Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha (Vol. II, Ch. 9)Con la iglesia hemos dado, SanchoWe have come up against the church, Sancho
Introduction
The preliminary survey of the sources in Chapter Three has revealed that there was a varied production of Mudejar narratives dealing with Jews and Judaism, which suggests that these subjects were of importance to the members of the Mudejar communities. The introduction to the Taʾyīd quoted above shows that Mudejar treatises might have provided an answer to the verbal attacks by the Jews in public spaces, but that this treatise was adapted probably more than once to fit a context in which, surprisingly, the Jews no longer presented a challenge to the Mudejars. This raises the question of what the role of the Mudejars’ competition with the Jews played in strengthening the social cohesion of their communities within a Christian society. How did Mudejar authors of polemics understand identity and religious authority in their treatises against Jews and Judaism?
In order to answer this question, I shall discuss three important works of polemics against the Jews: the Taʾyīd, the “demandas de ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām”/“demandas de los judíos” and the Kitāb al-Mujādala. I shall look at whether the growing Christian anti-Judaism, which was articulated through the genealogies or ‘linajes’ of Old and New Christians and gave way to concepts of purity of blood ‘pureza de sangre’ and to the emergence of the “Jew” as a category of thought,1 had an impact on the Mudejar treatises of polemics against the Jews. The latter concern is connected to the hypothesis stated in Chapter One that the relations with a third group might implicitly play an important role in the polemics between two groups. In that chapter we have seen that, according to Nirenberg, from the fifteenth century the Christians appear to have been increasingly reluctant to rule in favour of the Jews in cases of intermarriage and apostasy between Jews and Muslims brought before the Christian courts. Nirenberg argues that the Christian interference in these relationships could have encouraged the introduction of all the main Christian anti-Jewish arguments of polemics into Muslim treatises. Could the Mudejars’ interest in writing against Judaism reflect the attitudes towards this group rife among the Christians? Are the reasons twofold, as exemplified by the case of Ibn Ḥazm: namely, the social ascension of the Jews in the Christian society and the Jewish conversions to Christianity? Could the Christian modes of polemics with the Jews explain the central place assumed by the Torah in such Mudejar polemics as the Taʾyīd, in which it is extensively quoted, or in the narrative of “the ten lines”, in which the Torah is taken as the starting point?
Before entering into the discussion of these issues, I would like to set the stage by illustrating the importance of Christians and Christianity to the relations between Jews and Muslims, not only on the level of their social relationships but also in the discussion of religious issues. The example of the extraordinary story about the origins of the ban on wine in Islam is a good example. In the chronicle, the Sefer Divrei Yosef,2 written by a Jew named Joseph Sambari living in Cairo in the second half of the sixteenth century, we read that the reason behind Muḥammad’s alleged desire to destroy the Jews was the hatred which the Christian monk Baḥīrā harboured towards them.3 Sambari tells us that Abū Bakr and imām ʿAlī were two converts who were descendants of the Jewish Sages,4 and that Abū Bakr was the son of the leader of the exilarchs (resh ghālūtha), who converted to Islam out of fear of Baḥīrā’s plans to destroy the Jews and also because he saw that the power of Muḥammad had increased and that his own position as the head of the Jewish community was in danger.5 The Jewish origin of Abū Bakr and ʿAlī accounts for the fact that they wanted to protect their former co-religionists and to foil a plot against them contrived by Baḥīrā. They took the chance to do so when they and Muḥammad were invited to a Bacchanalia at Baḥīrā’s home. The dinner guests got drunk in the course of the celebration. During night, by stealth Abū Bakr managed to put his hand on Muḥammad’s magical sword which only its owner—the Prophet of Islam—could unsheathe. Abū Bakr beheaded Baḥīrā and Muḥammad sank into sadness believing that he himself had killed his friend. This led him to curse wine and prohibit its consumption by Muslims as well as to resume his good relations with the Jews who were protected under what is known as the Pact of ʿUmar.
The source of the legend of Baḥīrā, Muḥammad and the Jews recounted in the Sefer Divrei Yosef is the Iggeret Vikkuah [The Epistle of the Polemics], a polemical letter written in Aragon in the thirteenth century by Rabbi Yaʿaqov ben Eliyyahū, possibly from Valencia. The Iggeret Vikkuah is the oldest Hebrew version of this narrative known to us.6 Somewhat later, the author who wrote under the pseudonym Sir John Mandeville (14th c.) helped to spread the writings of the well-known Dominican William of Tripoli (d. 1277 CE) to the Christian West.7 This work contains legends about the death of Baḥīrā which are very similar to that in the Iggeret Vikkuah. However, Jacob Mann argues that the Jewish version of Yaʿaqov ben Eliyyahū does not depend on Christian sources.8 In the Iggeret Vikkuah, we find the etiologic topos referred to by Barbara Roggema,9 but, in this instance, the wine seems to reinforce the purpose of this narrative, which is none other than to shed light on the controversy between Jews and Muslims and to denounce the instigator role of the Christians in this polemic. The hatred between the Christians (Baḥīrā) and the Jews, the good relations between the Christians and the Muslims Baḥīrā—Muḥammad), and the ambiguous relationship of the new converts (Abū Bakr—ʿAlī) are parts of the same unit which are interrelated and in it the attitudes among members of two communities affect the third one. How close Islam and Judaism could have been in their respective religious precepts were it not for the insidiousness of Baḥīrā! The wine is just the author’s strategy to explain this idea.
The narrative provided by Sambari not only shows the role that Christianity seems to have played in the relations between Jews and Muslims, it also illustrates a second aspect in the relations between Jews and Muslims, that is, the social advancement of the Jews and, in the present case, their advancement in the Christian society. One of the reasons which led an individual to abandon the religion of his parents was the prospect of being able to climb the social ladder, a promotion which was only possible if the individual entered the majority group.10 This is illustrated above by the opportunistic conversion of Abū Bakr in order to remain as the head of the community. Besides the fact that Jews in the Christian territories were at times wealthier than Mudejars,11 it is worth taking into consideration that conversions to Christianity were also being boosted by the gradual conquest of territory by the latter, which led to a change in the internal composition of the communities and their demographic weight. Christian polemics against the Jews also received a stimulus from an increasing number of neophytes who brought their knowledge of Jewish doctrines and sources to Christianity. Soon, this corpus of knowledge became an important weapon for Christians and was wielded in the sermons and in the preaching of the mendicant orders,12 particularly that of the Dominicans.13 In a recent article on the literature of Christian polemics against the Jews during the twelfth to the fourteenth century, Ryan Szpiech argues that conversions led to a change in attitude towards Judaism and its sources on the part of the Christians. This alteration in the Christian attitude began with the Disputation of Barcelona in 1263 CE but lost strength as the suspicion of the Christian society towards new converts increased.14
As a result of this change in attitude, Christian-Muslim relations were revised. The upshot was that Muslims and their sources were also cited in some Christian polemics as “witnesses” to the Christian truth before the Jews. These Muslims are referred to by Szpiech as “rhetorical Muslims”, and they correspond to the well-known image of the “hermeneutical Jew” within Judaeo-Christian polemics. This trope claimed that the existence of Jews in the world is necessary since these Jews are those who will bear witness to the triumph of Christianity at the end of time. Szpiech notes that, even though we can observe a rapprochement to Islam and its sources in some treaties of Christian anti-Jewish polemics, in other works containing the Christian attacks on Islam, Muslims are represented negatively. Hence, it can be argued that we are dealing with a Christian strategy15 in which the attachment to different identities according to context, a characteristic shared by the aforementioned grammar of segmentation from Baumann, becomes visible. As Szpiech notes, materials which today we would classify as Talmudic and Midrashic materials were incorporated into Christian polemics and coalesced with the repertoire of biblical passages which had until then formed the bulk of arguments against the Jews. The use of the image of the Muslim as a source of authority suggests that, while Judaeo-Christian polemics often tended to follow patterns within a certain tradition, they were nonetheless sufficiently ductile to absorb the changes in this literature; changes which in turn reflected the social context in which these works were produced.16
This comes along with the appreciation that the polemical encounters among religious communities in the Iberian Peninsula defined to some extent the course of the discourses brought forth in polemical tracts, which became entwined with the shared intellectual heritage of Muslims, Christians and Jews. An example here is the Jewish account of the settlement in the Iberian Peninsula of the Jewish legions in the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. Adam Beaver shows how the narrative of Nebuchadnezzar finds its origins in the Middle Ages, in particular in al-Andalus, in the polemics against the Jews by Ibn Ḥazm, and it was transformed from a “figure of Jewish-Muslim interaction into the figure of Judeo-Christian interaction”.17 Interestingly, the transformation started at a moment in which “conversion between Judaism and Christianity was largely immaterial”.18 Beaver argues, too, that the popularity of this account among humanist historians, most of them conversos from Judaism, had nothing to do with an attempt by these conversos to counter the constraints towards their communities by claiming for an established religious plurality in the Peninsula. Neither had anything to do with a Spanish monarchy eager to seek its foundational roots beyond the Roman period. The internal struggles among Christians (Catholics and Protestants) instead breathed new life into Nebuchadnezzar’s narrative. The analysis of the Christians’ reading of their Jewish past provided by this scholar sets aside questions on genealogical pride, and places biblical exegesis, and what Beaver calls ‘the polemical Muslim’, at the crossroads of the interactions between Christians, Muslims and Jews that informed the “legacy of the intellectual history of the Iberian Peninsula”.19
Conversion is relevant to our present inquiry. The sources cited by Nirenberg show that there were conversions not only to the majority Christian religion but also between the Jewish and Muslim minorities.20 It has been noted above that Kassin argues that the author of the Taʾyīd was a convert from Judaism. Converts were and are often the most ardent adherents of their new faith and were therefore the ones most likely to compose treaties of polemics against their former co-religionists. They were well equipped to do so as they were well versed in the canonical sources of their former religion. The author’s use of the Torah underpins Kassin’s claim. However, in establishing his identity, and even though the sources from which this author could have taken his quotations from the Torah are important, they are not the only significant aspect. For example, if he was indeed a Jewish convert and an educated, literate man, it is highly likely that he was acquainted with the Judaeo-Christian controversy of his times and incorporated some of its arguments into his treatise. If proven, this postulation would provide strong evidence of the influence of the Christian discourses on Mudejar polemics. The known triangularity which characterized the relationships between Christians, Jews and Muslims is one pertinent reason for looking at contemporary Christian-Jewish and Jewish-Muslim polemics.
