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The Moriscos Are Expelled From Spain

Islam

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Origin from 1492

Spanish Muslims baptized under compulsion after 1492, known as the Moriscos, continued practicing Islam covertly for over a century. Their expulsion from Spain between 1609 and 1614 forced roughly 350,000 people into exile, mostly to North Africa, ending Muslim presence in Spain as a living population.

Facts
Dates
Start Year
from 1492 1
1492 marks the start of compulsory baptism of Spain's remaining Muslim population into the Moriscos, following the fall of Granada.
End Year
to 1614 1
1614 is the completion of the Morisco expulsion, which ran from 1609.
Status
Extinct 1
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The Expulsion of the Moriscos Ends Muslim Spain

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Muslim life in Spain ends with the expulsion of the Moriscos, the Spanish Muslims baptized under compulsion after Granada's fall in 1492 and known afterward by that name. Despite the forced baptisms, Moriscos continued practicing Islam covertly for over a century, keeping the faith alive as a hidden rather than a public tradition across generations who had never known Muslim rule.

That hidden persistence ended between 1609 and 1614, when the Spanish crown carried out a systematic expulsion, forcing roughly 350,000 Moriscos into exile, most of them to North Africa. The expulsion proceeded region by region across those five years rather than in a single decree carried out at once, and it targeted a population whose ancestors had already been Christian in name for more than a century, removing them from Spain regardless.

What this changed for Islam's spread was decisive and final for Iberia itself: it ended Muslim presence in Spain as a living population, closing out a story that had run from the eighth century conquest through the long Reconquista and the forced conversions that followed 1492. Islam's history on the peninsula, from arrival through establishment, suppression and covert survival, comes to its end here, with a living community physically removed from the land rather than merely converted or suppressed in place.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Africa, Continents

This source names Africa directly: "people into exile, mostly to North Africa, ending Muslim presence in Spain as a living population."

Moriscos, Cultures

This source names Moriscos directly: "compulsion after 1492, known as the Moriscos, continued practicing Islam covertly for over a century."

Corresponds To

Occurred In

Spread Event Of

Sources
1. Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614
Matthew Carr, The New Press, 2009
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