A bloody Crescent: Race, Kinship, and Rebellion in Moorish Spain
How Visigothic and Euro-latin Muslims Began the Reconquista and Resisted Arab and African Domination in al-Andalus
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I was watching lilly Gaddis the other day, and she featured this leftist “Prof. Moore PHD" a goofy, ‘white’, (redheaded…. might be a jew. no offense to our celtic brothers, but jews very very often have red hair, its a hereditary trait among them) and this goof ball starts claiming that, of course, the White race doesn’t exist. it was invented to (insert oppression) black people. While black people formed a unique identity to defend themselves, or like sing Kumbaya or something like this. you know the type and the buzz words they say. bunch of bullshit
Anyways I was watching him, and thinking about my previous articles mentioning the Moors, and Moorish invasions as the beginnings of “White supremacy” as an ideology, developed in self defense due to the actions of Arab,Berber, and Black African Moors.
When we talk about the reconquista or the crusades as an example of White self defense, those on the left and normie-con right, both like to pivot towards religion. And claim these were religious, not racial wars.
https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/readings/urban.html
If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it. "All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ!
Even in the Crusades, viewed seperately from the reconquista as much as it can be, there was racial language, we see here, with the words of Pope Urban as he preached the sermon of the first crusade, that this episode was seen through a racialized viewpoint
>“ A race utterly alienated from God has violently invaded the lands of those Christians of the east. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it. "All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ!”
A people
This is particular language, that sets aside the subject as a unitary. But even this isn’t enough. interestingly though. We can take the topic further.
In the islamic world, under the first Caliphates, Rashidun and Ummayyad, Arabs were a racial, ruling caste. They didn’t even allow non-arabs to convert to islam. They much preferred them as Dhimmi’s, paying Jizya, since the arabs had no taxes, the functioning of the state depended on the taxes extracted from the non-arab population. Iran/Persia had a multi-century struggle against Arabism, socially, and theologically. Their conversion to Shia islam was part and parcel of this. a religion of martyrs and rebels, and partisans was perfect for a people that felt so emasculated by the Arabs.
Just so, this situation was repeated in Iberia. Among the Christians, the reconquista began when Pelayo refused the tribute of 100 virgins. a tribute the Moors demanded of the Iberians, 100 girls handed over as sexual slaves each year. 50 Noble(Gothic) and 50 common (Latin, Ibero-celtic, Romano-Celtiberian). But it wasn’t only Christians participating. The entire time, another struggle was waged, behind the scenes, among the Visigothic Nobles and Mozarab(Romano-celtiberians) that had converted to Islam. For these people, Al-Andalus was not the “Convivencia”, and Utopian religious harmony of the leftist historians. Their reality was racial oppression. They converted to try and escape it, and the arabs ridiculed them, and in some cases even increased the taxes and oppression. So Heroes rose, and a distinctively, racial rebellion among White muslims in Moorish Spain began. A rebellion that cooperated on numerous occasions with the Asturian reconquista, and the raids of the Franks. What connected them to the Franks, basques , and Asturians, that caused them to sympathize with these nations instead of their co-religionists and fellow muslims? Well you will discover that for yourself.
Rethinking Race, Rebellion, and a racialized Ummah in al-Andalus
The Islamic conquest of Iberia in 711 AD marked the beginning of nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule in parts of the Iberian Peninsula, an era often romanticized in modern discourse as a golden age of tolerance and cultural pluralism through a concept that leftwing Spanish thinkers call “Convivencia”. Yet, beneath the architecture, poetry, and philosophical exchange lay deep social stratifications and simmering ethnic tensions. One of the least examined facets of this period is the internal resistance to Arab and Berber rule from within the Muslim population itself—especially among Muwallads, the descendants of native Iberians who had converted to Islam, and Saqaliba, European slaves who rose to prominence in the courts and armies of al-Andalus. These rebellions were not only political or religious in nature—they were ethnically and racially charged and focused.
Modern progressives and critical race theorists have argued that race, as a concept, is a social construct invented during the transatlantic slave trade or European colonialism. It is often claimed that in the medieval world, especially in Islamic contexts, religion and class trumped racial distinctions. This narrative, frankly, ignores the historical record. In the case of al-Andalus, there is ample evidence—from primary chronicles, court poetry, tax codes, and military appointments—to demonstrate that Arab rulers saw themselves as racially and culturally superior to Africans, Berbers and European converts to Islam. And beneath themselves they established a hierarchy, Arab, Berber, African, and then the Muwalladi and Mozarab Christians, led by Visigothic client rulers. These attitudes were not only ideological but institutional, reflected in discriminatory laws, land seizures, taxes, and exclusion from power.
This essay challenges sanitized narratives of Islamic Spain by foregrounding the racial and kin-based rebellion from within. It focuses on how native European Muslims—particularly of Visigothic and Hispano-Roman descent—formed a submerged front of the Reconquista. They rebelled not only as subjects of an oppressive regime, but as a racially conscious population resisting colonial rule imposed by Arab and African elites. This internal resistance is visible in the rebellions of figures such as the Banu Qasi, Umar ibn Hafsun, ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Marwan al-Jillīqī, and the later Saqaliba rulers. Though these men were all Muslims, their sense of kinship with the Christian populations outside the Umayyad state—based on shared ethnicity, ancestry, and even physical appearance- superseded religious affiliation.
