 |
| (RNS1-jun5) Hassan Bargach at his home in Rabat, Morocco on June 4, 2014, showing the book presented to his family by the Spanish government tracing its roots to the Iberian town of Hornachos. For use with RNS-MORISCOS-SPAIN, transmitted on June 5, 2014, Photo by Gil Shefler. |
Gil Shefler
Despite being proud Muslims, they celebrate a version of Christmas, eat as much paella as they do couscous, and pepper their native French and Arabic with Spanish words.
“We are proud of being Spanish and Moroccan,” said Hassan Bargach, whose family originates from the Spanish town of Hornachos and is among a group that has held onto some Iberian customs despite living in Morocco for centuries.
They are descendants of Moriscos, Muslims who were expelled from Spain in 1609 and are scattered across the Mediterranean Sea — cultural cousins of Sephardim, Jews of Spanish descent.
Now, with Spain’s initiative to offer Sephardic Jews a path to citizenship, some Morisco descendants have called on Madrid for similar treatment: if not the same rights, then at least recognition of their heritage.
“We think we deserve some respect for the suffering Moriscos experienced,” said Najib Loubaris, president of the Association for Andalusian Remembrance.
Like Sephardic Jews, Muslims were an integral part of Spain’s society before being painfully uprooted by Christian rulers. Many were forced to convert to Christianity and later prohibited from taking their possessions. A large number perished at sea.
If and when they arrived at their port of call, their travails were far from over.
“They were not well-received,” said Hassan Aourid, author of a popular historical novel, “Le Morisque,” or The Morisco, set in that period.
“Many locals looked down on them for being bad Muslims, and indeed they were,” said Aourid. “They were neither good Christians nor Muslims; they drank wine but did not eat pork. Most did not speak any Arabic — they were Spanish.”
Unlike Sephardic Jews who held on to separate religious rites and to a Judeo-Spanish language, known as Ladino, most Moriscos eventually integrated and became indistinguishable from their co-religionists within a few generations.
Recently, some descendants are rediscovering their Iberian heritage.
Loubaris is one of those who became aware of his Morisco roots late in life, thanks in part to an abundance of books that have appeared on the subject. His surname is a version of Olivares, a Spanish town near Seville. After their expulsion from Spain, his ancestors were among those who founded the city of Sale opposite Rabat, where they sought retribution against Christendom by engaging in piracy.
“My sister explored our family heritage and discovered we were descendants of Ibrahim Bin Loubaris, a pirate who fought against the Americans in the Barbary Wars,” he said.
A few years ago, Loubaris formed an association with others that he said counts hundreds of members in Rabat, Tetouan, Marrakech, Fez and other Moroccan cities. He does not know how many Muslims of Spanish ancestry live in Morocco but says there are some 500 surnames of Morisco origin in the books.
While some are reconnecting with their heritage, the Bargachs have held on to their customs. They use Spanish words and feast in late January exactly one month after Christmas to welcome “Spanish Santa Claus.”
More than 100 years ago, the Spanish government gave a member of the Bargach clan a family tree showing them to be direct descendants of Jaube Vargas, the Christian governor of Hornachos.
According to family lore, Vargas voluntarily went into exile with his subjects in 1609 as an act of conscience and only later converted to Islam of his volition.
In 2002, the municipality of Hornachos honored a member of the Bargach family in a ceremony for the family’s contribution to the town’s history.
Bargach said descendants of Moriscos in Rabat married only within their community and continue to do so to this day.
He, too, has heard of the Spanish initiative to give citizenship to Sephardic Jews.
One member of the newly founded Morisco association camped outside the Spanish consulate in Tangier demanding citizenship, too, after hearing the news, according to Loubaris.
The president of the association said Spain’s methods of determining Sephardic identity were vague, and by not applying them to Moriscos it exposed their double standard.
Aourid, the novelist, pointed out the differences between the expulsions of Jews in 1492 and of Muslims in 1609.
He said that while Jews were expelled solely for their religious beliefs, Moriscos were also considered a fifth column at a time of tremendous struggle with the Muslim Ottoman Empire and had rebelled twice. And while the number of Sephardic Jews seeking citizenship is not expected to be high, there may be millions of Morisco descendants in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and beyond who might apply.
He suggested an alternative way to right the wrongs of expulsion and build bridges between the faiths: by allowing Muslims to pray at the famed Mosque Cathedral of Cordoba, originally a Muslim place of worship that was converted to a church.
For his part, Bargach is not interested in Spanish citizenship, even though he has to wait many hours at the border on his frequent trips to Spain. Family members are already dual citizens of Canada, the U.S. and France.
An affluent businessman, he said that if Spain did not want to bestow citizenship to descendants of the Moriscos it would be their loss and would not affect his affinity for the country.
“I am Spanish,” he proclaimed. “I don’t need citizenship for that. Nobody can take it away from me.”
