PhD defence by Yunus Doğan
This dissertation explores the entangled histories of the Moriscos and the Ottoman Empire across the Mediterranean from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth century. It examines Morisco engagement with the Ottoman world through settlement, mobility, and sustained networks formed through diverse modes of contact and exchange.
Adopting a comparative and trans-imperial approach and drawing on archival research conducted in Spain, Italy, and Turkey, the study analyses how Moriscos employed strategies of migration, conversion, intelligence, and cultural brokerage to operate across overlapping imperial and confessional orders. It argues that Morisco–Ottoman relations extended far beyond the Alpujarras uprising, developing into sustained trans-Mediterranean circuits linking the Iberian Peninsula to Istanbul and the wider Ottoman world.
By analysing Morisco involvement in the internal and external policies of the Ottoman Empire alongside those of Spain, France, the Italian states, and North Africa, the dissertation presents Moriscos as trans-imperial actors whose displacement generated diasporic communities, political mediation, and forms of religious belonging. In doing so, it contributes to Mediterranean history by portraying the region as a dynamic and interdependent arena linking Europe, Africa, and Asia through circulation, negotiation, and exchange. Ultimately, it argues that Morisco mobility and political displacement reshaped notions of sovereignty, faith, and subjecthood across imperial frontiers, offering a historical perspective on migration, exile, and identity in an increasingly connected world.
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