Much of this racialized consciousness was articulated through the Shuʿubiyya movement—originally an Eastern Islamic intellectual current which rejected Arab ethnic supremacy in favor of cultural pluralism. In Iberia, however, Shuʿubiyya took on a sharper edge. Treatises such as Ibn Garcia’s Risāla openly attacked the Arabs as culturally inferior to Romans, Goths, and Persians. Others, like Ibn Qutiyya and Habib al-Saqaliba, promoted a sense of dignity and cultural superiority among European Muslims in the face of Arab elitism. These thinkers and rebels were not merely dissatisfied with taxation or governance—they were rejecting a racial order that placed them permanently below the Arab aristocracy, despite shared faith.
Moreover, the presence of Saqaliba—Slavic and other European slaves captured and converted to Islam—provides an additional lens on racial identity. Many Saqaliba rose to great prominence and even founded their own taifa kingdoms after the collapse of the Caliphate. Their loyalty often lay with their own kin and class, and their writings likewise suggest pride in European ancestry and resentment at Arab dominance.
I will not deny the real moments of coexistence or intermarriage in al-Andalus. Rather, it seeks to correct a scholarly imbalance: the failure to acknowledge that medieval Muslims, like their Christian contemporaries, could and did act according to racial, ethnic, and kin-based solidarity, and that Islam was not an equalizer strong enough to erase these bonds.
In doing so, we reframe the Reconquista not only as an external campaign by Christian powers but as a two-front struggle—one waged also from within, by those of European descent who had converted to Islam yet refused to accept the racialized social order imposed by Arab and African conquerors. These rebellions—political, military, intellectual—are part of the same story of Iberian resistance. By tracing this inner front, we offer a deeper understanding of how race and kinship shaped identity, resistance, and historical memory in one of the most complex societies of the medieval world.
Chapter 1: The Invasion and Its Racial Undertones
In the summer of 711 AD, the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate crossed the narrow straits between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Led by the Berber(Half black, Sudan) general Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād and later reinforced by the Arab commander Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr, the Muslim armies shattered the Visigothic Kingdom in a matter of years. What began as a punitive expedition quickly turned into a permanent occupation. Within a generation, nearly all of Iberia—save for the mountainous northern regions—had been absorbed into the dār al-Islām.
The traditional narrative of this invasion focuses on religious fervor, opportunism, or Byzantine intrigue. Yet behind the motivations of the Arab and Berber invaders lay a powerful, if rarely acknowledged, undercurrent: racial and sexual chauvinism. Arab chroniclers and later Islamic historians—including Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and al-Maqqarī—frequently emphasized the acquisition of booty, particularly “Ivory pale flowers” female captives, as a divine reward for conquest. In one legendary episode, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād is said to have motivated his troops not only by invoking the promise of paradise but by assuring them of the wealth and women of Iberia.
The promises made to African and Arab troops before and during the conquest were not only economic or spiritual—they were racialized and gendered. White women, especially noble Visigothic captives, were considered the most valuable part of the spoils. The exoticism and desirability of fair-skinned European women in Islamic slave markets is well attested in Arabic literature, particularly during the Abbasid and Andalusi golden ages. Enslaved women from Iberia—blonde, blue-eyed, and typically Christian—were quickly absorbed into harems and elite households, where they were often renamed, forcibly converted, and sexualized.
Accounts from Christian sources parallel this narrative. In the Chronicle of 754, an early Mozarabic text, the Arab invaders are described as “oppressors who took wives and daughters as concubines” and as men who imposed “shameful tribute” on the vanquished. This tribute often included the annual surrender of Christian virgins to Muslim lords—a theme that would echo in Iberian memory and poetry for centuries. Whether apocryphal or real, these accounts reflect a perception of the conquest as a racial and sexual trauma as much as a political defeat.
Modern academic discourse often sidesteps the racial implications of this conquest. Influenced by postmodern skepticism of biological race, many contemporary scholars emphasize religion, language, and class as primary vectors of identity. According to this view, the Islamic ummah was a spiritually egalitarian society in which Arabs, Berbers, Persians, Africans, and Europeans could coexist under shared religious law. Yet the evidence from early al-Andalus undermines this theory. In practice, Arab rulers treated both Africans and native Europeans as subordinate populations. Ethnic descent mattered—deeply.
Arab elite viewed themselves as both religiously and ethnically superior. Berbers—despite being fellow Muslims—were treated as second-class soldiers and administrators. The earliest divisions within al-Andalus were drawn not between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between Arab conquerors and everyone else. Even in the late 8th and early 9th centuries, Muwallads—converted Iberians—were still paying higher taxes and barred from military leadership. The Spanish historian Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, a descendant of Visigothic royalty himself, chronicled how his own people were systematically excluded from power despite their conversion to Islam.
In this light, the conquest of al-Andalus must be reinterpreted not only as an act of religious expansion or political consolidation, but also as a racialized colonial enterprise, with sexual violence and ethnic stratification embedded in its foundation. Arab and Berber troops were not simply motivated by piety or spoils—they were participating in a racial conquest of a “white” European population. This had long-lasting effects, both materially—in the formation of harems, slave markets, and dynastic marriages—and ideologically, in shaping how Europeans and Muslims would perceive each other for centuries to come.
Indeed, it is no coincidence that some of the earliest revolts within al-Andalus came from Visigothic elites or their descendants. The desire to reassert cultural and genealogical dignity—most often through appeals to pre-Islamic ancestry—can already be seen in the resistance of Theodemir in Murcia, the privileges negotiated by Count Julian in Ceuta, and later in the fierce autonomy of regions such as Zaragoza and Toledo. These were not merely reactions to taxation or military conscription. They were early stirrings of an ethno-racial rebellion cloaked in political language.
