Conversion, ancestry and universal religion: the case of the Almohads in the Islamic West (sixth/twelfth–seventh/thirteenth centuries)

The forced conversion of Jews and Christians stands out among the most puzzling policies implemented at the beginning of the Almohad revolutionary movement. In this article, the reasons behind such decision are reviewed again 1 and then the focus is moved to its implications. Two aspects are dealt with: the Almohads’ suspicions about the faith of the forced converts, giving rise to discriminatory policies against them; and Almohad conceptions of a universal religion that advance our understanding of that “dream of conversion” which was such a prominent feature in the Mediterranean during the sixth/twelfth–seventh/thirteenth centuries. 1My presentation at the Seminar “Inter‐faith Relations in Islam,” organized by Amira Bennison and María Angeles Gallego and held at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, 15–16 December 2008, consisted of the first two sections of this paper. Both sections are indebted to a previous publication of mine, “Muslim Land without Jews or Christians,” a summary of which in Spanish has appeared in “Cosmovisión (religión y cultura) en el Islam andalusí.”