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‘when they left’ Following the fall of Granada and the brutal persecution by the Inquisition of conversos (converts to Christianity) suspected of practising the Jewish faith, the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel issued a Charter of Expulsion. In this Charter, all Jews refusing to convert to Christianity were ordered to leave the country. Between 100,000 and 150,000 Jews went into exile in 1492. The epigraph is from a poem by Avraham Ibn Ezra (c.1093–c.1167) translated by Peter Cole in his book The Dream of the Poem. ‘baptism of Muslim women’ after the recapture of Granada by the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel, tolerance and freedom of worship was promised in the Capitulations of Granada. However this was followed by mass forced baptisms of Muslims and the burning of thousands of Arabic books in Granada. ‘moriscos’ the moriscos were the Muslims and their descendants who were forced to convert to Christianity following the fall of Granada in 1492. In 1609, an edict issued by King Felipe ordered the expulsion of all moriscos from Spain. 102
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cknowledgments Moniza Alvi read my manuscript as it evolved through various stages and her detailed and perceptive comments have been wonderfully helpful and inspiriting. My warm thanks to Mimi Khalvati for her close reading of the manuscript and for her valuable insights and advice. I am grateful to Gloria García Lorca and Stephen Stuart-Smith for their feedback on the manuscript at early stages, and to Nancy Mattson for her thoughful comments on gridlines. My sister Cheli Durán’s suggestion that I write about al-Andalus first sparked the sequence. My warm thanks to Bachira Taouti for her translations of some Arabic texts. A version of the poem ‘The Tree, 1964’ was published in Travelling Ladders (The Poetry Trust, 2015). A number of these poems were published in PN Review. I am immensely grateful to Michael Schmidt for publishing this book, to John McAuliffe for his sensitive editorial advice and to Andrew Latimer for his patient collaboration and beautiful cover design. Special thanks are due to Stephen Stuart-Smith, and to Wendy Brandmark, Michele Sigler and the poets in my Thursday Group for their support and abiding friendship. My heartfelt thanks to my husband Redha and son Ramy for all their support and encouragement. 103

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‘when they left’ Following the fall of Granada and the brutal persecution by the Inquisition of conversos (converts to Christianity) suspected of practising the Jewish faith, the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel issued a Charter of Expulsion. In this Charter, all Jews refusing to convert to Christianity were ordered to leave the country. Between 100,000 and 150,000 Jews went into exile in 1492. The epigraph is from a poem by Avraham Ibn Ezra (c.1093–c.1167) translated by Peter Cole in his book The Dream of the Poem. ‘baptism of Muslim women’ after the recapture of Granada by the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel, tolerance and freedom of worship was promised in the Capitulations of Granada. However this was followed by mass forced baptisms of Muslims and the burning of thousands of Arabic books in Granada. ‘moriscos’ the moriscos were the Muslims and their descendants who were forced to convert to Christianity following the fall of Granada in 1492. In 1609, an edict issued by King Felipe ordered the expulsion of all moriscos from Spain.

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