:
“It is said of the person of the Hispanic population who, permitted by Islamic law as a tributary, lived in Muslim Spain until the end of the 11th century, preserving their Christian religion and even their ecclesiastical and judicial organization”
With the arrival of the Almoravids in al-Andalus in the last decade of the 11th century, Christians, following this view, lost their status as dhimmis, a policy based on considering them (along with the Jews) as protected people, a condition that was achieved through the payment of a personal tax, which depended on the properties of each one. In addition to this tax and a series of rules on the relations with the Muslim community, Christians were able to maintain their religion, their belongings, their customs and even their laws and magistrates, which gave them a certain autonomy. Of course, this status was based on the acceptance of the superiority of Islam, as demonstrated by the well-known pact of Tudmir or Teodomiro, just as it had been in force in the East since the first Islamic conquests.
However, the most reasonable perspective —and the one defended by most experts— is that the Almoravids did not endangered the status of the dhimma. If they had done so, for example, there would have been no legal discussion about the properties in al-Andalus —especially churches— abandoned by the Christians deported after the expedition of Alfonso I of Aragon in 1124 through the lands of southeastern al-Andalus. It seems, according to the fatwas of expulsion studied by Delfina Serrano, that those exiled after the Aragonese campaign were those who had broken, according to the Almoravid authorities, the protection pact, which indicates that it was still in force. Furthermore, it seems that greater care in applying the pact of dhimma had begun to appear earlier, when the so-called Taifa kings were still in power, a time when the Christians of al-Andalus had to face two difficult and, to a certain extent, interrelated situations. On the one hand, the breakdown of the Umayyad state, a political structure that, for better or worse, had given them a minimum level of security. On the other, the advance of the Christians from the north. In this sense, they began to be seen by some Islamic rulers and scholars as a “fifth column”: they constantly kept in mind that the dhimmis had a separate status, subordinate to the Islamic community, and had to live isolated from it.
Likewise, this more severe application of the pact of protection was not motivated by a more fanatic understanding of religion, but by the political situation: the loss of Barbastro (1064) and Toledo (1085) marked a turning point in Andalusi Islam, which began to insist in applying the pacts correctly and fully. All this can be exemplified in Ibn ‘Abdun’s treaty of hisba, on the appropriate functioning of the souk, translated and published several decades ago by Emilio García Gómez. The guidelines refer to the effective fulfillment of a pre-established tradition rather than to the introduction of new rules, even given the introduction of new elements into some of its stipulations, such as the obligation for Christian clerics to be circumcised, the prohibition against dhimmis buying books written by Muslims, or the ban on Christian clerics taking concubines.
When then did the Christians of al-Andalus enter into decline?
Many specialists believe that with the arrival of the Almohads the Andalusi Christian communities disappeared. Some researchers, including myself, are of the opinion that there was, at least on the doctrinal and ideological level of this movement, a policy of conversion or expulsion of Christians and Jews. The reasons for this change of behavior are varied. Maribel Fierro, the author who has worked most on this topic, points, among other things, to the eschatological perspective of the coming of the Mahdi, the savior guide of the end of times, a figure linked to the founder of the Almohad movement, Ibn Tumart. According to Islamic tradition, when the Day of Judgement comes, the Mahdi will not accept anything from the infidels except their conversion to Islam. The presence of Shiite elements in Almohad doctrine is also noteworthy: the Shiite tradition concerning the status of dhimmis has certain characteristics differentiating it from the Sunni, which make it more intransigent.
Christians were undoubtedly fundamental to the creation of Almohad ideology, and the fight against them became an important tool of legitimation that justified, for example, their expansion towards the Iberian Peninsula. Undoubtedly , in pro-Almohad chronicles the great majority of references to Christians appear in a military context. They describe a situation of war between the Almohad Empire and the kingdoms of northern Iberia. Moreover, Christians were not only presented as enemies outside the Almohad borders or within the limits that they wished to dominate, but the caliphs who succeeded Ibn Tumart also had to deal with those who resided within their own territory. And here the chronicles bring us closer to the idea that under the Almohads, Christians and Jews, that is, the dhimmis, disappeared, at least theoretically and for a certain period of time, from North Africa and al-Andalus.
