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Abstract
The Granadan Morisco, physician, translator and forger Miguel de Luna was the author of the Historia verdadera del rey d. Rodrigo, first published in Granada in 1592 and 1600. The Historia verdadera was the pretended translation of an invented Arabic chronicle on the Muslim conquest of Spain in the eigth century. This paper analyzes the editorial success of this book through the study of its translations into French, Italian and English. The ambiguity of Luna’s book explains how it could be used, appropriated and understood in different political, cultural or historical contexts.
This paper studies how Early Modern Spanish historians confronted the problem of calculating the equivalence between the Christian Era and the Hegira. Chronological polemics concerning the Hegira were deeply embedded in a major historiographical problem, namely the role Islam and al-Andalus played in the history of Spain. Besides the technical issues, chronology is one of the most important ways by which an Islamic Iberian past was integrated in a narrative about national history. Once Islam became a historical actor for Spanish and European historians, rather than just a religion to confront, very important questions were raised: were Arabic sources necessary for the writing of Spanish history? What were these sources, and what was their value? Since al-Andalus was connected with the more general problem of the relationship of ancient Spain with the Orient (and, specifically, with the Biblical Orient), the chronological argument became a major issue in reflections on the limits and possibilities of writing the sacred history of Spain.