This sets the stage for the broader argument of this thesis: that race and kinship, not just religion, shaped the political and ideological struggles within al-Andalus. The Muwallad rebellions, the rise of Shuʿubiyya thought, and the prominence of Saqaliba elites must be seen within this deeper context of a society built upon racial hierarchy and the sexual subjugation of its conquered peoples. The Islamic ummah in Iberia was fractured from the start—not merely by faith, but by phenotype, origin, and ancestry.
As we turn in the next chapter to the rise of the Muwallads, we will see that their discontent was not just economic or theological. It was rooted in racialized exclusion, a memory of conquest not as liberation but as disinheritance, and a slow-burning resistance that ultimately helped shape the destiny of Iberia from within.
Chapter 2: Muwallads and the Burden of Second-Class Islam
To understand the deep fractures within Moorish Spain, one must first grasp the plight of the Muwallads—native Iberians, primarily of Visigothic and Hispano-Roman descent, who converted to Islam following the Umayyad conquest. Though Muslim by faith, they were never accepted as equals by the Arab elite. This chapter examines in depth the lived experience, rebellion, and cultural resistance of the Muwallads, whose revolts from the 8th to 10th centuries reveal a persistent rejection of Arab racial and political dominance. These internal rebellions not only undermined the cohesion of the Umayyad emirate, but also foreshadowed the ethnonational fractures that would help shape the Reconquista.
The Making of a Marginal Class
Following the conquest of Iberia, those White Europeans (in particular the Germanic Wisi Goths) who converted to Islam became known as Muwallads—from the Arabic mawālī, meaning clients or freedmen. Conversion, however, did not guarantee equality. While in theory Islam abolished ethnic hierarchy among believers, in practice Arab tribalism reasserted itself with intensity. Arab rulers preserved a strict hierarchy that favored full-blooded Arabs, tolerated Berbers as subordinate allies, and relegated Muwallads to a quasi-client status—Muslim in name but servile in condition.
Even Berbers, who had fought and died alongside Arab generals like Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, were discriminated against. Yet Muwallads were lower still. Often landless peasants or impoverished urban dwellers, they lacked tribal backing or martial tradition. Despite their shared faith, they faced:
Heavier taxation than Arabs (sometimes equivalent to or exceeding that of Christians),
Disqualification from holding high office or judicial posts,
Social and marital exclusion (e.g. forbidden from marrying Arab women of noble descent),
Cultural ridicule in Arab Andalusi literature.
The Muwallads were caught in a liminal identity—ostracized by the Arab ruling class, alienated from their pre-Islamic roots, and constantly reminded of their inferior status.
The Banu Qasi: Visigothic Lords in Muslim Garb
The Banu Qasi ("Sons of Cassius") represent one of the most vivid examples of how religious conversion in al-Andalus did not erase ethnic or kinship-based loyalties. Unlike the majority of Muwallads who descended from humble backgrounds, the Banu Qasi were a noble family with deep Visigothic roots, tracing their lineage to Count Cassius, a Christian noble who converted to Islam shortly after the conquest in the early 8th century. While outwardly embracing Islam, the family maintained an ethno-regional identity strongly tied to the Ebro Valley and to marital alliances with Christian neighbors—particularly the Kingdom of Pamplona (Navarre).
The founder of the lineage, Count Cassius of Zaragoza, is believed to have embraced Islam in the 710s to retain his lands and position. His descendants retained control over the Upper March (northern frontier regions) of al-Andalus for generations. By the mid-9th century, the Banu Qasi had become one of the most powerful Muwallad dynasties in Iberia—rivaling the central Umayyad court in Córdoba.
Despite their conversion, the Banu Qasi retained their Visigothic aristocratic heritage, operating more like semi-independent lords than Arab-appointed governors. Their power base was centered in Toledo, Zaragoza, and the Ebro valley—regions far from the Umayyad core, with strong Christian populations and enduring Visigothic traditions. Even as they engaged with Islamic governance, the Banu Qasi never fully assimilated into Arab or Berber norms.
One of the most telling features of the Banu Qasi was their persistent intermarriage with Christian royalty. The most famous example is Musa ibn Musa ibn Qasi, the most prominent leader of the dynasty, whose mother was a Christian noblewoman and whose sister was married to the King of Pamplona, Íñigo Arista. This alliance made Musa brother-in-law to the King of Navarre, effectively tying the Muslim Banu Qasi clan into the dynastic politics of Christian northern Spain.
Such intermarriages were not aberrations—they were a deliberate strategy to preserve regional autonomy and cement the family’s identity as European rather than Arab. In this sense, the Banu Qasi resembled medieval marcher lords more than Islamic governors: loyal when convenient, rebellious when slighted, and ultimately independent in culture and ambition.
Throughout the 9th century, the Banu Qasi launched repeated revolts against the Umayyad emirs of Córdoba. Their rebellions were not merely power struggles—they represented a rejection of Arab racial hegemony and a desire to restore regional, noble-based governance.
Key revolts include:
840s–850s: Musa ibn Musa declared himself "The Third King of Spain", placing himself on equal footing with the Emir of Córdoba and the King of Pamplona. He minted his own coins and ruled from Zaragoza independently.
865–870s: Musa’s sons continued the struggle against Córdoba, sometimes in alliance with Christian forces. Their independence grew so flagrant that Córdoba launched multiple punitive campaigns, none of which succeeded in permanently subduing the family.
880s: The Banu Qasi supported or allied with Umar ibn Hafsūn’s rebellion in the south, marking a rare and ideologically significant cooperation between two ethnically European Muwallad factions opposed to Arab centralism.
Notably, the Banu Qasi frequently shifted alliances between Christian and Muslim forces depending on circumstance—but always maintained their dynastic and regional autonomy as paramount. Even when formally Muslim, their politics were often ethnically European, favoring their Gothic and Basque kin over Arab overlords and muslim co-religionists.
