This month, we're highlighting PhD candidate Andrew Russo, who was recently awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to conduct research for his dissertation.
In the fall of 2018, I stood nervously outside of al-Maktabah al-Wataniyah in Rabat. Al-Maktabah al-Wataniyah, or the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, is a relatively new building. Sleek and modern, it stands out in one of Rabat’s older neighborhoods. For a grad student newly advanced to candidacy, it may have been a bit intimidating, but I was there on a mission. I was there to read the account of Ibn abd al-Rafi al-Andalusi.
Ibn abd al-Rafi was a witness to the 1609 expulsion of the Moriscos (Muslims forcefully converted to Catholicism and their descendants) from Spain. Like many others, he watched nearly a quarter of a million people driven from their homes for the crime of being descended from Muslims and fears over what might be divided loyalties.
I learned quite a bit from Ibn abd al-Rafi’s account, but it produced further questions for me. Why was there resistance to the Morisco arrival in North Africa? Why did Ibn abd al-Rafi spend most of his time writing about events centuries prior to the expulsion? And what did the expelled themselves make of all of this?
Thanks to a generous grant from the Fulbright-Hays program, I will be able to spend the next year in Rabat and Madrid trying to answer these questions. The Fulbright-Hays Act was enacted in 1961. Introduced to the House by Wayne Hays and the Senate by J. William Fulbright, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship (DDRA) is meant to advance both research and public knowledge of world regions not generally included in US curricula.
I will be returning to the National Library in Rabat and also have time to access rarer works housed in the Royal Library and private collections. In Madrid, I will conduct research at the celebrated Biblioteca Nacional de España and the Archivo Historico Nacional. In Spain, I plan to follow the trials of those Moriscos who were expelled, attempted to sneak back into Spain, but ran afoul of the Inquisition.
While I will be spending most of my time in the libraries and archives of Rabat and Madrid, I will also travel to sites where the Morisco legacy is still strongly felt in North Africa today. Moriscos founded independent polities in Tetouan and Sale in Morocco, and cities like Fez and Chefchaouen still bear their imprint. Due to the work of people like Ibn abd al-Rafi, Morisco heritage is celebrated in North Africa today. Through the Moriscos, hispanized and older andalusi forms of architecture, food, literature, and music found a place in North Africa. The Morisco expulsion offers a welcome lesson in how displaced migrants enriched their new homes.