The Maghrib in Europe: Royal Slaves and Islamic Institutions in Eighteenth-Century Spain

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Did a slave mosque really operate for decades, out in the open, during the eighteenth century in the port city of Cartagena in Murcia, Spain? An alarmed Inquisitorial report submitted to the Spanish king in September 1769 left no room for doubt — the hospital of the Muslim arsenal slaves in Cartagena functioned as a mosque.1 Its live-in muezzin recited the adhān, the call to worship, from a room on the second floor, and believers convened twice a day. They left their shoes downstairs, walked up the entrance steps barefoot, kissed the steps, and prayed loudly in a large hall adorned with a lamp with three wicks and floors covered by reed prayer mats. Worse, the report states, not only had the hospital turned into a mosque, but it also acted as a sanctuary that provided asylum for fugitive Muslims. In 1768, a Muslim slave tried to flee Cartagena on the frigate of the Moroccan sultan, who had come to pick up Moroccan slaves as part of the peace agreement signed by Morocco and Spain on 28 May 1767. The slave was handed over to the Spanish authorities but managed to escape again, this time to the mosque, where he was provided with temporary asylum. This sanctuary allowed him to negotiate the conditions of his surrender. Indeed, he submitted himself to the authorities only after he was granted a pardon. The report’s sensationalist tone (‘they kiss the stairs . . . [and pray] in loud voice’) and its last bit about asylum, which proved to be an Inquisitorial fabrication, were intended to lead to the closure of the hospital-mosque.2 The plan succeeded, and in the autumn of 1770 the structure was razed to the ground.