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The Book of Disputation: A Mudejar Religious-Philosophical Treatise against Christians and Jews
A Study and Accompanying Text Edition
Series: - The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World, Volume: 84
Author:
This is the first critical edition and study of a unique and important Muslim polemic against Christians and Jews. The Book of Disputation was written in Arabic by a Mudejar (subject Muslim living under Christian rule in late medieval Iberia) and offers new insight into the cultural and intellectual life of this Muslim minority. The text advances arguments drawn from natural philosophy—largely from Aristotle and Averroes—along with more traditional revealed sources such as the Qurʾān and the Bible.
Mudejar communities suffered a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities.
Honorable Mention (Best Edition & Translation) for The Mediterranean Seminar Prize for the Best Source Edition, Book Translation, or Essay Collection, 2025. Official The Mediterranean Seminar Prize announcement.
Mudejar communities suffered a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities.
Honorable Mention (Best Edition & Translation) for The Mediterranean Seminar Prize for the Best Source Edition, Book Translation, or Essay Collection, 2025. Official The Mediterranean Seminar Prize announcement.
Mònica Colominas Aparicio, Ph.D. (2016) University of Groningen, is the author of The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Iberia: Identity and Religious Authority in Mudejar Islam (Brill, 2018) and numerous other studies of religious minorities in pre-modern Iberia.
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration, Conventions and Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction
1 The KM in the Production of Religious Polemics of Iberian Muslims
2 Characteristics of Mudejar Polemics
3 The Contents and Intellectual Milieu of the KM
4 The Author’s Defence of Philosophy
5 Chapter Overview
1 A Scholarly Defence of Religious Excellence
1 Contested Claims to Noble Descent in Christian Iberia
2 “Generational Discontinuation” in the KM
2 A Fourteenth-Century Mudejar Cosmology
1 Natural Philosophy in the KM
2 Sections and Distribution of Sources on Philosophy in the KM
3 Harmony between Revelation and Philosophy: Towards an Identification of the Author of the KM
General Remarks
Language and Its Use in the Copy by ar-Raqilī
Diplomatic Text Edition
Appendix 1: Contents of The Book of Disputation
Appendix 2: Source Overview
Appendix 3: Qurʾān Verses
Appendix 4: Bible Verses
Appendix 5: Words in Aljamiado
Bibliographical References
Index of Names and Places
Note on Transliteration, Conventions and Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction
1 The KM in the Production of Religious Polemics of Iberian Muslims
2 Characteristics of Mudejar Polemics
3 The Contents and Intellectual Milieu of the KM
4 The Author’s Defence of Philosophy
5 Chapter Overview
Part 1 A Mudejar Microcosmos
1 A Scholarly Defence of Religious Excellence
1 Contested Claims to Noble Descent in Christian Iberia
2 “Generational Discontinuation” in the KM
2 A Fourteenth-Century Mudejar Cosmology
1 Natural Philosophy in the KM
2 Sections and Distribution of Sources on Philosophy in the KM
3 Harmony between Revelation and Philosophy: Towards an Identification of the Author of the KM
Part 2 The Book of Disputation: A Diplomatic Text Edition
General Remarks
Language and Its Use in the Copy by ar-Raqilī
Diplomatic Text Edition
Appendix 1: Contents of The Book of Disputation
Appendix 2: Source Overview
Appendix 3: Qurʾān Verses
Appendix 4: Bible Verses
Appendix 5: Words in Aljamiado
Bibliographical References
Index of Names and Places
Specialists and those interested in the Mudejars and Moriscos, their socio-cultural history, thought, and practices of Islam, in particular, their interreligious polemics.