This study considers an example of a calamity, still-alive, that can illuminate a sensitive historical issue preoccupying Moroccan society and jurists, namely the legal status of Moroccan Muslims whose cities and villages fell into the hands of the Iberians. This matter relates to fatwas of the Moroccan scholar Abi al-Hassan Ali bin Abdullah Ibn Bartal (who died at the beginning of the tenth century AH / 16 CE) and that were included in the chapter on jihad in the book The Selected Jewels (al-jawahir al-mukhtarah) by Abdul Aziz Al-Zayati (1055 AH / 1645 AD), and fatwas of other Moroccan scholars on the same topic. These allow us to compare the positions of jurists regarding the legal status of Andalusian Muslims under Christian control, and correspondingly, of Moroccans under Portuguese occupation. These positions inform the specific uniqueness of Moroccan jurists’ discourse as contrasted with conventionally recognized jurisprudential discourse with regard to the predicament of the Muslims of Andalusia under Christian rule. Featuring most prominently here is the legal support accorded to Moroccan resistance to Portuguese expansion.