After the fall

Over the following decades the Muslims, like the Jews just before them, were forced by the Inquisition to convert (so becoming Moriscos) or be exiled. Many “New Christians” practiced their original religion in secret while overtly enacting the rituals of “Old Christians” A large contingent followed Boabdil south to the Alpujarra mountains and thence to Fez, while others were swapped with Christians from northern Spain, a policy aimed at diluting their communities to prevent uprisings.

This did not always work, as in 1567 rebellions erupted notably in the Alpujarras, Frigiliana, and Almería, sparked by the royal ban on spoken Arabic and all Morisco customs Brutal suppression and massacres followed. The final blow came in the early 17^th century when an estimated 300,000 remaining Moriscos were expelled from Valencia to North Africa. Like much of andalusi agriculture, the Valencian rice fields languished without their industrious workers and, ironically, the Inquisition lost a profitable source of fines. The Spanish economy crashed and, for a while, rice went out of fashion.