This chapter is divided into three sections. In Section 5.1., the discussion of the polemics against the Jews in the Taʾyīd will pay special attention to the question of whether its author was a Jew. I shall tackle this by examining the author’s approach to the Torah and taking into account the Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Christian literature of polemics current in the Christian territories at the time. In Section 5.2., the polemics against the Jews in the Kitāb al-Mujādala and the relationship of this treatise with the Taʾyīd will be the core of inquiry. In Section 5.3., the polemics against the Jews in the “demandas de ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām”/“demandas de los judíos” will be principally linked to the question about the production and consumption of this narrative among the Mudejars and the Moriscos.
5.1 The Taʾyīd
The author of the Taʾyīd introduces himself as an observant Muslim. At the very beginning of this treatise, he pronounces the profession of faith, or shahāda, and claims: “I bear sincere and certain witness that there is no God but Allāh alone; He has no partner. I attest that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger from whom He has sent with the clear light and solid proof.”21 A little further down, he makes his position as a religious and intellectual leader of his community clear by referring to his relationships with the Muslim umma, and by complaining about his life in “the land of polytheism […] cut off from the adherents of our religion and destitute of learning”.22 As has already been mentioned several times, the author refers to the challenges posed by groups of Jews in the Christian lands, and to their slanders against the Mudejars.
The purpose of the treatise of the Taʾyīd is to refute the calumnies uttered by the Jews. To do so, the author adduces a discourse which revolves around the prophetic mission of Muḥammad, a subject dealt with in the Muslim literary genre known as the dalāʾil an-nubuwwa (Evidence of Prophecy) and khatm an-nubuwwa (Seal of Prophethood) which seems to have developed alongside the Jewish doctrine “of the cessation of prophecy”.23 Much of this literature is about the miracles of the Prophet Muḥammad and some treatises, such as the Kitāb ad-Dīn wa-d-Dawla fī Ithbāt Nubuwwat an-Nabī Muḥammad [The Book of Religion and Empire on the Prophethood of the Prophet Muḥammad] by the convert to Christianity ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī (d. before 250 H/864 CE), resort to exegesis and cite several biblical passages which announce the coming of Muḥammad.24 Among these works, the Kitāb ash-Shifāʾ bi-Taʿrīf Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafā [Healing by the Recognition of the Rights or News of the Chosen One] by al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544 H/1149 CE.) is very well known. ʿIyāḍ was a judge in Granada and Ceuta and enjoyed a great popularity among the Moriscos.25 As noted in Chapter Three, the author of the Taʾyīd divides the text into five sections and provides a teleological account of Islam and of Muḥammad’s prophecy by a refutation of Judaism. The account begins with the question about the primogeniture of the sons of Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and ends with the destruction of the Temple and the fall from grace before God of the people of Israel. As already noted, he argues that the Jews must repent their sins and accept ʿĪsā (Jesus) as a messenger of Allāh and Muḥammad as the Seal of the Prophets. They should convert to Islam.26
Everything we have said so far seems to suggest that the profile of the author corresponds with that of an educated Muslim who attempts to furnish his co-religionists with tools to refute the views of the Jews in the Christian territories in which the Taʾyīd was probably composed. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that, whereas in the literature of Muslim polemics against the Christians and the Jews discussed in the previous chapter the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures were considered a forgery by a large number of Muslim authors like Ibn Ḥazm, who only deal (and accept) those biblical verses which in their eyes prefigure the coming of Muḥammad, the author of the Taʾyīd argues that a comprehensive reading of the sacred books of the Jews, particularly of the Torah, foretells and confirms the truth of Islam. One of the reasons the author gives for justifying the use of the Torah is that he wants to dispute with the Jews about those matters with which they are familiar and not about those of which they have little knowledge like the Qurʾān. If the Jews used Islamic knowledge to utter invectives against Islam and Muḥammad, he is completely convinced that their knowledge is so limited it is better to refrain from disputing with them on these issues.27 This assertion indubitably tallies with the Qurʾānic views on disputation and, moreover, seems to correspond to the kind of Islamic knowledge current among Jews in Christian Iberia: from the classification of Andalusī-Arabic manuscripts which were in circulation among Jews by Van Koningsveld, only one miscellaneous example (MS Escorial Árabe 631) contains two theological works by al-Ghazālī.28 By far the bulk of them is composed of philosophical, medical and scientific treatises. He was convinced that disputing with the Jews on the basis of their own canonical sources provided not only common ground between the two communities, it was also a way to show that he “did not avoid them [that is, the arguments from the Torah] because of inability or shortcoming”.29 This could have been a tactic to counter claims such as those made by Rabbi Salomon ibn Adret (d. 1310 CE), who believed Muslims to be less knowledgeable about the Torah than Christians.30 Below we shall look at the level of knowledge of the Torah among Mudejars.
It could be argued that, in attempting to achieve the two main purposes of the Taʾyīd, which, as I recall, are an attack on the Jews and a strengthening of the Mudejars’ faith, the author implicitly endows the biblical texts with religious authority; he assumes they are true—at least those parts which serve him to build his argument—and also known to his Muslim audiences. Gaertner et al. note that the transformation of the “members’ perceptions of group boundaries from ‘us’ and ‘them’ to a more inclusive ‘we’ ” is characteristic of the model of common in-group identity.31 Such a transformation, these authors claim, helps to redirect “the cognitive and motivational processes that may contribute initially to intergroup bias and conflict […] toward establishing more harmonious intergroup relations”.32 The author of the Taʾyīd highlights super-ordinate memberships shared by Muslims and Jews—particularly their categorization, together with Christians, as the “people of the Book”. Emphasizing elements of common in-group identity between Muslims and Jews in this polemic might unintentionally have eased intergroup relations but this is certainly not the motivation of the author. Instead, common in-group identity plays another role in the agenda of this author, most likely that of enforcing the Islamic discourse of theological supersessionism over Judaism and Christianity upon his audiences. The next section will provide some evidence of the Mudejars’ access to the Torah but here it will suffice to note that, by addressing the problematic in-between spaces between Judaism and Islam and questioning them deeply, the author of the Taʾyīd meets the challenges that the Torah may have posed to the Mudejars. Somewhat paradoxically, the building of common in-group identity also tightens the boundaries between the two communities and emphasizes the positive group distinctiveness of Muslims. By recognizing the common ground between the Muslim and the Jewish revelations, the author makes a strong argument for the excellence of Islam that, as the title indicates, strengthens belonging to the community. In a context where, as we have seen, conversion in both directions between Islam and Judaism occurred, and on occasion reversion to the community of origin took place,33 it was of utmost importance to the religious leaders of the Mudejars to promote the integration of the new converts while at the same time tightening the boundaries between the two communities. This entailed the clarification of the doctrine of Islam and the emphasis on its being God’s last revelation to mankind, and this is what seems to give purpose to the polemical discourse of the author of the Taʾyīd.
