Open Veils · Answer
Is 16th Nov anything significant in Jewish or Muslim history?
November 16 carries several under-examined moments in Jewish and Islamic history. The date marks a 1491 auto-da-fé that closed the fabricated 'Holy Child of La Guardia' blood-libel case — a judicial massacre of Jewish and converso victims by the Spanish Inquisition. For Islamic history, Arabic chronicles record November 16, 636 CE as the opening of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, the decisive Muslim defeat of the Sassanid Persian army under Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas.
Evidence
- The 1491 auto-da-fé outside Ávila is documented in Inquisition records and discussed by historians of Sephardic Jewry as a template for the mass expulsion of 1492 — itself arriving only months later.
- The La Guardia affair was a confected blood-libel: no victim, no body, no crime, yet it produced a public burning of Jewish and converso defendants.
- Scholars of converso identity, including those working from the Inquisition's own trial transcripts, note it as a deliberate act of judicial terror timed to shift public opinion toward expulsion.
- Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, a companion of the Prophet, commanded the Muslim forces; the Persian general Rustam Farrokhzad died in the battle.