POD: In the wake of the Morisco Revolts of 1568, some wise soul in the
Hasburg Court pointed out that banishing the rebels to the lands of
their enemies in North Africa was potentially a bad idea, Instead it
would be better to deport them to the Spanish Crown's Burgundian lands,
where they will be surrounded by Christian rivals and have no choice
but to remain loyal/obedient to thier Spanish overlords.  To that end,
more than 75,000 were shipped and marched to settlements in the
Franche-Comte and Spanish Netherlands by 1580.

By 1595, the guy who thought up that scheme died in disgrace, having
narrowly escaped prison.

Entire villages in Franche-Comte fled into the Calvinist Jura, while
many settled in an area of Geneva known as the 'Moorish Quarter.'
Roughly half of them reverted to Islam openly, while the remaining
crypto-Muslims saw the teachings of Jean Calvin as a bridge to the True
Faith... or at least a less distasteful cloak for same.

The situation in Brabant and Flanders was even more inauspicious.
After the gates to Antwerp were opened to the rebels by an alleged
Morisco there were frightful attempts to cow the new settlers... which
merely insured open flight and the formation of a regiment in return
for the right to openly practice Islam.  Others migrated more quietly
into France where they blended in with the Heugenots(sp?) or across
into Aachen and Juelisch-Kleve-Berg.

By the 17th century there were scattered communities of Muslims from
Amsterdam to Geneva, growing both by natural reproduction and (due to
the religious ferment of the Reformation) conversion. Many remained in
thier own towns and villiages, but a full third established themselves
in various cities as tradesmen.  These communities were also the source
of a disproportionate degree of theological scholarship both in Arabic
and the local veranculars (the publication in 1610 of the bilingual
_Kuran_ _Utrecht_ in Nederlands and transliterated Arabic was largely
seen as unprecedented... but soon proved far from unique).  The
writings of the physician Jozef Abensen on properly keeping the faith
in a wholly infidel land such as the court of Copenhagen gained him a
seat at Al-Azhar.

Long term ramifications?

HTG