The author’s approach to the Jewish sources taken in conjunction with the fact that the canonical sources of Islam such as the Qurʾān and the Sunna play a comparatively small part in this treatise, and that no Qurʾānic verses against Jews and Judaism are quoted, could explain why the identity of this author has been disputed by scholars. As discussed in Chapter Three, Flügel claims that al-Raqilī, the copyist of the oldest manuscript of the Taʾyīd known to us, MS RAH Gy. XXXI (762 H/= 1361CE), was also the author of the Taʾyīd, whereas conversely Asín Palacios has claimed that this copy was an autograph by an anonymous Morisco. More recently, Kassin has argued that this manuscript is not an autograph but a copy of an earlier original made by an anonymous Jewish convert to Islam. In earlier chapters evidence has been introduced which make it seem unlikely that the Arabic version of the Taʾyīd in MS RAH Gy. XXXI is an autograph. In the following paragraphs, I would like to delve a little more into the arguments about whether its anonymous author should be identified as a Jew.
5.1.1 The Level of the Knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew of the Author of the Taʾyīd
The polemicist of the Taʾyīd seems to know Arabic, but nonetheless laments his shortcomings in classical Arabic and the barbarisms in his vocabulary. Turning to his knowledge of Hebrew, references to this language in the Taʾyīd are sporadic: the author claims that, “the name of Qārūn in Hebrew is Kōraḥ”34 and refers to Gen. 17:20, in Hebrew, “bi-meʾod meʾod” as “bi-mād mād”.35 In another reference to the Hebrew language, it is spelled according to Arabic rules, and ishmāʿ is rendered ismāʿ.36 His linguistic situation corresponds largely to that of the members of the Muslim communities living in the Christian territories of the Iberian Peninsula and not with that of contemporary Jews in the Christian territories. If Jews living in such Muslim lands as al-Andalus were fluent in Arabic,37 the same does not hold true for Jews living in Christian lands. We observe a mixed picture regarding the command of and the attitudes towards Arabic by Jews in Christian Iberia with differences between regions such as Aragon and others like Castile,38 yet from the twelfth century onwards one can generally speak of a loss of Arabic and the use of either Romance as everyday language and of Hebrew for literary and scientific purposes. Hence, we find a learned Jew such as the fourteenth-century Rabbi Ibn Adret claiming to have no knowledge of Arabic.39 This assertion makes Kassin’s main argument for identifying the author of the Taʾyīd with a converted Jew problematic. Kassin states that the source of the treatise could have been a Judaeo-Arabic version of the Pentateuch, since, a knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet is required but above all, a good knowledge of Arabic would have been needed to work with such a version.
5.1.2 The Knowledge of the Torah among the Mudejars
At this point there is some evidence of the circulation of such a version among the Mudejars and the Moriscos. The knowledge of the Torah of the author of the Taʾyīd and of his audiences is certainly an aspect which should be taken into account not only to identify the author but also to assess whether the Jews were his main target, or whether this was the members of the Mudejar communities themselves.
Before discussing this issue any further, it should be noted that, as is the case with most medieval Muslim writers, the polemicist of the Taʾyīd does not always provide a literal rendering of his quotations from the Torah and adapts them to the rhetoric of his arguments. Therefore, when he refers to the sixteenth chapter of the Torah (viz. Gen 16) to argue that Ishmael will have the “dominion, prophetic office, and leadership over the whole world” he says: “He shall have a hand against everyone, and everyone shall have a hand in him; and he shall make a dwelling in all the boundaries of his brothers.”40 A few pages later, these verses read: “This son of yours shall be a wild ass of a man; his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand in him; and he shall make a dwelling in all the boundaries of his brothers.”41 The meaning is the same; the wording is slightly different: “yakūnu lahu yadun” versus “yaduhu”. This does not mean, however, that he does not attach any importance to the accurate rendering of the text, and he provides the chapter numbers from which he is quoting. As the author of the Taʾyīd is precise in giving the chapter numbers, it is safe to assume that he was working from an extract of a full copy of the Torah.
This is a good point at which to make a short excursion into the relationship between the claims by Kassin that the author of this treatise might have used the Arabic version of the Pentateuch in Hebrew characters by Saadia Gaon; the remarks by Levi della Vida that some of the marginalia in one of the manuscripts of the Taʾyīd, MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 163, seem to have been made by someone who had knowledge of Hebrew (perhaps the copyist al-Tujībī);42 and the fact that some Aljamiado versions of the Taʾyīd contain verses from the Pentateuch in Hebrew written in Arabic characters. On the one hand, Samir Kaddouri has recently discussed the possibility that the author of the Taʾyīd had taken his biblical quotations from versions of the Arabic Pentateuch by Saadia Gaon derived from the Peshitta and a Coptic version of Saadia Gaon’s Pentateuch found in the following manuscripts: MS Ar. 112 (Florence), MS Ar. Aumer 234 (Munich), MS Ar. Or. 215 (Leiden), as noted above, a Mudejar manuscript, and MS BNF arabe 13.43 The Arabic Pentateuch by Saadia Gaon in MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129 could well be relevant to the issue at hand. The bulk of the manuscript MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129 is written in Arabic but both the headers of the various sections of the Pentateuch and many catchwords interspersed in the text are written in Hebrew. The marginalia are in Latin, in Arabic and in Aljamiado (Levi della Vida gives the example of the word “menazas”/Eng. threads).44 Joshua Blau, following Rafael Edelmann, argues that this version has a Karaite origin, given that the Karaites used to translate into Arabic to the point of transliterating the Hebrew in Arabic characters.45 In a recent study, Ronny Vollandt casts doubt on this assumption and argues that we are dealing with the interpretation (or tafsīr) of the Pentateuch by Saadia Gaon which was widespread among “Arabic speaking Rabbanite communities […] in the Near East, North Africa and Muslim Spain”.46 He also puts forward the hypothesis that the copyist of this manuscript might have been working from an original written in Hebrew characters.
On the basis of the use of Aljamiado in manuscript MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129, Van Koningsveld places its circulation “in Muslim circles of Christian Spain”, and, with Wiegers, among the Arabic books in Pastrana mentioned by Marcos Dobelio referred to in Chapter Three.47 Van Koningsveld also links three of the four Arabic manuscripts of the Taʾyīd to the just mentioned version of the Pentateuch in circulation among Muslims.48 The possibility that the author of the Taʾyīd had used this version of the Pentateuch might be the connection between the claims by Kassin and Levi della Vida, and might also explain the presence of Hebrew in some of the surviving Arabic and Aljamiado copies of this work. A comparison between MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129 and the Taʾyīd in MS ÖNB AF 58 suggests that the quotations in the latter are not literal, and, moreover, whereas MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129 consistently refers to Abram, MS ÖNB AF 58 uses Ibrāhīm instead. However, we lack a critical edition of the Arabic manuscripts of the Taʾyīd and, hence, more study is needed to shed light on this issue. Even if the author had not used this manuscript, the circumstance that the Taʾyīd and the Arabic-Hebrew version of the Pentateuch by Saadia Gaon were among the Arabic manuscripts found in Pastrana means that Mudejars were probably acquainted with these materials and/or with other Oriental versions of the Pentateuch such as those studied by Kaddouri. The interest among the members of the Mudejar communities in learning about these subjects could have influenced the choice made by the author of the Taʾyīd to quote extensively from the Torah but also choosing to explain his knowledge of Judaism, which is the next topic of discussion.
5.1.3 The Knowledge of Judaism of the Author of the Taʾyīd
The author seems to have had some knowledge of Judaism, for he refers to the ineffable name of God “Shem ha-Meforash”.49 He also mentions that the Jewish sect called the ʿIsāwiyya sees Muḥammad as a true prophet,50 that the Sāmiriyya claims that the Torah of the Jews is not the true one51 and that the Byzantine Jews (probably contemporaneous with the Taʾyīd) live in a state of slavery.52 Nonetheless, his knowledge appears to have been taken from oral sources and, when he claims that, in the Talmud, Hagar was the daughter of Pharaoh—which corresponds to Muslim views—he mistakes the quote which, as Kassin notes, is taken from the Midrash.53
Although this could be a lapsus calami by the copyist of this particular manuscript, al-Raqilī, there seem to be clearer indications which suggest that the author felt uncomfortable talking about Jewish topics. In this connection, it is interesting to look at the author’s strategies when dealing with the Bible. He quotes God’s punishments for the disobedient, mostly from Deuteronomy, to prove the falsehood of the Jews. He also interprets the biblical passages by, for example, adding information to the verses. When he refers to God’s words to Moses in Deuteronomy in which God says: “I will raise up a prophet for the sons of Israel […] I will inspire him with My words”, he explains the passage by writing that by “My words” God was referring to “the noble Qurʾān”.54 When Jewish views on a subject are completely opposite to Muslim views, for instance, which of the sons of Ibrāhīm, Isḥāq or Ismāʿīl, was offered as sacrifice, the author does not name any.55 He still uses this narrative, albeit now with the purpose of arguing that, when God gave orders to Ibrāhīm to sacrifice his son and then He prevented him from doing so, stopping Ibrāhīm from sacrificing his son, was a clear case of abrogation of God’s earlier command. Likewise, he argues, the Qurʾān abrogates the Torah. The author glosses over the controversy about Isḥāq-Ismāʿīl and prefers to outline the commonalities between Jews and Muslims, that is to say, their shared belief that at the last moment God revoked His decision. Moreover, although this happens sporadically, some parts of the Christian Gospel such as those dealing with the coming of the Paraclete are quoted to give strength to the argument that Muḥammad is foretold in the Torah.56
The outsider position of the author with regard to Judaism is blatant on f. 131 of the Arabic text of the Taʾyīd, on which we read: “And today makes one thousand three hundred and sixty years in which they [namely: the Jews] have not sung to Allāh a psalm in the Temple.” To this, Kassin adds in a footnote: “i.e. the date of MS G; cf. the colophon page” [762 H/= 1361 CE].57 What both Kassin and the author of the Taʾyīd seem to overlook is that the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem took place in 70 CE—according to Jews in 68 CE. This means that the Taʾyīd would date from 1430 CE, which is impossible if we take the date in the colophon into consideration. It is difficult to accept that a convert from Judaism would have committed an error of this kind. It seems that the author of the Taʾyīd has taken the year of birth of Jesus as his benchmark.
