Descendants of Expelled Spanish Muslims Seek Recognition from Government

In his short letter of just a page and a half, the Foundation asks the Spanish State, which, by a decree of 2015, granted Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews, to ensure equal treatment towards the Andalusian Moriscos.

According to the Foundation, "the memory of the Andalusian Moriscos has been excluded from the new legislation and the Spanish collective memory". To restore history and correct this injustice, it asks Pedro Sánchez for a "simple gesture" of legal and symbolic recognition of the descendants of the Moriscos and Andalusians by including them in Article 22 of the Civil Code. "We are sure that the flame of Moorish-Andalusian memory [...] will continue to illuminate the collective conscience in a country that was also that of our ancestors," concludes the letter.

"It would be a purely symbolic but just recognition," supports the writer and professor of civil law at the University of Córdoba, Antonio Manuel Rodríguez, who has been actively working for years in favor of equalizing rights with Sephardic Jews. "Why can’t a Morisco descendant have Spanish nationality after living here for many years, while a Sephardic Jew who has never set foot in Spain has the right to it?" he asks, denouncing "a blatant violation of the principle of equality". And to add: "The fact that the Moriscos appear in the Civil Code would be a revolution, because the Andalusians would be recognized for the first time as a constituent community of the Spanish identity".

Historian Enrique Soria, one of the greatest experts on converts in Spain, believes that the process of accrediting Morisco families will be hampered by the weakness of material evidence. He considers it almost "impossible" for them to "document their ancestry". According to him, unlike the Sephardim, most Morisco and Andalusian communities do not have reliable written sources.