By the early 10th century, the Banu Qasi’s power had waned. Internal family feuds, growing Umayyad military pressure, and the rise of rival Muwallad clans led to their decline. Nevertheless, their legacy endured in three critical ways:
1. Genealogical memory: They were remembered as Iberian lords who, despite adopting Islam, maintained a non-Arab, noble identity.
2. Political impact: Their long-term defiance weakened Umayyad authority in the north, forcing the Emirs to adopt conciliatory policies or spend resources on military expeditions.
3. Ideological influence: The example of the Banu Qasi likely influenced both Umar ibn Hafsūn and later Saqaliba rulers, demonstrating that European Muslims could reject Arab supremacy while remaining rooted in local culture.
Early Rebellions and Visigothic Memory
The earliest signs of resistance came not from Christian kings but from within al-Andalus itself. In 797, Muwallads in Toledo rose up against Umayyad rule, spurred by extortionate taxation and exclusion. They were particularly enraged by the tabl—a humiliating land tax that Arabs did not pay. The rebellion was put down with extreme cruelty, but unrest simmered.
A more dramatic episode occurred in 854, again in Toledo. A charismatic leader named Gherbib, a Muwallad poet, incited revolt with fiery speeches recalling the dignity of the Visigoths and attacking Arab arrogance. In one surviving verse, he declared:
“We were kings when they were shepherds,
now they rule and call us base.
But blood remembers, and fire burns still.”
This rhetorical emphasis on noble ancestry—Visigothic, Roman, Hispano-Christian—was not mere nostalgia. It was a direct rejection of Arab supremacy and an assertion that identity, culture, and kinship still bound the Muwallads to Christian Iberia more than to the Arab East.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Marwān al-Jillīqī: The Galician Rebel
Among the most striking Muwallad figures was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Marwān al-Jillīqī, a descendant of Galicians taken captive during the early conquests. In 868, he launched a revolt in Mérida with both Muwallad and Christian allies. His rebellion was so effective that Emir Muḥammad I was forced to offer a truce, granting Ibn Marwān semi-autonomy in Badajoz.
This act—treating a Muwallad as an almost equal sovereign—was unprecedented. It revealed both the military threat posed by the Muwallads and the realignment of Iberian Muslims with their ethnic kin. Ibn Marwān surrounded himself with other Galicians and even received Christian support, demonstrating that shared blood and culture often outweighed shared creed.
Umar ibn Hafsūn: From Islam to Christianity and Back
The most significant and enduring Muwallad rebellion came under Umar ibn Hafsūn (c. 850–917). His father, of reputed Visigothic lineage, had converted to Islam, but Umar would turn against the Arab order with exceptional fervor.
From his stronghold at Bobastro in the mountains of Ronda, Umar led a thirty-year rebellion that at one point threatened to topple the Umayyad regime. His movement was more than banditry—it was structured, ideological, and multi-ethnic. Umar redistributed land, provided sanctuary for Muwallads and Christians alike, and actively sought Christian alliances.
In a pivotal moment, he reconverted to Christianity around 899, formally breaking with the Umayyads and embracing a European identity. His followers did not abandon him—in fact, his ranks swelled. This reconversion was not apostasy, but resistance. It proclaimed to Arab rulers that racial kinship and ancestral memory trumped imposed faith.
Though eventually defeated, Umar's example influenced generations of rebels and served as inspiration for later Shuʿubiyya thought.
Shuʿubiyya Thought in al-Andalus: Anti-Arabism Codified
By the 10th century, the Muwallads' resentment had begun to crystallize into intellectual opposition. Drawing from Persian anti-Arab literature, Shuʿubiyya entered Andalusi discourse.
Key figures included:
Ibn Qutiyya, a historian of Visigothic descent, who emphasized the legitimacy of Iberian rulers and downplayed Arab heroism.
Ibn Garcia, a Christian convert turned Muslim scribe, whose Risāla attacked Arab lineage, aesthetics, and culture, praising instead the contributions of Romans, Goths, and Persians.
In one section of his work, Ibn Garcia derides Arab poetry as:
“The bleating of desert nomads, ignorant of philosophy, void of logic.”
These texts were not merely literary critiques. They were statements of ethnic pride, defending non-Arab contributions to Islamic civilization and calling out the hypocrisy of Arab tribalism within the supposedly egalitarian ummah.
Kinship over Creed: The Political Evidence
Muwallad rebellions consistently aligned with Christian monarchs, even when this meant betraying their fellow muslim co-religionists. Umar ibn Hafsūn allied with Asturian and Leonese kings. Ibn Marwān received Christian reinforcements. Toledo, Zaragoza, and other cities opened negotiations with northern Christian realms.
These decisions cannot be explained merely by political expediency. They reflected a common sense that Arab rule was foreign, imposed, and racially alien. Muwallads, though Muslim, viewed the Christian Iberians not as infidels, but as brothers. Conversely, Arab rulers saw Muwallads as clients at best, liars and apostates at worst.
Conclusion: Muwallads as Internal Reconquistadors
The Muwallads represent one of the most compelling paradoxes of medieval Iberia. They were Muslims who rebelled against Islamic rule. They were converts who clung to the memory of their Christian, Gothic ancestors. They were internally colonized—and yet essential to the eventual decolonization of al-Andalus.
Their rebellions reveal that racial identity and kinship remained strong within the Islamic framework, undermining the myth of a unified ummah. By the time the Reconquista from the north advanced, it found ready collaborators within Moorish territory—descendants of the Visigoths who had never forgotten who they were.
Far from being marginal, the Muwallads were agents of historical change. Their legacy is one of resistance, memory, and the enduring power of ethnic consciousness in the face of imposed empire.