5.1.4 Jewish Polemics against Islam in the Christian Territories
Is the author of the Taʾyīd providing an answer to a Jewish polemic against Islam written in the Christian territories? We have seen that polemical authors usually composed their works in reaction to the arguments of one or more religious opponents in their most immediate environment. The Jewish hostility towards Islam perceived in the introduction of the Taʾyīd is also found in the comments of Moses ibn ʿEzra (c. 1055 CE–after 1135 CE) about the attitude of some of his fellow Jews regarding their use of the Qurʾān.58 Between 1120 CE and 1129 CE, the Jewish polygraph Abraham bar Ḥiyya, a resident of the Christian territories and for some time in Barcelona, wrote the Megilla ha-Megalleh [The Revealing Book], a work which includes some controversial sections about the figure of Muḥammad.59 This treatise of polemics circulated among Christian and Jewish authors and, in his Fortalitium Fidei, Alonso de Espina (d. 1486 CE) claims to have heard of it.60 About the same date the Megilla ha-Megalleh was composed, in his treatise entitled Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah [The Sublime Faith], Abraham ibn Daud (Córdoba 1110 CE–Toledo 1180 CE)—considered the first Jewish Aristotelian philosopher—refers to an anonymous author whom Fontaine identifies with Ibn Ḥazm.61 At the end of the twelfth century, in his work the Sefer ha-Meshalim [Book of Stories] Yaʿaqov ben Elʿazar (1170–1233 CE, Toledo) includes a long passage in which he praises the Hebrew language. In this passage, Yaʿaqov defends himself against the oral attacks of a group of “Wise Ishmaelites” who show contempt for the Hebrew language: “The reason for composing my Book of Stories […]/”, he claims, “is that the Sages of the Ishmaelites/ were intimidating (sic) the Holy Language.”62 According to Sadan, Yaʿaqov ben Elʿazar refers to actual injuries and could be responding to the dogma of the inimitability of the Qurʾān produced by his contemporary the Cordovan al-Qurṭubī in his work the al-Iʿlām.63 Whatever the case may be, Yaʿaqov ben Elʿazar does not attack the Arabic language or the Qurʾān. One treatise by the later Salomon ibn Adret (d. 1310 CE) also refutes the views of Ibn Ḥazm.64 Besides these works, there is also the attack against Islam by the Catalan cabbalist Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi (early 14th century) in his polemics with the rationalist Jews.65
These are sporadic references to Islam included in works whose main purpose is not to refute Islam. I do not know of any treatise of Jewish polemics which contains, either partially or wholly, a refutation of Islam and which was written in the Christian territories of the Iberian Peninsula or in al-Andalus. Perlmann has stated that the low rate of production of Jewish polemics against Muslims could be attributed to the small challenge Islam posed to their communities in Christian lands.66 This fact was noticed by the Majorcan Jew Simeon ben Ẓemaḥ Duran (1361–1444 CE), who wrote from his exile: “A number of authors refute Christianity and we used them because at a certain time we could discuss with them safely. However, we have not found anyone who has rebutted Islam, except for the little material found in the Kuzari, a book to which I referred.”67 Duran includes these words at the conclusion of his polemic against Christianity and Islam entitled the Keshet u-Magen [Bow and Shield], a separate work contained in his masterpiece of philosophy, the Magen Avot [The Shield of the Fathers].68 The Keshet u-Magen was composed in Algeria, but both the language (a mixture of Aljamiado-Catalan,69 Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew) and the contents of the work make it particularly suitable to use in the peninsular context. This supposition is reinforced by the fact that, throughout his life, Duran maintained strong contacts with the Mallorcan Jewish communities and that, almost half a century after his emigration in 1391 CE, he still sent them recommendations and advice.70
The abundant quotations of passages extracted from the Torah is an outstanding characteristic of the Taʾyīd and their use suggests that, by and large, its author accepts the text of the Torah. Moreover, the Taʾyīd seems to be an answer to the Jewish polemical discourse against Islam in this work. Duran was born in the same year in which the oldest copy of the Taʾyīd was completed and he composed the Magen Avot in 1406 CE, a year after the copy of MS ÖNB AF 58 which contains both the Taʾyīd and the Kitāb al-Mujādala was finished.71 The topics in the Keshet are similar to those found in these two polemics. The objectives of the dispute with the Christians72 are a reflection of those in the Taʾyīd: their purpose is to demonstrate that the Torah has not been abrogated and that the suffering of the Jews is not a punishment for killing Jesus. Other controversial topics are very similar to those in the Kitāb al-Mujādala discussed in Chapter Three: the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the papacy and the changes introduced into Christianity by Paul, Jerome73 and Augustine. However, the dispute with the Muslims is the one which shows the most resemblance to the Kitāb al-Mujādala. Consequently, a large number of the topics and authorities used by the author of this Muslim polemic to attack the Christians reappear in the Keshet as arguments directed against Muslims. According to Duran, the Qurʾān, has not a divine origin, the miracles of Muḥammad are not a proof of the truth of his religion and the dissension between Muslims aroused by questions posed by such philosophers as Ibn Rushd about the corporeality of God, the creation of the world and the free will only confirm the absurdity of the doctrine of Islam.74 In the Keshet we find a comparative exegesis of the three religions, an aspect also present in the Kitāb al-Mujādala. In this we find a clear attempt to attack opponents by turning their own arguments against them. In the same way as the Taʾyīd does with the Torah and the Gospels, Duran argues that, if understood properly, the Qurʾān confirms the truth of Judaism. I do not know whether the Keshet exerted any influence in the communities in the Peninsula, but its exceptionality—noted by Duran himself—suggests that, in the territories under Christian rule, we probably had a situation in which the Mudejars launched their attacks on an opponent who seemed to have lost interest in disputing with them. Could the use of the Torah and the arguments against the Jews in the Taʾyīd be explained by the influence of Jewish-Christian polemics instead?
5.1.5 Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Christian Territories
Here I shall not deal in depth with this vast literature, but look only at its main characteristics. In this exercise, the four models which Amos Funkenstein distinguishes in the development of the discourse of Christian anti-Jewish polemics, based on the sources of the texts and set in chronological order are a useful tool. Funkenstein argues that these models could give us information about the kind of Jewish answers Christian attacks might have sparked such as, for example, the positive significance of the ethnic continuity of the Jews or the position of the Gentiles in Judaism in treatises like the Beit ha-Beḥirah [The Chosen House] by Menachem Ha-Meiri (Perpignan 1249–1316 CE).75 Two models were dominant during both the twelfth and thirteenth century and both are characterized by the stereotyped repetition of biblical arguments and by the attempt to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity on the basis of philosophy. From the twelfth century, two other models of controversy appear whose purpose is the refutation of the post-biblical Jewish literature—which is considered heretical—and to launch an attack on the Jews by recourse to this literature.76 The upshot is that, whereas before the twelfth century a rejection of the Jewish sources occurs, thereafter the Jews themselves are object of rejection, albeit this was a gradual process. The third and especially the fourth type reached a high degree of development in the late fourteenth century. In these, the narrative passages from the rabbinical tradition (Aggada) form the bulk of the materials of polemics, and the subjects revolve around the content of these sources, the figure of Jesus and the divergences between the Gospels and the Torah.
