The Morisco-Catholic Experience
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The experience of the Morisca Maria Ruiz, as recounted by Cook, is one that I imagine to realistically reflect the experiences of many Moriscos who recently moved from Spain to New Spain away from their families during the Inquisition. Moriscos/Moriscas were Muslims and their descendants in Spain and New Spain who held a range of individual beliefs in relation to the Islamic faith, as well as representing “a spectrum of beliefs and practices that ranged from adherence to Islam to considering themselves “good” Catholics” (Cook, 85). It is clear that the high risk environment that Moriscos/Moriscas found themselves in had a strong influence over what they believed to be the correct way to observe their faith or even changes in their beliefs themselves. Imperial powers in Spanish America sought to indoctrinate indigenous communities into converting to Catholicism as the only correct faith, thus Islam was seen as a faith that was in direct conflict and a threat to the colonial project with its differing belief system, such that the two were “deemed by the Catholic authorities to be mutually exclusive” (Cook, 85).
There are many possible explanations that we could present when imagining what Ruiz’s motivations may have been when she “denounced herself to Mexican inquisitors”, however one that sticks out to me most is a combination of a physical and emotional detachment from her parents who taught her her faith and the constant fear surrounding being a Morisca under Catholic authority causing her to search for a way out. That is to say that by being so far from the people who instilled the Muslim beliefs in her perhaps meant that she also felt a detachment from the faith itself, especially considering she lived in a place where she had to fear being denounced and punished for practising her faith. It is also probable that her beliefs were moulded by her environment as a result of the repression of outwards signs of Islam in which Moriscos had to “practice Islam in the privacy of their homes”, as well as the indoctrination society was subjected to whereby Catholicism was the only right religion (Cook, 82). I believe it possible that Ruiz’s religious beliefs did in fact become a mixture of Islamic and Catholic beliefs because of the “charged environment and increasing inquisitorial persecution” that positioned the Qur’an’s teachings as “critical differences in belief and as dangerous” (Cook, 84).