Blood and Faith

A “richly detailed” chronicle of what was by 1614 the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history, a centuries-old story with remarkable contemporary resonance (Choice).

“Offers a grim lesson about religious and racial repression in our contemporary age of contested faiths.” -David Levering Lewis, author of God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215

Months after King Philip III of Spain signed an edict in 1609 denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death. In the brutal and traumatic exodus that followed, entire families and communities were forced to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. By 1613, an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory.

In Blood and Faith, celebrated journalist Matthew Carr presents a remarkable window onto a little-known period of modern Europe-a complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, cultural oppression, and resistance against over-whelming odds that sheds new light on national identity and Islam.

“Carr deftly narrates the complex events leading up to this little-known but horrific episode as a warning against religious intolerance and xenophobia.”-Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating account of perhaps the first major episode of European ethnic cleansing and, just as importantly, the story of the beginning of the conviction that 'blood' matters more than belief; a conviction that led, in the end, to modern racism.”-Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of Cosmopolitanism