Prominent examples of this literature are the Dialogi contra Iudaeos by Petrus Alfonsi (1062?–1140? CE) and the Milḥamot ha-Shem [The Wars of God] (1170 CE) by Jacob ben Reuben.77 Both the Dialogi and the Milḥamot are regarded as the first systematic attempts to formulate a refutation of Judaism and Christianity, respectively.78 Known to Christians and Jews, these works circulated within these groups in the same period as the Taʾyīd. For the case of the Dialogi, recognition of the Jewish adversary appears to be significant in the polemical discourse of its author, as Ritva Palmén has recently argued. This is an element that, as we have seen, is key in the anti-Jewish polemics in the Taʾyīd, too.79
The influence and dissemination of the Dialogi is well known.80 It seems very probable that the Milḥamot was a refutation of Alfonsi’s Dialogi, therefore the contents of these two works can be related to each other. Besides being the first two systematic attacks on Judaism and Christianity, respectively, and besides the fact that they both include a dialogue, by coincidence both these authors would seem to have had some relation with the city of Huesca, in which one of the copies of the Taʾyīd was made—even though this is not absolutely certain in the case of Reuben.81 Composed in 1170 CE, a few decades later than the Dialogi, the Milḥamot would subsequently be attacked by such polemicists as Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270–1349 CE) and Abner of Burgos (1270–1346 CE). Daniel J. Lasker notes that, although this treatise served as a model for Jewish polemics against the Christians in the Christian territories, it does show a strong influence from the Judaeo-Christian polemics in circulation in al-Andalus, a territory which its author, Jacob ben Reuben, was forced to abandon. Works like the Milḥamot seem to be a response to the treatises written by such converts as Petrus Alfonsi, Abner of Burgos or Gerónimo de Santa Fe in which new polemical arguments were introduced.82 These treatises provoked a reaction from the members of the Jewish communities which, for the first time, needed to refute sources previously circulated exclusively within their communities.83
The inevitable outcome was that controversies between Jewish converts to Christianity and members of the Jewish aljamas sprang up during both the fourteenth and the fifteenth century.84 Here I refer only to cases in which there was a correspondence between Conversos and Jews. I leave aside the subsequent responses to these treatises and unidirectional attacks as, for example, the letter which Pablo de Santa María/Burgos wrote to Joseph Orabuena after his conversion or the letter from Joshua ben Joseph al-Lorki—later known as Gerónimo de Santa Fe—to Pablo, also related to his conversion.85 Among them were the disputes between Pedro de Luna—the future (anti) Pope Benedict XIII—and Shem Ṭov ibn Shaprut (1379 CE);86 between Juan de Valladolid and Moses ha-Kohen of Tordesillas (14th c.);87 between Pablo de Santa María and Joseph Albo (14th–15th c.);88 and the satirical verses written by Solomon ben Reuben Bonafed (14th–15th c.) to Francesch de Sant Jordi/Astruc Rimoch in response to a letter sent to him by his friend, Rimoch Sealtiel Bonafos, urging him to convert.89 There is a correspondence between the main themes of the Dialogi and the Milḥamot: an attack on the doctrine and exegesis of the religion of the adversary. The background to these disputes is philosophical-theological, that is, they address questions about God (His corporeality, measurements)—both eschatological and functional—and, therefore, what is at stake is the implementation of the law sent by God to the Jews. The two other important issues are: the abrogation of the Mosaic Law by Jesus and the coming of the Messiah.
The Taʾyīd does display a slight correlation with contemporary polemics between Christians and Jews. It bears some resemblance to Chapters 3–10 of the Milḥamot, in which the precise objective of Reuben is to deny the prophecy of Jesus in the Psalms, the books of the Prophets and Proverbs. It also resembles Chapter Two of this same work which deals with Jesus’ abrogation of the Mosaic law. Although the Taʾyīd does contain some of the tropes in this type of literature, it does not develop them exhaustively. Among its most important differences with the Judaeo-Christian discourses is the absence of passages from the rabbinical tradition. In other words, the claims in the Taʾyīd concentrate on the Old Testament, or Tenach. Another pertinent difference is that its controversial arguments do not appeal to reason and philosophy to demonstrate the truth of Islam which, for example, the Milḥamot does. In it, the character of the Monotheist wants to prove the truth of Judaism by recourse to reason.90 Moreover, a comparison between the Arabic versions of this treatise and their Aljamiado counterparts provided in Chapter Three also revealed only a limited influence of the Christian arguments.
5.1.6 The Use of the Torah in Anti-Jewish Polemics by Oriental Muslim Authors
So far, the inquiry has suggested that the arguments in the Taʾyīd and the use of the Torah by its author might be more suitably placed in a non-convert Muslim milieu. The survey of the polemical literature in the previous chapter shows that the approach to the biblical texts adopted by the author of the Taʾyīd has no strong precedents in the territories in the vicinity of al-Andalus and the Maghreb but it has also noted that this use of the Bible is found in Muslim works, not necessarily of polemics, the majority of them Oriental. In the following paragraphs, I would like to discuss this issue in more depth.
Some Oriental authors, such as Ibn Qutayba (d. 276 H/889 CE), accepted the Torah and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures as historical sources. In the Dalāʾil an-Nubuwwa, Ibn Qutayba says that Muḥammad is announced in the books of the Jews, particularly in the prophecies of Isaiah. Only fragments of Ibn Qutayba’s work have survived through later writers such as Ibn Ḥazm. It is interesting that in it, as in the Taʾyīd, Ibn Qutayba refers three times to the abrogation of the Torah which argues that the prophecy passed to the descendants of Ishmael.91 Only a few decades before the Taʾyīd saw the light of day, the influential Syrian scholar Ibn Taymiyya (661 H/1263–728 H/1328 CE) seems to have shared Ibn Qutayba’s respect for the Torah. In the fourth part of the al-Jawāb aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala Dīn al-Masīḥ [The Correct Answer to Those Who Have Changed the Religion of Christ],92 Ibn Taymiyya includes the at-Takhjīl li-man Ḥarrafa-l-Tawrāt wa-l-Injīl [The Shaming of Those Who Have Corrupted the Torah and the Gospel], which is a refutation of both Christianity and Judaism.93 In his al-Jawāb, Ibn Taymiyya considers the Torah to be a fundamental revelation (aṣl), which was abrogated by the Qurʾān.94 Ibn Taymiyya, much as our Mudejar author, is aware of the existence of various biblical books—the Psalms, the Prophets and the Gospels—and considers, with the exception of the Gospel, the Torah to be the entirety of the books sent to the people of the Book (ahl al-kitāb).95 Ibn Taymiyya states that the purpose of his work is to show the prophecy of Muḥammad and refute the accusation that, according to Christians, the Qurʾān and the Torah are “ ‘two magics’ […] and, in another reading, [of Qurʾān 28:48], They say, ‘Two magicians,’ that is, Moses and Muhammad.”96 As indicated in the Table of Contents, the Taʾyīd dedicates Section 4.5 to discrediting Moses’ prophetic office. The author states that it is not his intention “to reproach the prophets, for they are chaste and pure from all blemishes and sins”; the reason which leads him to doubt that Moses’ miracles had come from God is the fact that Jews deny the miracles of Muḥammad.97 Similarly, notes Michel, Ibn Taymiyya’s purpose in writing the at-Takhjīl was “to establish the definite prophetic nature of Muhammad ad extra, somewhat analogous to the Kitāb al-Nubuwwat he wrote to deal with prophecy from an internal Islamic point of view.”98 So, there are four themes in the at-Takhjīl which run parallel to those in the Taʾyīd. Both Ibn Taymiyya and the author of the Taʾyīd discuss Israel and its prophets, the hierarchy of the religions of the Book, the abrogation of the Jews of the divine message and the fact that the children of Israel have forfeited God’s favour. Notwithstanding the popularity of Ibn Taymiyya among Salafi groups today who choose to underline the rejection of Christians and Jews by this author, such scholars as Younus Mirza believe that the involvement of Ibn Taymiyya in the study of the Torah and the Bible was greater than is generally recognized and should be re-evaluated.99 Ibn Taymiyya sees the Torah as a source with which to build their Muslim identity, as does the author of the Taʾyīd, albeit to a far greater extent. However, there is a fundamental difference between them: the aim of Ibn Taymiyya is to show the errors contained in these texts, whereas the author of the Taʾyīd accepts their validity, but argues that their interpretation is incorrect.
