Since the foundations of the Spanish nation were laid, Spanish intellectuals have turned time and again to Muslim and Jewish cultures as a starting point for constructing narratives of national identity. Following a medieval period of fragile coexistence between communities of the three monotheistic faiths on the Iberian Peninsula, the Catholic monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand established the Spanish state in 1492 upon religious exclusivity through the myth of the Reconquista. The immediate expulsion of the Jews and later of the Moriscos between 1609 and 1614 became emblematic of their efforts to create a hegemonic Christian cultural identity and erase any traces of Islamic and Jewish influences. For 500 years, ‘moros y judíos’ were present to the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula mainly in the realms of literature and the collective imagination, sometimes through a romantic or nostalgic lens, other times as a fearful Other lurking at the cultural and geographical borders of the Peninsula, or in the case of converted Muslims and Jews in particular, as a hidden presence imagined to be corrupting the very fabric of Spanish society. It wasn't until Spain's military incursions in Morocco from 1859 onwards that Spaniards encountered Muslim and Jewish cultures closely again, this time in a colonial context. The response to this encounter oscillated between exaltations of the cultural and ethnic ties between Spain and North Africa, often rooted in nostalgic references to medieval Iberia, and attempts to build a wall – figuratively speaking – between the cultures based on references to the same historical period and invoking race, religion, and culture as markers of difference instead of affinity. Moroccan Muslims and Jews were either enemies or brothers to the Spaniard, and sometimes both at the same time.

This book focuses on a crucial period in the history of Spanish colonialism in North Africa – the so-called Rif War – which began with the attack of Riffian tribes on Spanish mines in Northern Morocco (Barranco del Lobo) in 1909 and ended with the defeat of the Berber insurrection against Spain and the capture of the leader of the short-lived Rif Republic, Muhamed Abd el-Krim Khattabi, in 1927.