Fuente: religionnews.com
Despite being proud Muslims, they celebrate a version of Christmas, eat as much paella as they do couscous, and pepper their native French and Arabic with Spanish words.
“We are proud of being Spanish and Moroccan,” said Hassan Bargach, whose family originates from the Spanish town of Hornachos and is among a group that has held onto some Iberian customs despite living in Morocco for centuries.
They are descendants of Moriscos, Muslims who were expelled from Spain in 1609 and are scattered across the Mediterranean Sea — cultural cousins of Sephardim, Jews of Spanish descent.
Now, with Spain’s initiative to offer Sephardic Jews a path to citizenship, some Morisco descendants have called on Madrid for similar treatment: if not the same rights, then at least recognition of their heritage.
“We think we deserve some respect for the suffering Moriscos experienced,” said Najib Loubaris, president of the Association for Andalusian Remembrance.
Like Sephardic Jews, Muslims were an integral part of Spain’s society before being painfully uprooted by Christian rulers. Many were forced to convert to Christianity and later prohibited from taking their possessions. A large number perished at sea.
If and when they arrived at their port of call, their travails were far from over.
“They were not well-received,” said Hassan Aourid, author of a popular historical novel, “Le Morisque,” or The Morisco, set in that period.
“Many locals looked down on them for being bad Muslims, and indeed they were,” said Aourid. “They were neither good Christians nor Muslims; they drank wine but did not eat pork. Most did not speak any Arabic — they were Spanish.”
Unlike Sephardic Jews who held on to separate religious rites and to a Judeo-Spanish language, known as Ladino, most Moriscos eventually integrated and became indistinguishable from their co-religionists within a few generations.
Recently, some descendants are rediscovering their Iberian heritage.
Loubaris is one of those who became aware of his Morisco roots late in life, thanks in part to an abundance of books that have appeared on the subject. His surname is a version of Olivares, a Spanish town near Seville. After their expulsion from Spain, his ancestors were among those who founded the city of Sale opposite Rabat, where they sought retribution against Christendom by engaging in piracy.
“My sister explored our family heritage and discovered we were descendants of Ibrahim Bin Loubaris, a pirate who fought against the Americans in the Barbary Wars,” he said.
A few years ago, Loubaris formed an association with others that he said counts hundreds of members in Rabat, Tetouan, Marrakech, Fez and other Moroccan cities. He does not know how many Muslims of Spanish ancestry live in Morocco but says there are some 500 surnames of Morisco origin in the books.
While some are reconnecting with their heritage, the Bargachs have held on to their customs. They use Spanish words and feast in late January exactly one month after Christmas to welcome “Spanish Santa Claus.”
More than 100 years ago, the Spanish government gave a member of the Bargach clan a family tree showing them to be direct descendants of Jaube Vargas, the Christian governor of Hornachos.
According to family lore, Vargas voluntarily went into exile with his subjects in 1609 as an act of conscience and only later converted to Islam of his volition.
In 2002, the municipality of Hornachos honored a member of the Bargach family in a ceremony for the family’s contribution to the town’s history.
Bargach said descendants of Moriscos in Rabat married only within their community and continue to do so to this day.
He, too, has heard of the Spanish initiative to give citizenship to Sephardic Jews.
One member of the newly founded Morisco association camped outside the Spanish consulate in Tangier demanding citizenship, too, after hearing the news, according to Loubaris.
The president of the association said Spain’s methods of determining Sephardic identity were vague, and by not applying them to Moriscos it exposed their double standard.
Aourid, the novelist, pointed out the differences between the expulsions of Jews in 1492 and of Muslims in 1609.
He said that while Jews were expelled solely for their religious beliefs, Moriscos were also considered a fifth column at a time of tremendous struggle with the Muslim Ottoman Empire and had rebelled twice. And while the number of Sephardic Jews seeking citizenship is not expected to be high, there may be millions of Morisco descendants in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and beyond who might apply.
He suggested an alternative way to right the wrongs of expulsion and build bridges between the faiths: by allowing Muslims to pray at the famed Mosque Cathedral of Cordoba, originally a Muslim place of worship that was converted to a church.
For his part, Bargach is not interested in Spanish citizenship, even though he has to wait many hours at the border on his frequent trips to Spain. Family members are already dual citizens of Canada, the U.S. and France.
An affluent businessman, he said that if Spain did not want to bestow citizenship to descendants of the Moriscos it would be their loss and would not affect his affinity for the country.
“I am Spanish,” he proclaimed. “I don’t need citizenship for that. Nobody can take it away from me.”
Fuente: religionnews.com
* 1066: execution of Rab Shmuel haNagid and ‘Garanda Massacre’ – 4-5,000 Jews died. The razing of the entire Jewish quarter in the Andalucian city of Granada.
