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.
Mònica Colominas Aparicio, Ph.D. (2016), University of Amsterdam, is Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (Department I), and a core member of the Institute's interdisciplinary project
Convivencia: Iberian to Global Dynamics, 500-1750.
AcknowledgmentsList of FiguresNote on Transliteration, Conventions and AbbreviationsIntroductionMudejar PolemicsScholarship on the Mudejars and Their LiteratureMain Questions and Chapter Overview 1
The Connection between Religious Polemics and Notions of Identity and Religious Authority among the MudejarsIntroduction 1.1
The Sacred Law, or Sharīʿa 1.2
The Relationship of the Mudejars with Jews and Christians 1.3
The Mudejar AljamasConclusions 2
Concepts and Methods for the Study of Religious Authority and Identity in the Religious Polemics of the MudejarsIntroduction 2.1
Recent Approaches to Religious Polemics 2.2
Towards a Definition of Mudejar Polemics 2.3
Theoretical Framework and MethodsConclusions 3
Previous Research and Identification of the Mudejar Polemical Sources to be Discussed in the Present Study 3.1
Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Scholarly Views on Mudejar Manuscripts of Religious Polemics 3.2
Mudejar Polemical Sources 3.3
The Sources of the Kitāb al-Mujādala 3.4
The Place of the Copying of the Kitāb al-Mujādala: The Geographical Location of PiṭrūlaConclusions 4
Muslim Literature of Religious PolemicsIntroduction 4.1
al-Andalus 4.2
Christian Iberia 4.3
The Maghreb 4.4
The MashriqConclusions 5
Mudejar Polemics with the JewsIntroduction 5.1
The Taʾyīd 5.2
The Kitāb al-Mujādala 5.3
The “demandas” [Questions]Conclusions 6
Mudejar Polemics with the ChristiansIntroduction 6.1
The Kitāb al-Mujādala 6.2
Religious Authority in the Kitāb al-Mujādala 6.3
An Ethical-Centred Model for Islam in the Kitāb al-Mujādala 6.4
Political Philosophy in the Kitāb al-MujādalaConclusions 7
Mudejar Polemics as a Discursive TraditionIntroduction 7.1
Mudejar Identity in Polemics 7.2
Religious Leadership 7.3
Notions of Minority Identity and Government among the MudejarsConclusionsConclusionsManuscript Description of the Kitāb al-Mujādala (MS AF 58)Codicological DescriptionBibliographySource Overview
Annex
MS BNE 4944, ff. 1r–36r: Transcription and Rendering into Modern SpanishMSL 536, ff. 123v–125r: Transcription and Rendering into Modern SpanishReferencesIndex of Names and Places
All interested in Muslims and religion in the Iberian Peninsula, and anyone concerned with the history of Spain and interreligious contacts between Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Christian territories.