Louis Cardaillac mentions Ibn Taymiyya as a source of controversy among the Moriscos, but there are no sources to establish whether or not the Mudejar communities had access to his work.100 What we do know is that the Egyptian al-Jaʿfarī (581 H/1185 CE–668 H–1270 CE) is the author of a book which bears the same title as that of Ibn Taymiyya, the at-Takhjīl man Ḥarrafa-l-Tawrāt wa-l-Injīl [The Shaming of Those Who Have Corrupted the Torah and the Gospel] and that al-Jaʿfarī had knowledge of the works of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, as well as about the “Mudejar” al-Khazrajī discussed in the previous chapter.101 As early as the fifteenth century, the Mamlūk scholar al-Biqāʿī (809 H/1406 CE–885 H/1480 CE) quotes the Torah extensively in his defence of the Qurʾān in the Naẓm ad-Durar fī Tanāsub al-Āyāt wa-s-Suwar [The String of Pearls, on the Harmonious Relationship of Verses and Chapters], a work written between 1456–1477 CE.102 Walid Saleh claims that al-Biqāʿī is the first Muslim author to use the Torah and the New Testament to comment on the Qurʾān.103 An interesting fact is that al-Biqāʿī took the work of the traditionalist, Andalusī historian Ibn al-Zubayr al-Gharnāṭī al-Sharafī (627 H/1230 CE–707 H/1308 CE) as one of his sources.104 It therefore appears that, at the time of the Taʾyīd and immediately afterwards there was a production of polemics in majority Muslim countries which follows a trend similar to that in the Taʾyīd. The Torah is not rejected in its entirety but is considered a source of knowledge which bears witness to the prophecy of Muḥammad. On these grounds, it seems necessary to qualify the statement of Lazarus-Yahfeh: “Without denying in any way the deep influence Judaism (and Christianity) exerted on early Islam, one must accept that only a few rather late Muslim authors show an extensive knowledge of or true understanding of Jewish Scriptures and hermeneutic literature.”105
As with ʿIyāḍ, the fourth chapter of the Taʾyīd deals extensively with the miracles of Muḥammad, while, as we have seen, the work as a whole aims to show that Muḥammad is the Seal of the Prophets and that his prophecy had already been announced in “the Torah and the Psalms and the Books of the Prophets”.106 God established His Covenant with Ibrāhīm and chose the Arab people to keep this Covenant, and so blessed Ismāʿīl. With this blessing God announced the coming of Muḥammad as a prophet. The Torah, the Psalms and the books of the prophets are not the only testimonies to this claim; the miracles of Muḥammad are also proof that he is a true prophet, very unlike Moses who is falsely accused of sorcery by Jews and Muslims. This denigration is made apparent in the claim of the author of the Taʾyīd that
The miracles which Moses performed are more prone to be suspect […] than are the miracles of Muḥammad. The evidence for that it is established in both your opinion and ours that there were names [namely: the ineffable name of God, “Shem ham-Meforash”] inscribed on the staff of Moses, peace be upon him; and he wrought miracles only with that staff. […] And whenever Moses performed (anything), he performed it only with those names. And […] the diviners of Pharaoh worked in Egypt all the miracles which Moses worked, save the gnats.107 […] So ask them, ‘What profit is there in his [that is, Moses] miracles and in his mission, since his own nation to whom he was sent, did not place credence in them, thinking they were sorcery?’108
Moreover, the history of the Jews—that is, their captivity and the subjugation that they suffer—are a sign that the law of Moses has been abrogated by Islam. Such a claim follows in accordance with Baumann’s grammar of encompassment to which the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala also takes recourse, as will become clear in the following. The Taʾyīd seems to take similar approaches to those just explained, something which is consistent with the hypothesis adduced by Kaddouri that the sources of the biblical quotations of this polemic might have been Oriental.
Concluding Remarks
Kassin argues that the author of the Taʾyīd was working with a Judaeo-Arabic Vorlage of the Torah and must necessarily have been a Jew. This possibility cannot be totally ruled out without a critical edition of the Taʾyīd, but the contextualization of the discourse in the Taʾyīd shows that Kassin’s view is hard to maintain. The language skills and the knowledge of Judaism of the author demonstrates that he was most probably working from a translation into Arabic. This is a distinct possibility since, as we have seen, the Torah was in circulation among the Mudejars and Moriscos, with the particularity that they seem to have been acquainted with one version of it, partly written in Hebrew (MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129). This would explain the presence of the Hebrew language in the copies of the Taʾyīd.
There are various elements which could have encouraged the use of the Torah as a source of religious authority by this author. We have seen that, in all probability, the Mudejars do not answer Jewish treatises against Islam composed in the Christian territories and, moreover, that the Taʾyīd shows fundamental differences from the Judaeo-Christian polemical literature of its time. Neither an analysis of the production of polemics by Jews and Christians nor the trends within this kind of literature in the Islamic world support the Kassin’s hypothesis that the author of the Taʾyīd was a convert from Judaism. The evidence provided in this section strengthens the idea that instead we have a Muslim who seems to have fully participated in the polemical discourses and uses of his time within the majority Christian society. Being “destitute of learning”, as he was, he seems to have drawn on materials available among the Mudejar communities. The use of the Torah in the Taʾyīd as a source of religious authority which serves to underpin the construction of the Muslim identity of the Mudejars must therefore be understood as an innovation in the literature of Muslim polemics in the Peninsula but as one which, nonetheless, has a place in the conceptual frameworks of contemporaneous Muslim thought, for example, those found among Oriental authors.
Considering what has been said so far, it seems appropriate to place the Taʾyīd within a moderate stream of Islamic thought which departs from the total rejection of Ibn Ḥazm and accepts and uses the texts of Christians and Jews to a greater or lesser degree. The similarities between the Taʾyīd and the works of Muslim polemics in the Oriental regions of the Mediterranean might be explained by the fact that its author had collected materials for his work through contacts with other Muslims living in territories with a Muslim majority.109
5.2 The Kitāb al-Mujādala
In the following paragraphs, I would like to discuss the polemics against the Jews in the Kitāb al-Mujādala. The attacks on Judaism included in this treatise are sporadic, and, yet, the Jews are the target of one of the few insults uttered in this controversy. The author might have been answering the oral attacks of the Jews or reflecting on the acknowledged competition between Muslims and Jews when he claims: “God damn the Jews when they say to Muslims: ‘you have no Sacred Law (sharʿ)’ ”.110 This specific attack notwithstanding, the Kitāb al-Mujādala shows a moderate attitude towards the Jews overall.
One topic of controversy among Jews is purity. The author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala states that, according to the Mosaic law, the state of purity (ṭuhr) is compulsory for Jews. The discussion which follows sets out the arguments of his opponents and, finally, refutes these arguments. His contention is based on the laws of Leviticus relating to leprosy according to which ritual purification is required after sex or having a wet dream. Sexual intercourse or emission of semen leads to a state of major impurity called janāba in Islam. The Mudejar polemicist accuses the Jews of not performing the rituals of purity when they are in the state of janāba. The response of the Jews is that these and other rules, such as not drinking wine, were valid only in the land of the Covenant (arḍ al-ʿahd) and in the land of Canaan. The author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala is therefore suggesting that Jews consider these precepts invalid in the context of the Iberian Peninsula. Their arguments are based on the narrative of Moses and Aaron who died in the wilderness before entering the land of Canaan and who had forbidden Jews to approach wine or pork and forced them to be purified before entering Jerusalem (bayt al-quds) if they happened to be in a state of increased impurity (janāba). In the eyes of the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala, the reasons given by the Jews are proof that they do not comply with the precepts of God;111 the Muslims, naturally, are the only ones who do comply. This provides a striking example of the in-group bias of the author, who perceives the members of his own group as being more able to persevere within their faith than the Jews, and this in spite of the fact that, as we have seen, the two religious minority communities encountered difficulties, and sometimes restrictions, in performing their religious duties in the Christian territories. Some evidence suggests that Jews might have compromised their practices in the Christian territories. For example, the early fourteenth-century Jewish kabbalist Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi accuses some of his coreligionists (“those poor Jews”) of associating with Muslims and even of praying beside them and praising Islam.112 However, as Nirenberg rightly notes, these complaints by Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi are too general to form historical evidence of Jewish conversions to Islam.113 In my opinion, they hint at the laxity in the Jewish orthopraxis, of which the Mudejars—like the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala—might have had knowledge. On the other hand, the fact that some Jewish rituals can only be performed in the Holy Land is a claim used by Christians to attack the particular nature of the Jewish law, in opposition to the universal nature of Christianity.114 Be this as it may, the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala places Muslims above Jews by emphasizing the former’s closer observation of God’s commands.
