We Are All Moors

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Q and A with Anouar Majid

Book Information

$24.95 cloth/jacket
ISBN: 978-0-8166-6079-7

1. What does the title of your book mean?
That we are all Muslim, for, as you know, Muslims were commonly known as Moors in medieval Spain and throughout much of Spanish history. It is an incredibly charged designation that encompasses centuries of clashes; it embodies Spain’s perennial fear of the Other, the poor immigrant, the old barbarian, the gypsy.

2. So are you saying that we are all Muslim now?
In a hypothetical way, yes. My book shows that Spain, the first nation-state in history, built its identity at the expense of its mightiest rival, Islam. Gradually, as other European entities started defining themselves as nations and empires, the Moor, the quintessential Other in European history, the element against which Europe defined itself, became a ready-made template for all minorities. In this way, Jews, Africans, dark-skinned people, immigrants, and different language minorities became, at the symbolic level, the children of Islam.

3. So to be a minority—any minority—is to be a Moor?
Yes, as far-fetched as this answer may strike you. But—and here’s the greatest paradox of all—for Europe to be Europe and Spain to be Spain both entities needed to wage an all-out war on Islam and, at the same, preserve Islam’s spectral traits in order to maintain continental or national unity. In simpler terms, as much as we despise the stranger in our midst, it is the stranger who reminds us of who we truly are. Without Islam, Europe and Spain, as we know them, and the way they know themselves, would have been unthinkable. The same goes for other modern nations, although we need to calibrate our statements and analyses to account for new historical developments. One may detect paradigms in history, but history doesn't wear the same garb twice.

4. One could say, then, that Islam played a role in the rise of the modern world.
Absolutely, because if you think about it, although Christianity preceded Islam by more than six centuries, one could still claim that it was the birth of Islam that gave rise to Christian Europe. In this sense, Islam was the midwife to Europe and, later, the West. The Islamic conquests were countered by the Church’s appeals to faith and holy wars. Out of these jihads and counter-jihads, both Europe and Islam shaped their identities.

5. So Islam is part of the West’s DNA, so to speak.
Right. For instance, as much as Spaniards hate Moors, they realize that they are also partly Moorish, both genetically and culturally. There are more than 200 festivals in Spain of Moors and Christians (fiesta de moros y cristianos) in which the old battles are reenacted every year. Yet, despite this never-ending annual dramas of Christian triumphalism, participants in the festivals enjoy playing the role of Moor. In one fiesta, one festero boasted to a scholar that despite appearances to the contrary, “we are all Moors,” implying that all participants in the festival, and, perhaps, all Spaniards are, in fact, more Moorish than many would care to admit. This is where my title came from. A man actually said this in Villena, in the Spanish region of Alicante, during their 1996 festival.

6. The book deals with various minorities, such as Jews, Africans in America, and immigrants. Your chapter on “Muslim Jews” is most intriguing. What is it about?
It’s about the Jews who identified so closely with Muslims that, in many cases, they rejected European civilization as a vulgar upstart, even when Europeans where vastly more advanced and stronger than Arabs or Muslims, as was the case in the 19th century. Jewish history is, in many ways, incomprehensible without its long cohabitation with Islam. In fact, I have learned that even anti-Semitism is, in some ways, one of the manifestations of the long Christian crusade against Islam. For much of European history, the Jews were caught up in the war between the two religious behemoths; they were seen as the natural allies of Muslims and were, therefore, persecuted accordingly. They were fifth columnists in Christian lands, the Muslims at home. This view of Jews persisted well into the 20th century, even in Nazi Germany, when the two groups were, at least rhetorically, treated interchangeably.

If Muslims and Jews were to become fully aware of their historical linkages and old affinities, they might quite possibly see each other in a different light. If, for instance, a good deal of Jewish theology and philosophy developed in the relatively safe lands of Islam, the study of Islam owes a huge debt to 19th-century Jewish scholars. Benjamin Disraeli, the famous 19th-century British statesman, identified with Muslims and Arabs so strongly that people attributed his affinities to his “Semitic” heritage. This history gives me hope. I have never been more excited about researching and writing a chapter as I have this one. The long association of Jew and Muslim in Christian thought came as a total discovery to me, even though, growing up in Tangier, I always felt that Jews were an inextricable part of us. Historically, Judaism preceded Islam in Morocco by quite a stretch.