ReplyDelete* 1013: Under Umayyad rule,
The inhabitants of Cordoba, including Jews were massacred and looted. It is said that 2000 of them were murdered.
* 1033: Fez, Morocco, pogrom, Muslims massacres more than 6000 Jews and took away their women and robbed their belongings.
* Ibn Tumart (c.1080–c.1130), who, according to the medieval sage Abraham ibn Daud, undertook a campaign of extermination against the Jews, when he “decreed apostasy on the Jews, saying, ‘come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.’ thus he wiped out every last ‘name and remnant’ of them from all his empire, from the city of Silves at the end of the world until the city of al-Mahdiya.”
* 1172+: The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, were far more extremists than the Almoravides, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and chr. were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain.
* Maimonides (1138–1204) 'Epistle to the Yemenites', consoling the Jews of Yemen for the tortures they suffered and exhorting them to remain true to their faith , no matter what the cost. Despite the remoteness of their abode , the Yemenite Jews never lost contact with the spiritual movements in world Jewry. Their religious life was based entirely upon the Talmud.
* 1465: Fez, Morocco, Muslim subjects overthrew the last Marinid ruler who had appointed many Jews to high positions. Grudges leading to massacre the entire Jewish community of the city. The community was temporarily converted but soon reverted to Judaism.
* 1517: Safed, Israel, Jews were evicted from their homes, robbed and plundered, and they fled naked to the villages.
* Testimony by Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro c. 1445 – c. 1515:
Schwab, M., Bertinoro, O. (1866). Voyages: Lettres d’Obadia de Bertinoro, 1487-89. France: au bureau des Archives israëlites.
Page 23: "In general, they appear in all Islamism as poor and deorived of everything . They have shabby dress like beggars, and they bend their backs to the Muslims."
[Aka oppressive aoartheid Dhimmitude].
* Some “40,000 Jews lived in (Eretz Israel in the area of) Caesarea alone at the Arab conquest, after which all trace of them is lost.”
* 1679–1680: Imam of Yemen (Rassid dynasty) – Jews of nearly all cities and towns in Yemen exiled to a remote desert and left to die.
* 1790 Jews massacred in Tetuán, in Morocco.
* 1828, in Baghdad, a cycle of violence and pillage began in Safed.
* 1834 looting of Safed… 33 days of horror!
* 1840-1908: after the Damascus affair – blood libel, riots and massacres of Jews were carried out in Aleppo (1850, 1875), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jerusalem (1847), Cairo (1844, 1890, 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870, 1882, 1901–07), Port Said (1903, 1908), Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891), Istanbul (1870, 1874), Buyukdere (1864), Kuzguncuk (1866), Eyub (1868), Edirne (1872), Izmir (1872, 1874).
* 1864: Solica (Sulaika) Hachuel – The Moroccan Teenager Who Died for Her Jewish Faith.
Why do you capitalize “Jews” and write the whole words, but for Christians you only write “chr.” Not capitalized and not even the full word?
Delete* 1913, a prominent leader of the Palestinian anti-Zionist campaign, Sheikh Sulayman al-Taji Farouki, published a poem in 'Falastin', where he combined Islamic motifs from the Qur’an and hadith. Ottomans bsn the Fakastin or inciting racict hatred.
ReplyDelete* 1929 Hebron massacre, animalistic massacre of non-Zionist Jews, body mutilation, rapes...
* 1933-46, by in large, Arab newspapers glorify Hitler.
* 1941 - June 1-2: Shavuot pogrom FARHOUD, after the Nazi propaganda by Fritz Grobba, al Sabawi’s Mein-Kampf into Arabic / Palestine Mufti al Husseini (and his hundreds of "Palestine" Arabs escaping the Brits, especially, Akram Zuaiter and Darwish al-Miqdadi) who escaped there from the Brits in 1937 – hate incitement intensified resulting in the Farhoud pogrom where some estimate up to a 1,000 died. Children were thrown in the waters in front of parents, mass rapes.
* 1939-41, Ahmad Shukairy [Shukeiri] would testify in his book that he and the Arabs in Palestine were cheering for praying for Hitler. He himself had justified the Holocaust in 1946 with Jamal Husseini, who, together with the Mufti, had established the HitlerYouth modeled Futuwwa in 1935.
* 1942, February poll, 88% if Palestine Arabs supports the Axis. August CIA report, most Arabs in Palestine are anti-Jews await Nazi-Germany's field marshal Erwin Rommel.
* 1941-45, The Mufti, with his entourage of 60 worked for Hitler; incited to kill Jews "wherever they are"; lead Moslem SS; prevented Jewish children from escaping death to Mandatory Palestine; urged the Nazis to bomb Tel-Aviv, toured Trebbin concentration camp; plotted an Auchwitz modeled crematorium in Dotan Valley.
* 1947/8, Ex Nazis train and help Arabs fighting the Jews.