When the Arabs and their Muslim co-religionists conquered the Middle East and North Africa, they quickly converted most of the native population to Islam. Why didn’t this happen when the Moors conquered Spain? They certainly had enough time to do it. Any ideas>
I’m sure some proportion did convert, but I’m also pretty sure that the Catholic Castilians and Aragonese who performed the Reconquista were likely pretty unforgiving- it was probably convert (back) or die for a great many.
A lot of the native population did convert to Islam and were called the Muladi during the time period, and in fact, at the beginning of the 11th century, most of Muslim Spain was Muladi. But after the Reconquista most of the Spanish Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or expelled.
And many who did convert back were later exiled. 300,000 Moriscos who had converted from Islam to Christianity were exiled in 1609.
The Moriscos were people of Moorish descent, though, rather than “natives”.
Not necessarily true. The Moriscos were just Spanish Muslims who converted to Christianity, regardless of ethnicity.
For a more straightforward and useful explanation, try this: Muslims failed to take and maintain total political control in Spain. Most of the Muslim lands in the world (anything west of India)got that way b being conquered by fairly brutal and fanatic nomads.
Please remind me: which nations were conquered by Christians via peaceful means?
As opposed to when Muslims “spread” into Spain, where the inhabitants were generously offered the third option of becoming second-class citizens and paying the jizya.
Please remind me: when Muslims accuse the West of being Crusaders, who brings up the exact process of how they “spread” all the way through Spain and into France?
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I think this calls for speculation, rather than a GQ-style definitive answer.
Moved from GQ to IMHO.
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Depends what you define as “quickly.” Much of the Middle East was still majority Christian as late as ~900, over 250 years after conquest, over a period longer than the the USA has existed ;). Outside perhaps the Arabian peninsula, conversion was by no means as quick or as complete as is sometimes assumed. Sizable Christian populations continued to survive into the modern era - both Egypt and Syria today have Christian minorities hovering in the 10% range ( at least, maybe higher in Egypt ). And conditions and levels of conversion could vary widely from locale to locale.
For example the Ottomans held large chunks of southeastern Europe for, in some cases, over 400 years. Yet while areas like Albania and Bosnia saw eventual Muslim majorities, Macedonia and Bulgaria probably never topped 40% as a whole and other regions like Greece and Serbia apparently experienced much lower conversion rates than that.
Spain sort of falls into that area of incomplete conversion and not just because a corner of Iberia survived unconquered ( it was initially a pretty small slice ). The actual demographics at the height of Muslim rule are a bit of a mystery, but I tend to agree with Harvey that Glick’s application of the Bulliet Curve to Spain leaves something to be desired based on what we know ( can guess ) about the Muslim population circa ~1250 ( when Islam was clearly on the decline ). But whatever the reason, the pressure to convert apparently just wasn’t as urgent as in some other areas. Muslim Spain pre-Almoravids was relatively tolerant and post-Almoravids when it was not, it was steadily contracting. And as it contracted the conversion cycle started moving in the other direction.
Once Granada had gone under, the pressure to convert ( for both Muslims and Jews ) became severe and as noted finally ended with the mass expulsion of most of the remaining Muslim and crypto-Muslim populations, to some damage to the crown of Aragon in particular.
In my experience on these boards, nearly everyone. E.g., der Commissar trainwrecks, etc.
You mean the Moops 
I stand corrected.
Because nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.
Do you mean the entire West? The Crusaders were Westerners invading Muslim countries, after all, let’s not lose sight of historical fact here.
Lands, not countries. The modern fixed border nation-state didn’t really exist yet; a kingdom was whatever lands its armies controlled.
Actually, for the time period that *was *mighty white of the Muslims. Europeans weren’t nearly as tolerant of heterodoxy. By 6th century standards, the Koran was damn near the Geneva Convention. I’ll grant you it didn’t age well, but then judging history by the standards of today is fundamentally silly, not to mention unfair.
If the Ottomans had converted the Balkans, where would they get their Janissaries from? They *needed *a non-Muslim population as a source of slaves.
I’m reasonably sure the Galicians, Aragonese, Navarrese, Catalans and Asturs (I think I’m not leaving anybody out) weren’t particularly interested in converting, back in the 8th century. That’s a big part of the reasons they “became bandits” or “started new realms”, depending on who you ask.