About twenty specialists will offer new perspectives on the 1526 decree mandating the forced conversion of the Mudejars in the Crown of Aragon, which marks its 500th anniversary this year. Under the title “A Familiar Islam,” leading experts in the field will gather from October 26 to 28 in the auditorium of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Alicante.
Leading experts such as Eva Lapiedra, Brian Catlos, Bernard Vincent, and Bruno Pomara will analyze one of the most decisive episodes in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, which had economic, social, religious, and political consequences of enormous significance. The opening lecture will be delivered by Eva Lapiedra Gutiérrez, a professor at the University of Alicante, who will speak on “Converts, Apostates, and Defectors in the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile: Perceptions and Terminology.”
The forum was organized by the Valencian Regional Government as part of the Grants for Established Research Groups (CIAICO) project and is sponsored by the Las Fuentes Foundation and the Medinas Network, which has just unveiled an innovative interactive map highlighting the main sites of the Al-Andalus legacy on the Iberian Peninsula.
The three-day event will begin at 10:00 a.m. each day, with morning and afternoon sessions, and will feature a discussion following the presentations. The closing lecture will take place on Wednesday, October 28, and will focus on “Linguistic Diversity and Cultural Translation in Islam in the Crown of Aragon,” presented by Ovidi Carbonell, a professor at the University of Salamanca.
The conference’s scientific committee consists of Luis F. Bernabé Pons (UA), Borja Franco Llopis (UNED), Francisco J. Moreno Díaz del Campo (UCLM), Bruno Pomara (UV), and Belén Cuenca (Independent).
Thousands of Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity in Aragon in 1526, twenty-four years after the conversion in Castile. Overall, experts estimate that up to 400,000 Mudejars were forced to abandon their religious faith. The new Moorish minority was definitively expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1609.