Another topic of controversy is sin. We read in the Kitāb al-Mujādala that, according to the Jews, man is punished for the offences committed by his ancestors. However, the Mudejar author claims that this statement is invalidated by the evidence offered by the Torah. To show that this is so, the author examines a central theme of Islamic theology through scriptural exegesis,115 and he quotes some passages from the Book of Kings (“kitāb al-malākhīn”) and the Books of Samuel. Among the examples taken from the Torah is the sin of King David when he fornicated with Bathsheba, the wife of his soldier, Uriah. David leaves her pregnant and hatches a plot to kill Uriah. The author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala argues that these actions are bound by God’s will only. Man has no control over the actions imposed by God (majbūra). Another example is Solomon’s idolatry. The author raises the question of why—if Solomon offended God—God reduced the tribes of Israel from twelve to one during the reign of his son, Rehoboam, and not during the reign of Solomon himself. Why, if it was not to fulfil His divine decree, did God take control of the tribes of his son, namely, Rehoboam, and not of the father?116 Therefore, he concludes, man must not want to acquire a knowledge superior to that of God, and dare to say that Rehoboam had acted improperly. Mankind is only responsible for the acts it performs and not for what God has required its members to commit.117
Free will is important here. The views of the Jews in this treatise are clearly opposed to those of polemicists like Duran who states in the Keshet: “With regard to the free will granted to man in his actions, the perfect Torah establishes free will categorically: ‘choose life’. […] Men are free to choose and will be compensated according to their good deeds and punished according to their wickedness.”118 Duran rejects the Christian doctrine of original sin,119 an attitude which contrasts sharply with the claim of the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala that, according to Jews, men are punished because of the mistakes of their ancestors. According to rabbinic Judaism, sin is not understood as hereditary but as an integral part of human nature; a doctrine which makes man responsible for his actions.120
These matters are the main issues of contention with the Jews in the Kitāb al-Mujādala: precepts such as that of ritual purity and the issue of free will. That this polemic places the focus on ritual and ethics rather than on theological controversy with the Jews raises the question of whether such an emphasis could be explained by the situation of close contact between the two religious minorities in the Christian territories. In the author’s discussion of ritual purity, it is surprising that the author compares it with the prescriptions to do with wine, as in Judaism wine is allowed and has a ritual use. What the rabbis prohibit is praying under its influence.121 Indeed, the history of Baḥīrā in the introduction to this chapter is a very good illustration of how Jews understood the prohibition of wine in Islam as something alien to their own religious precepts. The dispute with the Jews about wine in the Kitāb al-Mujādala might be an answer to stories like those found in the Iggeret Vikkuah. Here, too, the author seems to have in mind the idea that the Jews and the Christians were united and understand sin from its less common biblical reading of “breaking the covenant of God”.122
The same impression that Christian and Jews are sometimes dealt with together by the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala, that they are encompassed within the same social group, is aroused at the end of the treatise, where we find a disquisition about which is the best among the divine religious laws (sharāʾiʿ).123 The author claims that Islam is the only revelation which is sent to mankind as a whole. This is in contrast to Judaism, whose prophet Moses, Mūsā, spoke only to Jews, and Yasūʿ (Jesus), who was sent to the people of Israel alone, because He, his mother and the Apostles were all Jews. In Chapter One, we have seen that sharīʿa was an important topic of controversy between Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Christian territories and more will be said about the interpretations of it by the Mudejars in the following chapter. At this point, I would like to note that, in this particular argument adduced by the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala, Kassin sees evidence of the close connection between this treatise and that of the Taʾyīd. Consequently, in his view, the same Jewish convert must have composed the two treatises.124 However, in Chapter Three we have discussed that the Kitāb al-Mujādala was probably composed in the immediate environment of the Sharafī family and we have also referred to the possibility that some of the sources of the Kitāb al-Mujādala were derived from the Arabic-Christian tradition. The fact that the latter might be the case here is suggested by the fact that the author uses Yasūʿ which, as we have seen, is the name for Jesus among these communities. From such an approach, the argument can be easily explained from an Islamic point of view, given that Muslims believe in ʿĪsā (Jesus in Islam) but interpret his message differently than Christians. According to the Muslims, Yasūʿ, here the Christian name for Jesus, would be a misinterpretation of the true message of ʿĪsā, a misinterpretation which, as noted above, would have been spread far and wide by His Apostles, above all Peter and Paul; the latter being represented in some Muslim narratives as King Paul, the King of the Jews.125 On the basis of what has been said, I lean towards the possibility that the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala had a limited knowledge of Judaism. This idea relies on two points: the atypical arguments used to attack these communities and the limited number of occasions on which he refers to them separately. This hypothesis gains strength if we compare the Jewish polemic in this work with that found in the Taʾyīd: there is no doubt that the knowledge of Judaism of the author of the Taʾyīd is much broader, although, as we have seen, it also does appear to have been very extensive either.
As in the case of the Taʾyīd just discussed, the polemics with the Jews in the Kitāb al-Mujādala rest on the religious authority of the Torah. The central place of the Torah in the Mudejars’ arguments against the Jews and the fact that both authors seem to draw on loci communes of Muslim polemics, such as the identification of Hagar with the Qurʾānic Qeturah, accounts for the common points between the two treatises which led Kassin to argue that the same author composed both. However, the differences between the two treatises are greater than their correspondences. In Chapter Three we have seen that the Kitāb al-Mujādala places a strong emphasis on Christianity. Moreover, we have just seen that the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala takes a different approach to some topics such as “sin” to those expressed in the Taʾyīd. Whereas the author of the Taʾyīd and its adaptors endorse what is said in the Torah, for example, “[f]or three sins I will forgive the children of Israel, but for the fourth I will not forgive them”,126 and search for additional evidence in the revealed sources of the Qurʾān or the Gospels, the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala inquires into the Torah by appealing to “free will”, an issue which he subsequently discusses at length using logic and philosophy as his tools. In the next chapter, we shall see that the use of these last two sources is indispensable to understanding notions of religious authority in the Kitāb al-Mujādala as a whole.
5.3 The “demandas” [Questions]
I shall devote this last section to a narrative which, as has been noted in Chapter Three, was widespread among the Mudejars and the later Moriscos: the “demandas de ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām” [Questions Posed by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām]/ “demandas que demandaron una conpaña de judíos all annabī Muḥammad” [The Questions of a Group of Jews to the Prophet Muḥammad]. What concerns me here is to arrive at an understanding of how the “demandas” might have helped in the construction of the Muslim identity of the Mudejars by emphasizing the religious authority of the prophet of Islam, Muḥammad.
There are many Qurʾānic references to the contacts maintained with the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb). Muslim commentators interpret sūra 3:93–95127 as one of these, as the following ḥadīth shows:
Imam Ahmad recorded that Ibn ʿAbbas said, “A group of Jews came to Allāh’s Prophet and said, ‘Talk to us about things we will ask you and which only a Prophet would know.’ He said, ‘Ask me about whatever you wish. However, give your pledge to Allāh, similar to the pledge that Yaʾqub took from his children, that if I tell you something and you recognize its truth, you will follow me in Islam.’ They said, ‘Agreed’.”
These contacts are also reflected in the sources about the life (sīra) and the deeds of the prophet (ḥadīth). For example, in the sīra of Ibn Isḥāq we find a passage in which four Jews come to Muḥammad and ask him questions about religion. After hearing their answers, the group’s spokesman, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām,128 converts. It is well known that conversions of Jews like this one129 favoured the introduction of narratives about the Banū Isrāʾīl (isrāʾīliyyāt) into the Muslim tradition,130 and they were soon used as weapons in interreligious controversy.
The questions (masāʾil) of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām enjoyed great popularity and were soon translated into several languages under the title of “The Book of the One Thousand Questions”; this led to what is called the literary cycle of Ibn Salām.131 Meanwhile, narratives of conversions of Jews were introduced into the Judaeo-Christian polemic as well. In the Chronographia [Chronicle] of Theophanes, when they see that Muḥammad eats camel meat, ten Jewish converts conclude that he is not the Messiah they are waiting for. Despite realizing their mistake, they remain with him out of fear, they teach him, and turn him against the Christians.132 Fear, and the desire to maintain his social position, is also one of the reasons indicated in the Jewish version of the history of Baḥīrā which explain the conversion of Abū Bakr.133
Following the ideas of Islamization of the Iberian territory propounded by Maribel Fierro, Cándida Ferrero Hernández suggests that the story of ʿAbd Allāh reached the Iberian Peninsula around the ninth century. Hermann of Carinthia probably translated it into Latin between 1142 and 1143 CE under the title Liber Doctrine Mahumeti or Masāʾil ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām [The Questions of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām]. This translation became part of the Collectio Toletana, assembled under the direction of Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny.134 The story was also in circulation among the Mudejar and Morisco communities. There are one Arabic and two Aljamiado versions of the “demandas”. It has been noted in Chapter Three that the Arabic version, preserved in the Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha (MS BCLM 395), has not been recognized as the “demandas” until now and was described as the “contestaciones de Mahoma por el Corán a cuestiones de teología, liturgia, derecho, ciencias naturales, etc.” [Answers by Muḥammad by Means of the Qurʾān to Questions on Theology, Liturgy, Religious Law, Natural Sciences, et cetera].135 There are also two Aljamiado versions of the “demandas”:136 (1) the “demandas que hizo ʿAbdu Allāh binu Salām y de lo que fue de su hecho con el annabī” and (2) “las demandas de los judíos”. The first is preserved in two manuscripts.137 We know several Aljamiado copies of the second, most of them from the sixteenth century. The oldest is the manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris 774 (ff. 41r–73v) dating from the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Therefore, it was probably in circulation among the Mudejars. In my discussion below I shall use MS BNF arabe 774 to discuss the “demandas” which are completely preserved in this manuscript.138
Herrero Fernández considers the classification of the questions of ʿAbd Allāh by Moritz Steinschneider inadequate. Steinschneider places them under the rubric of Muslim polemics against Judaism but her argument against him is that neither the Latin text nor its translations into Oriental languages contain any attack on or an argument against Judaism.139 They are rather a “catechism of Islamic doctrine”.140 This reasoning might also explain the lack of interest received by the Aljamiado versions of the “demandas”141 and why they have not been addressed in the various studies of the biographies (sīra) and military campaigns (maghāzī) of Muḥammad.142 Jorge Pascual Asensi relates the “demandas” to narratives such as those about Buluqiyyā, who was also a converted Jew.143 In considering the questions of ʿAbd Allāh within the tradition of masāʾil, this author builds on an account of the above-mentioned Chronographia of Theophanes in which a group of Jews interrogate Muḥammad. According to Pascual Asensi, “las demandas de ʿAbd Allāh” could have been part of an early sīra by Ibn Isḥāq which was later discarded in the review by Ibn Hishām.144 This is an argumentum ad ignorantiam which unfortunately does not allow the contestation of the author’s hypothesis, and it seems more likely that one of the sources of the “demandas” was the ḥadīth of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal instead (Pascual Asensi does mention it but omits that this ḥadīth was also collected by al-Bukhārī). Whatever the case may be, in his comparison Pascual Asensi does not use the Aljamiado versions of the “demandas” in circulation among the Mudejars and Moriscos.145
It has been already noted that the ideas of Ferrero Hernández about the translation of Hermann of Carinthia do not apply to the case of the Mudejars. The Mudejar and Moriscos produced a simultaneous adaptation of this narrative, “las demandas de los judíos”, in which the focus shifts from the individual to the community. The Arabic and Aljamiado versions of the “demandas” can be seen as works of polemics and, in the following paragraphs, I would like to take a closer look at the arguments which support this thesis. In particular, I would like to reach a better understanding of the contents of this narrative in its Aljamiado versions and discover whether the consumption of this work by the Mudejars and Moriscos was in some way related to the circulation of the same narrative among Christians.
