End Date :
Casa Hispánica,
Room 201
Part of the Medieval Iberia, Modern Empire seminar series, this session includes Alan Verskin, a new assistant professor specialist in al-Andalús, at Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, at Columbia University and Vincent Barletta, from Stanford, a specialist in Morisco studies.
“On the Dangers of Diasporal Life: The Evolution of Muslim Attitudes to Mudéjar Leadership” Alan Verskin (Columbia University) It is well-known that by the 15th century, North African jurists had issued strongly-worded fatwas denouncing the Mudéjar religious leaders and demanding their migration to Islamic lands. Modern scholars have sometimes characterized these writings as harsh, fanatic and anti-progressive. However, upon reviewing the history of legal thought about this issue, especially when coupled with the documentary evidence about the relationship between Mudéjar communities and their Christian rulers, a somewhat different picture emerges. This paper attempts to read these fatwas as pragmatic attempts to deal with changing geopolitical circumstances.
“Ethics Before the Law: The Aljamiado _Compendium_ of al-Ṭulayṭulī” Vincent Barletta (Stanford) This talk focuses on Aljamiado translations of a popular Andalusi compendium of Islamic jurisprudence. This legal compendium (mukhtaṣar)was redacted by a jurist named Abū al-Ḥassan ‘Ali ibn ‘Isa al-Ṭulayṭulī in the early tenth century, and it deals primarily with practical devotional obligations (‘ibādāt) as understood by the Maliki school of jurisprudence. Through a close textual and codicological analysis of extant Aljamiado manuscripts, I examine al-Ṭulayṭulī’s compendium as a mediating means for the formation of emergent ethical frameworks within the Crypto-Muslim communities of sixteenth-century Western Aragon.
