WI Spain doesn't expell the Jews in 1492, and doesn't force the Muslims to convert?

In March 31st 1492, the Spanish Kings decreed that all Jews who resided in their domains, and didn't want to convert to Christianity, should live the country by the 31st July 1492. According to some sources, many thought at the time that this was just an attempt from the Monarchs to get money in their archs. Acting accordingly to this presumption, some members of the Jewish community supposedly offered up to 600.000 ducats to the monarchs for the revocation of the edict. These same sources claimed that Ferdinad, Aragon's King, was inclined to accept (apparently he was more "pragmatic" than his wife; no wonder he was Maschiavello's hero). But his wife opinion's prevailed, and so the decreed wasn't revoqued (Isabel I was strongly influenced by the ideas of the inquisitor Torquemada).

So, what if the offer is accepterd, and the edict is revoqued? And, as a separete WI, what if after the conquest of Granada the Muslims are allowed to keep their religion?

What effects would these meassures have in the history of Spain and Europe?

Just an idea: one must bear in mind that the fact that there's no expulsion doesn't mean things are going to be idilic for religious minorities in XVI century Spain. Both pressure for conversion, and pressure to converts to abandon their old-faith practices would probably continue, and maybe even increase. Spontaneus emigration might follow, and one cannot rule out the possibility of an expulsion at a later date. But, even with this in mind, I think that the effects of no expulsion in 1492 are worth analysing... Thoughts?

At the end of this article there's a translation of the decree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree (This is Wikipedia, so I don't ensure it's a reliable translation.)
 
Well, speaking about thing I know, this would be very bad for the Ottomans - a very large portion of the Spanish Jews settled in the Ottoman Empire at the invitation of the Sultan and provided enormous commercial expertise to the economy of the empire, as well as enrichment of its culture. Some of them are still there, but most died in the Holocaust or moved to Israel.

Salonika had a majority-Jewish population because of the Spanish Jews.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
But it was going to happen regardless.

The spirit the Reconquista had worked up required the expulsion of Muslims. They had been expelled (or simply fled) sooner from other areas taken.

They may be more lenient with Muslims who convert or at the least, pretend to, but I don't think there's a chance of Islam surviving in Spain.
 

ninebucks

Banned
If its not the Spanish state expelling the Muslims and Jews, it will be the Spanish people. If you spend a generation forcing a people to fight for a particular goal, (i.e. the Christianisation of Iberia), and then at the last minute decide not to follow through with that goal, its not guaranteed that the rank and file will follow your orders to stop. Events work up their own momentum.
 
Well, speaking about thing I know, this would be very bad for the Ottomans
I've read that Spanish Jews basically created Ottoman gunpowder industry, as well as all means to use it (basically everything from cannon- and powdermaking to unit training to demolition engineering). And cannons played absolutely crucial role in Ottoman's success on Balkan peninsula. So we're talking major change here.
 
I've read that Spanish Jews basically created Ottoman gunpowder industry, as well as all means to use it (basically everything from cannon- and powdermaking to unit training to demolition engineering). And cannons played absolutely crucial role in Ottoman's success on Balkan peninsula. So we're talking major change here.
My understanding is the opposite, that gunpowder weapons spread from the Islamic world to Europe through Spain. Did Islamic Spain posses any technology the Ottomans didn't already have?
 
I've read that Spanish Jews basically created Ottoman gunpowder industry, as well as all means to use it (basically everything from cannon- and powdermaking to unit training to demolition engineering). And cannons played absolutely crucial role in Ottoman's success on Balkan peninsula. So we're talking major change here.

I don't think that can be true, because the Ottomans were using gunpowder weapons at the beginning of the 15th c, a century before the Spanish Jews arrived. The commercial knowledge they brought was probably more important than gunpowder, though. And IIRC, they also opened the first printing press.
 
Spain avoids or delays most of the economic and social collapse which plagued her from the late 16th Century until...well, you get to decide when Spain finally began to recover.
 
Hmm, what would be the butterfly effect for Portugal?

Well, the decree that expelled the Jews from Portugal was signed in 1496, as a condition for the marriage between Manuel I of Portugal and Isabel of Aragon be accepted by Ferdinando and Isabella. Also, as after 1492 there was a migratory wave of Jews from Spain to Portugal, and it made many Catholics there become more intolerant.

If Spain doesn't expell the Jews in 1492 then there is no reason to ask Portugal to do the same in order to have the royal marriage, and without the immigrants probably there would be less persecutions (as there would have less "different" people to the Catholics be worried about).
 
Baruch de Spinoza's ancestors are not expelled, possibly butterflying away one of the greatest rationalists and biblical critics.
Ofcourse, no-one cares about philosophy and the like when you can alter the messy wars and move the funny borders.
 
Baruch de Spinoza's ancestors are not expelled, possibly butterflying away one of the greatest rationalists and biblical critics.
Ofcourse, no-one cares about philosophy and the like when you can alter the messy wars and move the funny borders.

Well the problem is applying great man theory to the history of ideas. Great man theory has problems anyway, but with ideas, whether philosophy, maths, science etc, people only remember the winners. So okay there is no Spinoza. Spinoza's ideas however are not that hard to get too given a similar starting point. It seems likely that someone somewhere would have come up with them and acquired the fame that was Spinoza's in OTL. Or, if you think that is too neat, you atleast would have something vaguely similar. Anyone who was thinking something similar to Spinoza but afterwards wouldn't generate much interest and thus would not be remembered. In this TL perhaps they are.

I mean look at a general history of philosophy. Its not as if in each century there were only a dozen thinkers.
 
Anyone who was thinking something similar to Spinoza but afterwards wouldn't generate much interest and thus would not be remembered. In this TL perhaps they are.
That is true, yes. However, it is likely that the theories of this alter-Spinoza would differ slightly, perhaps by having a different cultural bias and the like, if one could apply such a thing to rationalists. One could, ofcourse, always make that persons theories shift a bit more, for dramatic effect.
 
Spain avoids or delays most of the economic and social collapse which plagued her from the late 16th Century until...well, you get to decide when Spain finally began to recover.

The problem was not there. Banking in Spain was quite advanced in the XVI century (the spanish neo-scolastics of Salamanca were the first ones in questioning about the price of the money, the variation of the value in the time...). The problem were the wars in Europe that caused a lack of funds in the crown, that was solved by seizing the funds in the banks. The presence of jewish bankers would only mean a slight delay in the final situation. The only way of preventing the economic and social collapse would have been removing the wars in Europe from the equation (that is the Hapsburg).

As for the moorish people they are doomed unless the ottomans are not perceived as a direct threat. Probably a permanent occupation of Tunis, Algiers and Constantine (no corsairs in western Mediterranean) and the ottomans more concentrated in the East would do the trick.
 
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