page_title: Muwallad
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Muwallad / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Poema de Yuçuf (manuscrito aljamiado)
context_page_description: The Muladi were Muslims of local descent or of mixed Arab, Berber, and Iberian origin who lived in Al-Andalus during the Middle Ages. They were also called "Musalimah". In broader usage, the word muwallad is used to describe Arabs of mixed parentage, especially those not living in their ancestral homelands.
context_section_description: In Islamic history muwalladun designates in a broader sense non-Arab Muslims or the descendants of converts. In the Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula, parts of the indigenous until-then Christian population (basically a mixture of the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, ancient Romans, Visigoths and Suebi) converted to Islam in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the 10th century a massive conversion of Christians took place, so that muladies comprised the majority of the population of Al-Andalus by the century's end. However, the majority of Muwallads had converted to Islam early, but retained many pre-Islamic customs and characteristics.
  Conversion to Islam was encouraged by the Umayyad caliphs and Emirs of Córdoba but it was not directly forced. Many Christians converted to Islam to avoid the jizya tax which they were subjected to as dhimmis. Conversion to Islam also opened up new horizons to the native Christians, alleviated their social position, ensured better living conditions, and broadened their scope for more technically skilled and advanced work.
  The Christians who converted to Islam became Mawali, or clients attached to an Arab tribe, and as such, were thoroughly Islamized, adopting the Arabic dress code, customs, and language.
  The Muwallads were also called Muslima (Islamized), and elches (ilj, plural: ulus), in reference to the society from which they sprang. They later were denominated Aljamiados because of their non Arabic-tongue, that is, the Mozarabic languages.
  Through the cultural Arabization of muladies and their increasing inter-marriage with some Berbers and Arabs present in Iberia, the distinctions between the different Muslim groups became increasingly blurred in the 11th and 12th centuries. The populations mixed with such rapidity that it was soon impossible to distinguish ethnically the elements of foreign origin from the natives. Thus they merged into a more homogeneous group of Andalusi Arabs generally also called Moors.
  The Muwallads primarily spoke Andalusian Arabic, along with a wide variety of Iberian Romance languages. Andalusian Arabic was a mixture of Iberian languages and Classical Arabic, though derived especially from Latin. This local dialect of Arabic was also spoken by the Berbers and Arabs from the 9th century onwards.
  In the process of acculturation, Muwallads may well have adopted an agnatic model of descent, but without abandoning the bilaterality of late Roman kinship. According to Abu Jafar ibn Harun of Trujillo a vast but silent majority of Muladi Muslims thrived, especially in the Extremadura region of Spain.
  Among the Muwalladun were the free-born, the enfranchised, and the enslaved. A significant part of the Muwalladun was formed by freed slaves. These were the Saqaliba, or Slavs who became an important social group in Al-Andalus during the 10th and 11th centuries. Upon adopting the ethnic name of their patrons, the emancipated slaves gradually forgot their own ethnic origin. The Muslim slaves were the Saqaliba, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, who profited from the progressive crumbling of the Umayyad Caliphate's superstructure to gain control over the province of Denia. The Saqaliba managed to free themselves and gain dominion over the taifa, which extended its reach as far as the Balearic Islands, and their capital, Madina Mayurqa (now Palma de Majorca).
  The intermarriage of foreign Muslims with native Christians made many Muwallads heedless of their Iberian origin. As a result, their descendants and many descendants of Christian converts forgot the descent of their ancestors and assumed forged Arab genealogies. However, there were a few who were proud of their Roman and Visigothic origins. These included the Banu Angelino and Banu Sabarico of Seville, Banu Qasi of Aragon, Banu l' Longo and Banu Qabturno. Several Muwallad nobles also used the name Al-Quti, (the Goth), and some may have been actual descendants from the family of the Visigothic King of Hispania, Wittiza.
  The conversion of the native Christians to Islam did not mean the total erasure of previous belief
caption: Poems in Aljamiado.
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