North Africa, and Marrakech in particular, was the center of Almohad power, where its structures were much more developed and established. And it seems that it was there, in the Maghreb, that this policy against Christians and Jews was carried out most effectively, since, in addition, the communities of dhimmis were weaker. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the chroniclers, ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi, states not only the existence of this Almohad policy denying the pact of dhimma, but also its effective enforcement in the Maghreb. No church or synagogue remained standing according to this author. Moreover, it seems that in the time of the caliph Abu Yusuf new measures were taken that came to harden this treatment towards the former dhimmis, now forcibly Islamized. The Caliph imposed a strict dress code on the new Muslims who had converted from Judaism, since he did not trust the veracity of the conversion of the former followers of the Law of Moses. This distrust can only be the result of the fact that their Islamization was forced and, therefore, their motivation to accomplish it purely out of pure religious conviction was in doubt. The fact that the recipients of this discriminatory measure were Jews shows that the Islamization of Christians either was, in the eyes of the authorities, sincere or, more likely, that none of them remained under Almohad rule, at least in North Africa.
The situation in al-Andalus, however, was not that in the Maghreb. The Almohads were trying to dominate a land that bordered on strong Christian kingdoms and in which there still lived, although in decreasing numbers, important communities of dhimmis. No source states with certainty —as al-Marrakushi had done before— that the protection pact with Jews and Christians was abolished in al-Andalus. However, some texts point to this conclusion. The rebel Ibn Hamusk, an Andalusi enemy of the Almohads, decided to “betray” Granada, that is, to attack a city already under the power of the Berber dynasty. And he did so because he sought the support of those who, he deduced, were not entirely satisfied with the Almohad government: the “Islamized Jews”. It seems that we find here the same problem that Caliph al-Mansur tried to deal with in the Maghreb: a community of Jews Islamized by force so that they could continue living in Granada, but who, according to Ibrahim b. Hamusk, would take advantage of any opportunity to break free from Almohad control. On the other hand, it seems that when a population in which there were Christians accepted Almohad rule, the expulsion of the followers of Christ was part of the “Almohadization”, as happened in the cases of Alcira or Cuenca.
However, as I have already stated, this policy was only maintained for a certain period of time. In order to be applied, the Almohad state apparatus had to be fully operational. Thus, when it began to crack, in al-Andalus after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and in the Maghreb with the appearance, particularly, of the Merinids, Christians reappeared in Islamic lands and sources.
Further reading:
- Aillet, c. Les mozarabes: christianisme, islamisation et arabisation en Péninsule Ibérique ( IXe – XIIe siècle), Casa de Velázquez, Madrid, 2010.
- Albarrán, J. La cruz en la media luna. Los cristianos de al-Andalus: realidades y percepciones, Sociedad Española de Estudios Medievales, Madrid, 2013.
- Albarrán, J. “Los cristianos en el emirato y el califato de Córdoba, y la creación de una comunidad andalusí multiconfesional”, in El monacato cristiano en la España musulmana, Fundación Santa María la Real, Aguilar de Campoó, 2023, pp. 11-39.
- Christys, A. Christians in al-Andalus, 711-1000, Curzon Press, Richmond, 2002.
- Fierro, M. “A Muslim land without Jews or Christians: Almohad policies regarding the ‘protected people’”, Christlicher Norden – Muslimischer Süden. Ansprüche und Wirklichkeiten von Christen, Juden und Muslimen auf der Iberischen Halbinsel im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter, Matthias Tischler and Alexander Fidora (eds.), Aschendorff, Verlag, 2011, pp. 231-247.
- Fierro, M. “Again on forced conversion in the Almohad period”, in García-Arenal, Mercedes and Glazer-Eytan, Yonatan (eds.) Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam: Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 111-132.
- García Sanjuán, A. “Judíos y cristianos en la Sevilla almorávide: el testimonio de Ibn’ Abdun”, Tolerancia y convivencia étnico-religiosa en la Península Ibérica durante la Edad Media: III Jornadas de Cultura Islámica, Alejandro García Sanjuán (ed.), Universidad de Huelva, Huelva, 2003, pp. 57-84.
- Hitchcock, R. Mozarabs in medieval and early modern Spain: identities and influences, Ashgate, Burlington, 2007.