Chapter 3: The Saqaliba — Slavic Kinship, Eunuchs, and the Counter-Arab Elite
While Muwallads of Visigothic and Hispano-Roman origin asserted European identity through rebellion and aristocratic lineage, another group within al-Andalus came to power through servitude and adaptation: the Saqāliba, or Slavic Muslims. Initially imported as slaves, eunuchs, and military recruits, the Saqaliba gradually formed a powerful counter-elite that not only resisted Arab domination but, in some regions, replaced it altogether. Their presence adds a vital layer to the racial and ethnic dynamics of Islamic Spain, demonstrating that even within the enslaved classes, racial identity and kinship bonds persisted and could ultimately invert hierarchies.
Origins and Influx: The Slavic Pipeline to al-Andalus
The term Saqāliba derives from the Arabic adaptation of "Slav" and referred broadly to Slavic, Balkan, and Central European captives. These individuals were captured in turkic and Khazarian raids and wars, sold in Khazar markets, and transported primarily by Radhanite jewish slave traders, who had a long standing relationship with the Khazars due to shared jewish religion.
By the 9th century, the slave routes from Central Europe to al-Andalus were well established. Arab and Berber buyers specifically sought Saqaliba for their appearance: fair skin, light hair, and physical strength—traits idealized in Arab and Persian literature and exploited in political and sexual economies.
In al-Andalus, Saqaliba were often castrated and raised as eunuchs, trained for service in the court, administration, or harem. Others were groomed as military slaves, akin to the later Mamluks of Egypt. These young Slavs were forcibly removed from their ethnic/tribal culture, language, and religion—yet retained their phenotypic, racial identity among themselves. Over generations, they formed a distinct caste with a shared sense of origin, despite Islamization.
From Servants to Sovereigns: Saqaliba Ascendancy in Eastern al-Andalus
As the Umayyad Caliphate began to fragment in the early 11th century, the centralized Arab elite lost control over many provinces. Into this power vacuum stepped the Saqaliba. One of the most striking episodes of their rise was in the Taifa of Denia, where a Saqaliba military officer named Mujāhid al-‘Āmirī, who had been born in modern Poland, established a powerful maritime kingdom.
Mujahid had originally served under Almanzor (al-Mansur), the powerful hajib who effectively ruled Córdoba in the late 10th century. After Almanzor’s death, Mujahid seized the opportunity to carve out his own domain. From Denia and the Balearic Islands, he led naval expeditions against territories in the Western Mediterranean—not as an Arab, but as a Slavic Muslim prince.
In Denia, the ruling class was almost entirely composed of Saqaliba, many of whom had backgrounds as eunuchs, concubines, or military officers. Their rule was efficient, multicultural, and notably free from Arab tribal chauvinism. Mujahid actively patronized non-Arab scholars and poets, supported religious tolerance, and forged diplomatic ties with Christian powers.
The Taifa of Tortosa also came under Saqaliba rule, and several other city-states briefly fell under the control of Slavic-origin elites. These Saqaliba principalities did not mimic Arab aristocratic models, but developed alternative structures, favoring those with European lineage.
The Sexual Politics of Race and Eunuchism
The Saqaliba experience was profoundly shaped by sexual exploitation and racial commodification. Many Slavic boys were castrated before reaching puberty to serve as eunuchs in the palaces of Córdoba, Seville, and Zaragoza. Their bodies were seen as pure vessels of service—void of sexual threat, yet often objects of homoerotic desire with many islamic medieval commentary on hadith’s describing slavic males among the 72 virgins one could expect in islamic paradise.
Female Saqaliba were no less prized. Arab and African elite households competed for white-skinned concubines, especially blondes, viewing them as symbols of prestige and pleasure. The racial fetishization of Slavic features became so pronounced that poets and courtiers often idealized white skin as divine or "moonlike," in contrast to darker Africans or Arabs.
Though robbed of autonomy, the Saqaliba developed internal support networks within palaces and cities. Eunuchs often wielded enormous influence, acting as tutors, spies, or regents. In rare cases, Saqaliba concubines bore children who became emirs or influential princes, and many male Saqaliba attained military command. The very system designed to dehumanize them also, paradoxically, allowed some to accumulate power through proximity to the ruling elite.
Racial Kinship and Rebellion
Despite their integration into Andalusi society, the Saqaliba never fully assimilated into Arab or Berber identities. Their loyalties were often internal, communal, and pragmatic—but in times of upheaval, they were more likely to form alliances with fellow Europeans, including Muwallads and Christians.
In Mujahid al-‘Āmirī’s court, there are records of cooperation with Christian emissaries and of employing Christian mercenaries. There is no evidence that the Saqaliba saw themselves as part of a racial ummah under Arab leadership. On the contrary, their administrative styles, foreign policy, and courtly culture often drew from Byzantine, Slavic, or Roman models.
This suggests that racial memory and pan-European kinship operated even within Islamized frameworks. When Saqaliba ruled, they did not prioritize Arab customs, and their courts served as havens for other marginalized European groups, Christians and fellow Muwallads. They represented an alternative Islamic Iberia: one in which race and origin were remembered, not erased.
: The Saqaliba Legacy
The story of the Saqaliba upends the simplistic narrative of Arab-Muslim dominance in al-Andalus. These Slavic captives-turned-rulers embody a different trajectory: one in which racialized outsiders appropriated the very system that oppressed them to form counter-elites rooted in European identity.
Suffering through eunuchism, concubinage, servitude, and eventually, sovereignty, the Saqaliba retained a distinct racial consciousness. Whether through Mujahid’s Taifa kingdom or the whispers of palace intrigue in Córdoba, their presence reflects the layered ethnic tensions of Moorish Spain.
