Muladi

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Muladíes (sg.: muladí) were an ethnic group that lived in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages.

The Spanish word muladí is derived from Arabic muwallad (pl: muwalladun or muwalladeen). The basic meaning of muwallad is a person of mixed ancestry, especially a descendant of an Arab and a non-Arab parent, who grew up among Arabs and was educated within the Arab-Islamic culture.

In Islamic history muwalladun designates in a broader sense non-Arab neo-Muslims or the descendants of converts. In the Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula parts of the indigenous, until-then Christian population – of Ibero-Roman or Visigothic ancestry, particularly many noble families seeking to escape dhimmi status – converted to Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries. In the tenth century a massive conversion took place, so that muladies comprised the majority of the population of Al-Andalus by the century's end.

Through the cultural Arabization of muladies and their increasing inter-marriage with Berbers and Arabs, the distinctions between the different Muslim groups became increasingly blurred in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, so they merged into a more homogeneous group of Andalusi Arabs or Moors.

"Muladi" has been offered as one of the possible etimological origins of the still-current Spanish term "Mulatto", denoting a person of mixed European and non-European ancestry.

[edit] Compare with

  • Mozarabs, local population who remained Christians as dhimmis.
  • Banu Qasi, a Muladi family descending from a Visigothic lord Cassius who became the independent rulers of their own taifa.
  • Mudejars, Muslims living under Christian rulers.

[edit] References