7. How about Africans?
They were among the first Old World people to land on the vast continent Columbus opened up for conquest and exploitation, at least a century before the English sailed to Virginia and New England. As a rule, the first Muslims who came to America were enslaved Africans. They were the New World Moors who fought tenaciously against their degradation, especially when they thought of themselves as better educated, more civilized, and truer to the spirit of religion than their white European Christian masters. Again, Islam, if you looked a little carefully, is all over American history. The election of the African-American Muslim and Minnesotan Keith Ellison to Congress in November 2006 was the culmination of a long history of perseverance in the face of ostracism. Exactly two years later, Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a Kenyan man from a Muslim background, was elected president of the United States in one of the most exciting presidential elections in world history. We had two landmarks elections in two years, and in both campaigns the presence of Islam was strongly felt.

8. And Latinos?
They are Moors, too! Some are genetically so (if DNA testing counts for anything), but, by and large, they are Moors to the extent that they are the most visible minority in today’s America. They are also the largest immigrant group today, and that makes them doubly—as are Moroccans in Spain and Europe—marginal. The late Samuel Huntington implied that one can’t build a nation on multiculturalism; one needs a clear enemy to rally people around a flag, an idea. So the Hispanic immigrant, or just the Hispanic tout court, is now America’s Moor.

9. What else do you say in your book?
Well, I do talk about the need to re-imagine our identities—national or even personal. Nationalism is an outdated system of social organization. The very concept of minority strikes me as a false and dangerous category. There are no minorities; we are all strangers to one another, or we are not.

10. Last question: Why is publishing the book in 2009 significant?
Because 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of the Moriscos, an event that might even be considered a prelude to the worst horrors of the 20th century, including the Holocaust. At least 300, 000 Spaniards (one fifth of Spain’s population), were rounded up and deported in an operation that lasted five years. Many never made it to their destinations in North Africa, Turkey, and other places. The entire armed forces of Spain and many foreign vessels were involved. This happened at a time when Spain had entered a period of weakness, if not outright decline. Some probably thought that cleansing Spain of Muslim impurities might help reverse this decline, but no blessings fell on Spain, as the nation that spearheaded the discovery of America kept retreating until it became an insignificant player on the world stage.

Now think of the proverbial 12 million illegal aliens in the United States, or their Muslim counterparts in Europe. What would happen if the economy kept getting worse and people lost all hope and started looking for someone to blame? Who might be the scapegoat? The history of the Moors and Moriscos in Spain teaches us a lesson that we might forget at our own peril.

Anouar Majid is author of A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America (Minnesota, 2007). He is professor of English and founding director of the Center for Global Humanities at the University of New England in Maine and editor of Tingis, a Moroccan American magazine of ideas and culture.