Alongside the Muwallads and the Banu Qasi, the Saqaliba illustrate how racial kinship and European solidarity endured within the Islamic world, challenging the idealized image of a borderless Muslim ummah and revealing a more complex, hierarchical, and racialized society.
Chapter 4: Arab Racial Chauvinism and the Ideology of Conquest: Sex, Slavery, and the White Female Body
The Arab-led conquest of Hispania in the early 8th century was not merely a military expansion but also an ideological and racial one. Arab chroniclers, poets, and political theorists alike embedded conquest within a framework of racial superiority, sexual entitlement, and cultural dominance. The subjugation of the Iberian peninsula was framed as not only the acquisition of territory, but also of bodies—especially white, European female bodies. This chapter investigates the intersection of Arab racial chauvinism and the political economy of sex and slavery in al-Andalus. We examine how racialized sexual desire fueled conquest, how white female captives became symbols of domination, and how Arab discourse embedded assumptions of racial hierarchy into the structures of governance and society.
Conquest as Sexual and Racial War
From the earliest Arabic accounts of the conquest of Iberia, the narrative is interwoven with sexual and racial undertones. The earliest chroniclers, including Ibn Abd al-Hakam and al-Maqqari, portrayed the conquest as a divine punishment upon the immoral Visigoths and as a fulfillment of Arab destiny. Yet beneath the theological justifications lay an implicit celebration of sexual entitlement.
Arab forces were promised not only land and booty but also access to European women. White captives, especially blondes and fair-skinned virgins, were considered prizes of conquest, mirroring Quranic descriptions of hur al-ayn (heavenly virgins with light complexions and wide eyes). This rhetoric normalized the objectification and enslavement of non-Arab women as a function of victory and moral right.
The Arab poet Marwan ibn Abi Hafsa wrote of "the fair-skinned daughters of the Franks and the Romans, clothed only in defeat." Meanwhile, Andalusi elite chronicles referenced thousands of Visigothic and Basque women taken as concubines during the initial decades of conquest. The establishment of harems in Córdoba, Seville, and Zaragoza institutionalized this dynamic.
The Harem as Racial Microcosm
The harem was not simply a space of pleasure; it was a racially organized institution. While Arab women of noble birth might retain influence through familial connections, the bulk of harem concubines were white European captives from northern Spain, Frankish Gaul, or the Slavic east. These women were often selected for their skin tone, hair color, and perceived docility.
White women were considered prestigious possessions. A noble’s worth could be judged by the quality and number of his European concubines. In the words of historian Hugh Kennedy, "the Andalusi elite took white Christian women as concubines as both sexual and political trophies." Arab literature often contrasted the white bodies of these women with the darker complexions of Arabs or Berbers, reinforcing racial aesthetics.
The caliphal harem in Córdoba was said to contain thousands of such women, and sexual access to them was a matter of courtly competition. Some women bore children who became viziers or even claimants to power. Others were absorbed and erased into history, remembered only as "blondes from the north" in passing lines of poetry.
Sexual Slavery and the Racial Marketplace
Slave markets in al-Andalus were hubs of racialized commerce. European captives fetched high prices, especially virgins, while darker-skinned slaves from Africa often occupied different roles (labor, field work, or concubinage at lower-status households).
White women from the Pyrenees, Asturias, Galicia, and Aquitaine were often taken during border raids. Captured Christian girls, especially children, were raised as Muslims and trained for palace service. These women were not only concubines, but also political instruments, used to forge alliances, reward generals, and demonstrate wealth.
Some records, such as the Chronicle of Alfonso III, decry the "abduction of the flower of our maidens by the Saracens." While Christian sources are certainly polemical, even Muslim chronicles do not shy away from boasting about the capture of "noble daughters of the Christians." The Qur’anic and Hadith-based sanctioning of sexual slavery reinforced this system.
Arab Racial Theories and Superiority Ideology
The Islamic world of the 8th to 10th centuries was permeated by pre-Islamic Arab ethnocentrism. Arabs often viewed themselves as the noblest of peoples due to their lineage, language, and proximity to revelation. Non-Arab Muslims, especially converts (mawali), were considered socially inferior.
This chauvinism extended into racial discourse. Arab authors like Jahiz (while later critical of Arab racism) recorded widespread beliefs about the beauty, intelligence, and sexual desirability of various peoples. Among Arabs, the White European woman was both fetishized and symbolically dominated.
Some Arabs believed that interbreeding with white women would "soften" their features or elevate their lineage. Children born of European concubines were often raised as Arabs, but the mother’s origin could both aid or impede their social rise. In court poetry and scientific treatises alike, there emerged a proto-racial hierarchy: Arabs atop, followed by Persians and Berbers, with Africans and Europeans variably slotted depending on the context.
White slaves, despite their enslavement, were often viewed as more physically attractive than darker ones. Yet they were also considered racially inferior in culture and intellect. This contradiction defined Arab chauvinism: idealizing the white female form while dismissing her as spiritually and civilizationally lesser.
Muwallad and Christian Reactions
The racialized sexual domination of European women did not go unnoticed by Muwallads or Christians. For native Iberian Muslims of Visigothic descent, the sight of their own women serving in Arab harems was both humiliating and enraging. It deepened the sense of cultural betrayal and racial subjugation.
Some Muwallad rebellions, such as those led by Ibn Marwan and Umar ibn Hafsun, were fueled in part by the desire to resist Arab sexual dominance. Chronicles from the Hafsunid rebellion describe captured Arab harems being returned to local families or protected from violation.
