Cervantes' Muslims

      I was surprised at how the Muslim characters in Don Quixote were handled. Even in the "story within a story" of the long-suffering, Spanish, captive-in Barbary sea captain, no Turkish or Arab character is a caricature.
      In Part 2, Cervantes challenges the crude logic of Western xenophobia. Quixote and Sancho meet up with a band of German pilgrims, one of whom turns out to be Sancho's former friend and neighbor Ricote the Morisco. (The Moriscos were those Muslims left living in Spain after the Christian victory; they were forcibly expelled—on pain of death—by royal decree from 1609 to 1613.) Ricote, a humble shopkeeper, has disguised himself as a pilgrim in order to retrieve a small "treasure" he had to leave behind when he and his family were forced to flee. His wife and daughters are in Algiers; he hopes to settle them in Germany, far from the "terror and fear" they have endured in Spain. His story is a poignant one, the refugee's timeless lament, and Sancho listens sadly, sharing a wineskin with his old friend, until they "go their separate ways." Cervantes never belabors the point, or descends into sentimentality, but offers a moving affirmation of ordinary human ties flourishing in spite of fanaticism.
    I know, who has time for timelessness anymore?