He said: You Andalusians, have a bad habit.
I said: What is that?
He said: you only hang around with those of your faith. You don’t marry your daughters with Old
Christian men any more than you marry Old Christian women.
So I said: And why should we marry old Christian women? One day one of my relations in Antequera
fell in love with a Christian girl. The day they took the bride to church […] her family swore to kill the
groom on his way. For years after their wedding, the girl’s family never visited. Indeed they wished
for their death. Marriage is not meant to make enemies but to bring people together.
He replied: What you say is true.
We bid each other farewell and I left. And all I had told him about the Andalousian man and the
Christian girl was true. She converted to Islam for good and so did her old mother.