Christian polemicists, such as Eulogius of Córdoba, used the abuse of Christian women as evidence of Islamic barbarism. Martyr literature from Córdoba often emphasized the fate of young girls taken into harems, and the shame of apostasy through concubinage.
Conclusion: Race, Sex, and Sovereignty
The Arab conquest of Iberia must be understood not merely as a geopolitical event but as an act deeply tied to racialized sexual conquest. Arab elites not only ruled Iberia; they reshaped its demographic, erotic, and psychological landscape. Through the abduction, enslavement, and exploitation of White women, they enacted a symbolic inversion of power that transcended battlefield victories.
Yet this domination sowed the seeds of resistance. Muwallads, Saqaliba, and Christian chroniclers alike perceived the racial dimensions of their subjugation. Rebellion, in this context, was not just about faith or land, but about identity, pride, and reclaiming the bodies and honor of a people.
In the next chapter, we will explore the ideological and literary dimensions of resistance—especially the rise of Shu‘ubiyya in al-Andalus, and the ways in which non-Arab Muslims began to articulate a counter-narrative of racial and cultural autonomy.
: Shu‘ŭbiyya in al-Andalus — Ideology, Literature, and the Birth of Islamic Anti-Arabism
The racial and cultural discontent that simmered beneath the surface of al-Andalus did not manifest solely through military rebellion or passive resistance. By the 9th and 10th centuries, it had coalesced into a robust intellectual and ideological tradition: Shu‘ŭbiyya, an anti-Arab movement that originated in the Eastern Islamic world but found renewed life in the western provinces, particularly among Muwallads, Saqaliba, and non-Arab Muslim elites of Iberia. This chapter explores the rise of Shu‘ŭbiyya in al-Andalus as a form of racial and cultural resistance, analyzing its philosophical underpinnings, poetic expressions, and political ramifications.
Origins of Shu‘ŭbiyya in the Islamic World
Shu‘ŭbiyya derives its name from the Quranic verse (49:13) that reminds mankind that they were made into "nations and tribes (shu‘ūb wa qabā’il)" to know one another, not to dominate. Originally emerging in Abbasid Persia, the movement was a response to early Arab imperial chauvinism. Persians, who had converted to Islam en masse, found themselves second-class citizens in a caliphate that valued Arab lineage above piety or intellect.
Shu‘ŭbiyya thinkers sought to elevate non-Arab peoples, especially Persians, by celebrating their pre-Islamic civilizations, linguistic richness, and contributions to Islamic culture. Poets like Bashshar ibn Burd and scholars like al-Jahiz (though himself Arab) recorded critiques of Arab arrogance and defenses of Persian cultural superiority.
Shu‘ŭbiyya Comes West: The Iberian Recontextualization
While the early Shu‘ŭbiyya debates took place in Baghdad and Nishapur, the intellectual spark traveled westward through Muslim Spain’s interconnected elite networks. Al-Andalus, especially under the Umayyads, became a rigidly hierarchical society in which Arab birth conferred privilege in politics, the military, and religious institutions.
For the Muwallads, Saqaliba, and even some Berber nobles, Shu‘ŭbiyya offered an ideological framework to reject Arab supremacy without rejecting Islam. It allowed European Muslims to assert their own dignity, lineage, and civilizational value within an Islamic idiom.
The movement took on new dimensions in al-Andalus, where the racial divide was not between Arab and Persian, but between Arab and European. Here, Shu‘ŭbiyya became an instrument of proto-nationalism, giving voice to a pan-Iberian resistance rooted in shared kinship, memory, and culture.
Key Figures and Texts in Andalusi Shu‘ŭbiyya
While few texts survive under the banner of Shu‘ŭbiyya in Spain, several works and figures reflect its core themes:
Ibn Gharsiya (d. c. 1085): A Muwallad court secretary in Denia under the Saqaliba ruler Mujahid al-‘Amiri, Ibn Gharsiya authored the Epistle of the Shu‘ŭbī (Risālat al-Shu‘ūbī), one of the clearest expressions of anti-Arab sentiment in al-Andalus. In it, he decries the cultural stagnation and tribalism of Arabs, elevating the literary and political achievements of non-Arabs—especially the Saqaliba, Berbers, and Iberians.
"They boast of riding camels and living in tents... while we have built cities, governed justly, and penned poetry that puts their mutterings to shame."
Ibn Hazm (d. 1064): Though not explicitly a Shu‘ŭbī, Ibn Hazm, an Andalusi of mixed Arab and Iberian descent, often challenged Arab genealogical claims. He argued for the equal dignity of converts, asserting that true nobility lay in piety, not blood. In his Jamharat Ansāb al-‘Arab, he ridiculed fabricated Arab genealogies used to secure court positions.
Court Poets and Secretaries: Many anonymous Muwallad and Saqaliba bureaucrats expressed Shu‘ŭbiyya themes through poetry and prose, mocking Arab customs, glorifying European ancestry, and emphasizing administrative competence over tribal lineage.
Literary and Cultural Themes
Shu‘ŭbiyya literature in al-Andalus often juxtaposed Arab backwardness with non-Arab sophistication. While Persians had their glorious Sassanid past to draw upon, Iberians cited Roman, Visigothic, and even Celtiberian legacies.
Themes included:
The rustic simplicity of Arab nomads vs. the urban sophistication of European converts
The nobility of letters and law vs. the arrogance of lineage and deserts
The idea that Arabs had merely received revelation, but others had preserved and expanded it
This literature served both as catharsis and critique—an internal resistance that sought to remake Islam in Iberian image, rather than simply repudiate it.
