Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities of Late Medieval Spain

295 Pages·2008·1.496 MB·English

by  Kathryn A. Miller

GUARDIANS OF ISLAM

G UA R D I A N S
O F I S L A M
Religious Authority and Muslim Communities
of Late Medieval Spain
Kathryn A. Miller
columbia university press
NEW YORK
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2008 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Miller, Kathryn A.
Guardians of Islam : religious authority and Muslim communities of late medieval Spain /
Kathryn A. Miller Columbia University Press.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-13612-9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-50983-1 (e-book)
1. Spain—Civilization—Islamic infl uences. 2. Spain—Civilization—711–1516.
3. Muslims—Spain—History. 4. Mudéjares—Spain—History. I. Title.
DP103.M55 2008
305.6'97094655309024—dc22
2008020179
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and
durable acid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
introduction
Th e Muslim Exclaves in Christian Spain 1
chapter one
On the Border of Infi delity 20
chapter two
From Dar al- Islam to Dar al- Harb: Landscapes of Mudejar Spain 44
chapter three
Transmitting Knowledge and Building Networks 59
chapter four
Write It Down! 81
chapter five
Pretending to Be Jurists 106
vi contents
chapter six
Th e Scholar’s Jihad, the Mudejar Mosque, and Preaching 128
chapter seven
Captive Redemption: From Dar al- Harb to Dar al- Islam 151
Epilogue 176
Notes 183
Selected Bibliography 243
Index 261
Preface
“Do Muslim parents have the right to force their daughter to wear the
hijab if she refuses to wear it?” “Can a non- Muslim join in the funeral ser-
vice of a Muslim?” “Are Muslims allowed to inherit from non- Muslims?”
“What shall I do if there is no halal meat available in the city where I live?”
Th ese are the kinds of questions posed in mosques, on the streets, in the
press, and on the Internet by Muslims living in non- Muslim lands today.
Typically, the local imam is the fi rst source of information or guidance on
practicing Islam, but the search for answers, either casually or in the form
of fatwas, often extends beyond the neighborhood mosque. Religious au-
thority is a perennially touchy subject, especially with regard to Western
imams and Islamic legal scholars. In communities where the wearing of a
headscarf to school can result in lawsuits, protests, and global media atten-
tion, what it means to be a Muslim leader, manifesting and teaching Islam
at the local level or within the global umma, is a vital question.
For political, demographic, religious, and social reasons, contemporary
Muslim minorities have been catapulted into public discourse over the
last decade. News coverage, academic study, and the publication of schol-
arly monographs have contributed to this increased visibility, as well as the
founding of the Institute of Minority Aff airs and their publication Jour-
nal of Minority Aff airs. For those following this emerging body of knowl-
edge and speculation, the religious leadership of these Muslim commu-
nities has presented an interesting study. How do local Islamic leaders
in the West advise their communities? What Islamic practices are they
viii preface
emphasizing or deemphasizing? Do they issue fatwas? How in touch are
they with contemporary society and, on the other hand, with Islamic tra-
dition and scholarship?
Th e complexity of a Muslim identity in diaspora is evident. One of
the primary roles of Muslim leaders currently is to clarify Islamic norms
in a modern secular context—as suggested by the questions above—but
imams must also routinely address issues ranging from assimilation and
discrimination to the degree to which an individual or his religious com-
munity must cooperate with state authorities. Imams educated in the Mus-
lim world fi nd ways to adjust to secular society, while home- grown (indige-
nous/ native European) imams help their communities defi ne themselves
within the wider umma and Islamic tradition.
It is precisely these needs of Muslim minority communities—and the
eff orts of their religious leaders to guide them—that this book addresses.
Guardians of Islam concerns one of the earliest signifi cant Muslim com-
munities living in non-M uslim lands. In the fi fteenth century these Mus-
lims, known as Mudejars, inhabited the west corner of Aragon, in the Ebro
Valley, where they were surrounded by tangible memories of the now by-
gone Islamic dominance of the Iberian Peninsula. Yet while they faced
dilemmas of acculturation and Islamic identity similar to those of their
modern counterparts, the context of those dilemmas diff ers greatly. Th e
premodern Mediterranean world shaped not only their daily lives and their
practice of Islam but also the status of their religious leaders. Medieval Mus-
lim (cid:2)ulama’ thrived in an environment of common moral ideals and social
codes, a shared language of discourse and learning where scholarly networks
conveyed texts and information across great distances. Th ese scholars re-
garded themselves foremost as bearers of Islamic legal tradition and arbiters
of Islamic law for their communities. Within the latter they were granted an
elevated status as the guardians of their Islamic faith. Despite living in non-
Muslim territory, Mudejar scholars identifi ed with what has been character-
ized as the “cosmopolitan” world of the medieval (cid:2)ulama’.
Th e general reader may be astonished at the faintness of the trail left
by these Mudejar faqihs, considering that their days were devoted to writ-
ing contracts and copying manuscripts in Arabic. Th eir texts survive only
in fragments and are problematic, as we shall see. Many documents were
destroyed during the Morisco period in the sixteenth century, when the
preface ix
possession of Arabic manuscripts in Christian Iberia became a crime. Th us,
in contrast to the comparative visibility of modern Muslim scholars and
imams or to the Mudejar religious scholar’s medieval counterparts living in
Islamic lands, little is known about the educated elite of fi fteenth- century
Aragon. Few historians have considered how the Mudejars and their lead-
ers understood their own predicament as minority peoples and how they
interpreted what it meant to be Muslim.
Th us far what we know about the Mudear elite has been drawn mostly
from non- Muslim sources. Medieval Christians have left us bountiful doc-
umentation on their Muslim subjects, which has allowed us to learn much
about how the Mudejars engaged with the Christian world. A generation of
historians has scrutinized Muslim communities through these non-M uslim
sources found in Spain’s abundantly rich archives. In the Spanish archives
we can fi nd Mudejar faqihs in action, translating Arabic documents and
mediating for their communities. Th e ubiquitous presence of Muslim legal
scholars in Christian courts of law, and as fi gureheads for their communi-
ties, is well- attested in monographs published on the Mudejars over the last
three decades. But Spanish sources off er only one side of the story. For the
details that we would love to know—their education, their routines, the
messages that the faqihs imparted to their coreligionaries in their mosques,
and the biographical data that tell us more about these fi gures as social ac-
tors within their communities—we must return to those scraps of parch-
ment left by the faqihs themselves.
Guardians of Islam seeks to fi ll a gap. It is an archival hunt through ne-
glected fragments, a detective story that uncovers clues in margins, in colo-
phons, in the repetition of names. In addition to Mudejar Arabic sources,
I draw freely from North African legal sources and selectively from Valen-
cian and Aragonese documents in Spanish archives. My reliance on mul-
tiple source bases, with priority given to Muslim sources, is driven by my
argument that a signifi cant element of the Aragonese Mudejars’ diaspora
experience was their contact with their coreligionaries. Th ey constructed
networks that crossed over into Valencia, Granada, and North Africa. A
narrow focus on Aragonese documentary production would leave us with
a false impression of insularity.
Th ere has been no previous full- length study devoted to Mudejar leader-
ship or its links to religious authorities in the greater Mediterranean region.