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The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia examines the corpus of polemical literature against the Christians and the Jews of the protected Muslims (Mudejars). Commonly portrayed as communities in cultural and religious decay, Mònica Colominas convincingly proves that the discourses against the Christians and the Jews in Mudejar treatises provided authoritative frameworks of Islamic normativity which helped to legitimize the residence of their communities in the Christian territories. Colominas argues that, while the primary aim of the polemics was to refute the views of their religious opponents, Mudejar treatises were also a tool used to advance Islamic knowledge and to strengthen the government and social cohesion of their communities.
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The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia
The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World (formerly medieval iberian peninsula)
Edited by Larry J. Simon (Western Michigan University) Gerard Wiegers (University of Amsterdam) Arie Schippers (University of Amsterdam) Isidro J. Rivera (University of Kansas) Mercedes García-Arenal (cchs/csic)
volume 64
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/memi
The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia Identity and Religious Authority in Mudejar Islam
By
Mònica Colominas Aparicio
leiden | boston
Cover illustration: ms önb af 58, f. 1r. With kind permission of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (önb), Vienna. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2018002412
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1569-1934 isbn 978-90-04-34635-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-36361-8 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Per a l’Esteve i la Carlota Roser
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Contents Acknowledgments xi List of Figures xii Note on Transliteration, Conventions and Abbreviations Introduction 1 Mudejar Polemics 9 Scholarship on the Mudejars and Their Literature Main Questions and Chapter Overview 16
xiii
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1 The Connection between Religious Polemics and Notions of Identity and Religious Authority among the Mudejars 22 Introduction 22 1.1 The Sacred Law, or Sharīʿa 26 1.2 The Relationship of the Mudejars with Jews and Christians 30 1.3 The Mudejar Aljamas 33 1.3.1 Christian Proselytism and Restrictions on the Mudejars 34 1.3.2 Religious Authority and Polemics in the Mudejar Aljamas 39 Conclusions 45 2 Concepts and Methods for the Study of Religious Authority and Identity in the Religious Polemics of the Mudejars 47 Introduction 47 2.1 Recent Approaches to Religious Polemics 48 2.2 Towards a Definition of Mudejar Polemics 54 2.3 Theoretical Framework and Methods 61 2.3.1 Baumann’s “Grammars of Identity/Alterity” 61 2.3.2 Social Identity Theory 63 2.3.3 Critical Discourse Analysis 67 Conclusions 68 3