Political Impact and Legacy
Shu‘ŭbiyya in al-Andalus was not a movement of mere words. It coincided with and, in some cases, inspired real political challenges to Arab hegemony:
The Hafsunid rebellion had clear Shu‘ŭbī undertones, even if not explicitly named as such. Umar ibn Hafsun’s alliance with Christian forces, Muwallads, and even Saqaliba echoed the movement’s ideal of a non-Arab Iberian Islam.
Saqaliba-led taifas, such as Denia and Tortosa, operated on anti-Arab principles of meritocracy and multiethnic governance.
Even in Córdoba, non-Arab elites began to displace Arab tribal claimants in bureaucratic positions during times of crisis.
Ultimately, the Andalusi Shu‘ŭbiyya movement contributed to the fragmentation of the Umayyad ideal. It accelerated the rise of regional identities, local loyalties, and a more pluralistic—if unstable—political landscape.
While the Reconquista is typically framed as a Christian endeavor, Shu‘ŭbiyya reveals that internal Muslim critiques of Arabism were already fracturing the Islamic polity from within. These critiques were not theological heresies, but ethno-racial awakenings couched in the language of faith and literature.
Conclusion: Shu‘ŭbiyya and the Iberian Reclamation of Islam
The Shu‘ŭbiyya of al-Andalus was a powerful intellectual movement that allowed Muwallads, Saqaliba, and others to articulate racial dignity, cultural autonomy, and political legitimacy within an Islamic context.
Through poetry, politics, and rebellion, the Shu‘ŭbīyūn of Iberia resisted the erasure of their heritage and laid the groundwork for later European-Muslim syntheses. They stand as testament to the fact that within the Islamic ummah, race mattered, and that non-Arab Muslims found ways to assert their place with pride and power.
Conclusion: Racial Kinship and the Forgotten Dimension of Resistance in al-Andalus
Modern narratives about Islamic Spain often emphasize convivencia—the supposed harmonious coexistence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews—or highlight the intellectual flowering of al-Andalus as a golden age of tolerance and culture. While these facets are not without merit, they tend to obscure the central role of racial hierarchy and ethnic resistance within the structure of Moorish Iberia. This essay has sought to recover that forgotten dimension, arguing that far from being a racially harmonious utopia, al-Andalus was deeply stratified along racial, cultural, and genealogical lines.
We have seen that Arab and Berber conquerors brought with them not only Islam but an ideological framework rooted in Arab superiority. The early Muslim conquest was animated by more than religious fervor; it was accompanied by a racialized desire to dominate, subjugate, and sexually possess the European populations they encountered. White European women were commodified as sexual trophies, while Visigothic and Hispano-Roman males were displaced politically and militarily, even when they converted to Islam.
The Muwallad rebellions, examined in Chapter 1, were not simply class or religious insurrections. They were expressions of European identity, rooted in a deep sense of betrayal by an Islamic regime that promised brotherhood but delivered hierarchy. Leaders like Ibn Marwan al-Jilliqi and Umar ibn Hafsun represented an internal Reconquista, one that mirrored the Christian wars of liberation in the north but emerged organically within the Islamic polity of the south.
Chapter 2 and the expanded focus on the Banu Qasi revealed how even deeply integrated Muslim families of Visigothic origin retained and acted upon their racial kinship ties. Their repeated alignments with Christian kingdoms were not mere political expediencies but reflections of shared ancestry and ethnic solidarity. These actions highlight that racial identity could trump religious affiliation when imperial systems imposed foreign hierarchies.
In Chapter 3, the Saqaliba added a further dimension to this analysis. Slavic Muslims who began as slaves and eunuchs eventually formed an alternative elite, one rooted in European racial identity and political autonomy. The Taifas of Denia and Tortosa were not just post-Umayyad city-states but countermodels of non-Arab Islamic governance, where Saqaliba rulers favored multicultural, meritocratic rule over Arab tribal supremacy.
Chapter 4 investigated the ideology of sexual conquest, uncovering how Arab attitudes toward race and beauty were embedded in both theology and politics. The harem system, the poetry of conquest, and the operation of slave markets all underscore a vision of racial hierarchy in which white European women were simultaneously idealized and dominated. Far from transcending race, the Islamic institutions of al-Andalus often operationalized it.
Finally, Chapter 5 explored the Shu‘ŭbiyya movement, a powerful ideological response to Arab chauvinism. In the Iberian context, it became a vehicle for proto-ethnic nationalism among Muwallads, Saqaliba, and other non-Arab Muslims. Figures like Ibn Gharsiya, and even reformers like Ibn Hazm, articulated a counter-narrative in which Arab genealogy was no longer the measure of dignity. Instead, local culture, intellect, and virtue were elevated as the basis for Islamic identity.
Together, these chapters illustrate that race was not a modern invention, nor was it irrelevant in pre-modern Islamic contexts. The myth that race did not matter before the Atlantic slave trade or European colonialism fails to account for the ideological movements of European Muslims under Moorish rule. These peoples understood themselves in ethnic/racial terms. They recognized kinship, resisted foreign domination, and built alternative visions of Islamic society that honored their own ancestry.
This essay affirms that acknowledging the racial and ethnic dimensions of al-Andalus is essential to understanding the full scope of the history of Moorish Spain, and its nature as the polity that served as the original kindling for White Supremacy as we know it.
In doing so, we not only enrich the academic discourse on medieval Iberia, but also provide ourselves with tools for reckoning with modern claims (often from very educated people) meant to deny race, and reshape religion, and the historical record to serve their political ends. The story of the Muwallads, Saqaliba, and other European Muslims in al-Andalus is not just a footnote to the Reconquista. It is a chapter in the long history of racial consciousness and survival on the European continent.