Muladi
The word muladí (pl. muladíes) can designate three social groups present in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages:
- Population of Spanish-Roman and Visigoth origin who adopted the religion, language and customs of Islam to enjoy the same rights as Muslims after the formation of al-Andalus.
- Christian who abandoned Christianity became Islam and lived among Muslims.[chuckles]required] It differed from the Mozarab that the latter retained their Christian religion in areas of Muslim domination.
- Son of a mixed Christian-Muslim marriage and Muslim religion.[chuckles]required]
Within the first group, the Visigothic nobility distinguished itself, which ended up merging with the Arab, although in remote areas it led secessionist movements, such as the Banu Qasi. As for the humblest sectors, the majority opted for a conversion that, apart from religious considerations, exempted them from paying the land and personal tax levied on non-believers, among other social benefits that adherence to the dominant culture brought.
Due to the rapid cultural Arabization of the muladíes (adoption of the Arabic language, Islam and Arabic names) and their mixture through mixed marriages with the much less numerous Arabs and Berbers who arrived on the peninsula, the differences Ethnic differences between the different groups practically disappeared in the 12th and 13th centuries, making it impossible from then on, in most cases, to distinguish elements of foreign origin from those of the peninsular origin in the Andalusian population. Thus, a relatively homogeneous population was created in which the Hispano-Visigothic ethnic origin and Arab cultural elements were dominant, even in families of recognized real or alleged Arab ancestry.
The socioeconomic differences in Al-Andalus generated, however, frequent tensions in the IX century, manifested in the uprising del Arrabal or in the rebellion of Omar Ben Hafsun. The latter became famous. He was born in Ronda and came from a Gothic family whose grandfather had converted to Islam. He came to control an important territory of Andalusia politically and converted to Christianity in the year 899, installing a Christian bishop in Bobastro.
Although the Muladí origins were diluted with the adoption of Arabic names, some families kept their Hispano-Roman names. For example, the cases of the Banu Qasi (< Casio) family, the poet Ibn Quzman (< Guzmán), the jurisconsult Ibn Bashkuwal (< Pascual), the vizier Ibn Gundisalb (< Gundisalvo), the general Ibn Martin (< Martin), as well as the various families surnamed al-Quti (< the Goth). A branch of the al-Quti family went to Africa and settled in Mali where they preserved thousands of manuscripts that form the Kati Fund.
Etymology
According to the dictionary of the Royal Academy, it comes from the Hispanic Arabic muwalladín (pl. *muwállad), and this from the classical Arabic مُوَلَّد muwallad, meaning "begotten of a non-Arab mother".
Muwallad comes from the word WaLaD (وَلَد; root: waw, lam, dal). Walad means “offspring, offspring; son; young animal”. Muwallad refers to the children of Arab men and women of other peoples. The term muwalladin is still used in modern Arabic to designate such children.
The term muladí, also present in the Portuguese language, has been considered as one of the possible etymological origins of the word mulato, which designates a person with ancestors mixed between Europeans and other races, or the Castilian Arabism maula, which means "deceit or covert artifice".