ALBORAYCOS

One of the insulting names applied to converted Jews in Spain in the 15th century. An anti-Converso work, the Libro del Alborayque, apparently from the north of Spain (c. 1488), derives the term from the name of the marvelous mount of Muhammad, al-Burāq. Just as the steed was neither horse nor mule, male nor female, so the insincere converts were not Jews, Muslims, or Christians. The work specifies 20 characteristics of al-Burāq and applies each of them to the Conversos. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Resnick, in: Hispania, 9:34 (Sp., 1949), 58; N. López Martínez, Los judaizantes castellanos y la Inquisición (1954), 53–54, 391–404 (text of the Libro Ilamado el Alboraique); Loeb, in: REJ, 18 (1889), 238–42; J. Caro Baroja, Los Judíos en la España moderna…, 1 (1962), 174–5; J.E. Longhurst, The Age of Torquemada (19642), 91–95. (Kenneth R. Scholberg)