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Q and A with Anouar Majid Book Information		$24.95 cloth/jacket ISBN: 978-0-8166-6079-7
1. What does the title of your book mean? That we are all Muslim, for, as you know, Muslims were commonly known as Moors in medieval Spain and throughout much of Spanish history. It is an incredibly charged designation that encompasses centuries of clashes; it embodies Spain’s perennial fear of the Other, the poor immigrant, the old barbarian, the gypsy. 2. So are you saying that we are all Muslim now? In a hypothetical way, yes. My book shows that Spain, the first nation-state in history, built its identity at the expense of its mightiest rival, Islam. Gradually, as other European entities started defining themselves as nations and empires, the Moor, the quintessential Other in European history, the element against which Europe defined itself, became a ready-made template for all minorities. In this way, Jews, Africans, dark-skinned people, immigrants, and different language minorities became, at the symbolic level, the children of Islam. 3. So to be a minority—any minority—is to be a Moor? Yes, as far-fetched as this answer may strike you. But—and here’s the greatest paradox of all—for Europe to be Europe and Spain to be Spain both entities needed to wage an all-out war on Islam and, at the same, preserve Islam’s spectral traits in order to maintain continental or national unity. In simpler terms, as much as we despise the stranger in our midst, it is the stranger who reminds us of who we truly are. Without Islam, Europe and Spain, as we know them, and the way they know themselves, would have been unthinkable. The same goes for other modern nations, although we need to calibrate our statements and analyses to account for new historical developments. One may detect paradigms in history, but history doesn't wear the same garb twice. 4. One could say, then, that Islam played a role in the rise of the modern world. Absolutely, because if you think about it, although Christianity preceded Islam by more than six centuries, one could still claim that it was the birth of Islam that gave rise to Christian Europe. In this sense, Islam was the midwife to Europe and, later, the West. The Islamic conquests were countered by the Church’s appeals to faith and holy wars. Out of these jihads and counter-jihads, both Europe and Islam shaped their identities. 5. So Islam is part of the West’s DNA, so to speak. Right. For instance, as much as Spaniards hate Moors, they realize that they are also partly Moorish, both genetically and culturally. There are more than 200 festivals in Spain of Moors and Christians (fiesta de moros y cristianos) in which the old battles are reenacted every year. Yet, despite this never-ending annual dramas of Christian triumphalism, participants in the festivals enjoy playing the role of Moor. In one fiesta, one festero boasted to a scholar that despite appearances to the contrary, “we are all Moors,” implying that all participants in the festival, and, perhaps, all Spaniards are, in fact, more Moorish than many would care to admit. This is where my title came from. A man actually said this in Villena, in the Spanish region of Alicante, during their 1996 festival. 6. The book deals with various minorities, such as Jews, Africans in America, and immigrants. Your chapter on “Muslim Jews” is most intriguing. What is it about? It’s about the Jews who identified so closely with Muslims that, in many cases, they rejected European civilization as a vulgar upstart, even when Europeans where vastly more advanced and stronger than Arabs or Muslims, as was the case in the 19th century. Jewish history is, in many ways, incomprehensible without its long cohabitation with Islam. In fact, I have learned that even anti-Semitism is, in some ways, one of the manifestations of the long Christian crusade against Islam. For much of European history, the Jews were caught up in the war between the two religious behemoths; they were seen as the natural allies of Muslims and were, therefore, persecuted accordingly. They were fifth columnists in Christian lands, the Muslims at home. This view of Jews persisted well into the 20th century, even in Nazi Germany, when the two groups were, at least rhetorically, treated interchangeably. If Muslims and Jews were to become fully aware of their historical linkages and old affinities, they might quite possibly see each other in a different light. If, for instance, a good deal of Jewish theology and philosophy developed in the relatively safe lands of Islam, the study of Islam owes a huge debt to 19th-century Jewish scholars. Benjamin Disraeli, the famous 19th-century British statesman, identified with Muslims and Arabs so strongly that people attributed his affinities to his “Semitic” heritage. This history gives me hope. I have never been more excited about researching and writing a chapter as I have this one. The long association of Jew and Muslim in Christian thought came as a total discovery to me, even though, growing up in Tangier, I always felt that Jews were an inextricable part of us. Historically, Judaism preceded Islam in Morocco by quite a stretch. 7. How about Africans? They were among the first Old World people to land on the vast continent Columbus opened up for conquest and exploitation, at least a century before the English sailed to Virginia and New England. As a rule, the first Muslims who came to America were enslaved Africans. They were the New World Moors who fought tenaciously against their degradation, especially when they thought of themselves as better educated, more civilized, and truer to the spirit of religion than their white European Christian masters. Again, Islam, if you looked a little carefully, is all over American history. The election of the African-American Muslim and Minnesotan Keith Ellison to Congress in November 2006 was the culmination of a long history of perseverance in the face of ostracism. Exactly two years later, Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a Kenyan man from a Muslim background, was elected president of the United States in one of the most exciting presidential elections in world history. We had two landmarks elections in two years, and in both campaigns the presence of Islam was strongly felt. 8. And Latinos? They are Moors, too! Some are genetically so (if DNA testing counts for anything), but, by and large, they are Moors to the extent that they are the most visible minority in today’s America. They are also the largest immigrant group today, and that makes them doubly—as are Moroccans in Spain and Europe—marginal. The late Samuel Huntington implied that one can’t build a nation on multiculturalism; one needs a clear enemy to rally people around a flag, an idea. So the Hispanic immigrant, or just the Hispanic tout court, is now America’s Moor. 9. What else do you say in your book? Well, I do talk about the need to re-imagine our identities—national or even personal. Nationalism is an outdated system of social organization. The very concept of minority strikes me as a false and dangerous category. There are no minorities; we are all strangers to one another, or we are not. 10. Last question: Why is publishing the book in 2009 significant? Because 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of the Moriscos, an event that might even be considered a prelude to the worst horrors of the 20th century, including the Holocaust. At least 300, 000 Spaniards (one fifth of Spain’s population), were rounded up and deported in an operation that lasted five years. Many never made it to their destinations in North Africa, Turkey, and other places. The entire armed forces of Spain and many foreign vessels were involved. This happened at a time when Spain had entered a period of weakness, if not outright decline. Some probably thought that cleansing Spain of Muslim impurities might help reverse this decline, but no blessings fell on Spain, as the nation that spearheaded the discovery of America kept retreating until it became an insignificant player on the world stage. Now think of the proverbial 12 million illegal aliens in the United States, or their Muslim counterparts in Europe. What would happen if the economy kept getting worse and people lost all hope and started looking for someone to blame? Who might be the scapegoat? The history of the Moors and Moriscos in Spain teaches us a lesson that we might forget at our own peril. Anouar Majid is author of A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America (Minnesota, 2007). He is professor of English and founding director of the Center for Global Humanities at the University of New England in Maine and editor of Tingis, a Moroccan American magazine of ideas and culture.