ABSTRACT
Cervantes was perhaps a converso, a descendant of converted Jews. Canavaggio states that these origins can be traced to his father’s maternal grandfather, a physician in Cordoba. Cervantes was born in 1547, the year Spain issued a purity-of-blood law, causing the exodus of the Spanish Jews to all the countries of Europe and as far as the New World. At the end of his life, Cervantes was a member of the Third Order of the Slaves of the Most Blessed Sacrament, as a tribute to the Trinity Brothers who ransomed him and his brother. Miguel de Cervantes died as a Tertiary Capuchin monk, after having taken vows to enter the Order of St. Francis, following the example of his sister Andrea and his wife Catalina. But all this does not constitute proof concerning his family’s origins. Be that as it may, according to Cervantes’ biographer, he showed “great interest in Islam and its rites, with no preconceived ideas or deference, and was a clear-eyed observer of the different communities […] living side by side in this Noah’s Ark that was Algiers at that time” (De Cervantes, 2001, p. xvii).