We are dealing with two different Aljamiado adaptations, as is confirmed by the fact that the beginnings of both MS Urrea of Jalón and MS BNF arabe 774 are preserved. The voice of the “wise” Jew, ʿAbd Allāh, is blurred between the voices of the “wise” Jews, those countrymen of the Mudejars and Moriscos who lived side by side with them and asked them questions. What then is the content of these Jewish “demandas” in the imagination of the Peninsular Muslims?
The narration in MS BNF arabe 774 begins with the arrival of a group of Jews who approach Muḥammad with some questions posed by Moses (Mūçā ibnu ʿImrān) and which, according to them, “no sabe deklararlas ninguno sino ke sea almalak çerkano o annabī” (only an angel or prophet can answer them). Two elements constantly recur in these questions: the eschatological references attached to the ideas of sin and salvation and the figure of Adam. The Jews ask Muḥammad about the reasons for performing the five prayers, aṣ-ṣalā, prescribed in Islam. Muḥammad replies that the noon prayer (ṣalāt-aẓ-ẓuhr) is because at that time all creation praises and prays to its Lord; the afternoon prayer (ṣalāt-al-ʿaṣr) is observed to annoy the devil (shayṭān) for having deceived Adam in Paradise; the prayer at sunset (ṣalāt-al-maghrib) is when Adam received the forgiveness of Allāh for having eaten of the fruit of the tree; this is the reason the Muslim community (umma) will be forgiven its sins; the night prayer (ṣalāt-al-ʿātāma) is performed to follow the tradition (Sunna) of the prophets before Muḥammad, who prayed at that time; and the dawn prayer (ṣalāt-aṣ-ṣubḥ) is performed to anticipate the moment at which the infidels adore the shayṭān. The Jews ask Muḥammad about the rewards which await those who perform these prayers. Whoever performs the ṣalāt-aẓ-ẓuhr—explains the Prophet of Islam—will be saved from Hell (jahannam) on the Day of Judgement; whomsoever does the ṣalāt-al-ʿaṣr will be absolved of his sins “komo el dia ke lo parió su madre” (as the day his mother bore him)146 and will be saved from Hell (jahannam) on the Day of Judgement; the ṣalāt-al-maghrib will strip the believer of the chains of Hell at his neck and feet, with a letter in his right hand, his passage over the long and narrow bridge to Paradise (aṣ-ṣirāṭ) will be as quick as lightning; the ṣalāt-al-ʿātāmah will brighten the darkness of the grave and the darkness of the Day of Judgement and its clarity will guide the believer to Paradise; finally, those believers who observe the ṣalāt-aṣ-ṣubḥ will be received by two messengers who will absolve him from his sins and grant him entry into Paradise.
The “demandas” demonstrate the importance of their prayers to the Peninsular Muslims. Knowing the names of the times of the ritual prayers was an important component of the Muslims’ knowledge until well into the sixteenth century.147 But perhaps the most striking detail in the responses of Muḥammad to the Jews is the correspondence established in the text between each of the five aṣ-ṣalawāt and the various stages of death and resurrection faced by every Muslim (“i sed obidientes adha Al.lah, ke laora de alʾaṣar se es firia jahannama” (and be obedient to Allāh, since the time of al-ʿaṣr will turn into the jahannam)).148 In his monograph on the concept of death in the Morisco Aljamiado literature, Miguel Ángel Vázquez discusses some elements found in the text of the “demandas”.149 The letter which will be placed in the right hand of the one who performs the ṣalāt-al-maghrib corresponds to the “book” referred to in various sūras of the Qurʾān, which recounts “todas las acciones del ser humano en la tierra a partir de las cuales el difunto será juzgado” (all human actions of earth upon which the deceased will be judged).150 Several Morisco narratives speak of this letter which will be placed in the right hand of the righteous and in the left hand of the sinners.151 It is an article of faith that the angels Munkar and Nakīr will question the deceased and discuss his actions and this explains the importance of Muḥammad’s answer that the “kuento” que reciba sea “liviano” (the account which someone receives will be light).152 We also find references to the bridge to Paradise (aṣ-ṣirāṭ) which only believers “will cross in the winking of an eye, with the speed of lightning”,153 the darkness of the pit (the penumbra to which Vázquez so often refers) and its narrowness (daghta). The Muslim believer will suffer this narrowness but for a moment, whereas the unbeliever will do so until the Day of Judgement. This is because the pit will widen as the pious Muslim correctly answers the questions of the angels Munkar and Nakīr.154
The length of time spent in the grave and the resurrection of the dead contain some overtones of Muslim polemics against the Jews found in some narratives from the Morisco period. This is the case of MS BNE 5223, in which a group of Jews see that ʿĪsā raises the dead and ask if He can resurrect one of their ancestors, Usām son of Nūḥ (Noah). ʿĪsā approaches the tomb of Usām, makes the ritual prostrations and calls Usām in the name of Allāh. Then the pit breaks and an almost hilarious situation occurs when the newly resurrected Usām shakes the dust out of his hair and beard while ʿĪsā asks why his hair was not grey when he died and now it is. Usām replies that his hair turned white when he heard the voice of ʿĪsā, for he thought that the Day of Judgement had come. He also explains that he had been suffering the torments of the grave for more than four thousand years and here the story ends.155 This short narrative emphasizes two issues in the polemics between Christians and Jews which, as I shall show in the next chapter, are also found in the Mudejar work of the Kitāb al-Mujādala: the sins committed by the ancestors of the Jews, their denial of Jesus as a prophet sent by God who has worked miracles and their disbelief about the existence of Heaven and Hell.
But let us leave ʿĪsā aside for a moment and return to the “demandas” of the Jews to Muḥammad. After talking about the ritual prayers, the Jews are interested in the ritual ablutions of the wuḍūʾ and the ṭahūr and in the fast of ramaḍān. Why should they observe them? Significantly, the answers to these questions again revolve around the figure of Adam and his sin in eating from the fruit of the tree of Paradise. So, when Adam took the fruit he disobeyed Allāh with his hands and feet and Allāh forgave him and sent him away to perform the wuḍūʾ. By eating the forbidden fruit, the fruit flowed “through all the veins which were in his body and the virtue of that reached all threads and hairs of his body.”156 Similarly, the fruit of the tree which Adam ate remained in his body for thirty days, which explains the need for the fast of ramaḍān for this length of period. Then, the Jews asked Muḥammad which rewards those who observe the wuḍūʾ, the ṭahūr and the fast of ramaḍān will receive. The answers again review subjects like the forgiveness of sins, the torments of the grave, the letter in the right hand and crossing the bridge to Paradise to which I have just referred. The last two questions of the Jews are why Allāh chose Muḥammad as His messenger and why He put the Muslim community of believers (umma) above the other religious communities. The answers of Muḥammad underline the importance of orthopraxis and give eschatological references which emphasize the belief in the Day of Judgement, which is generally considered to be part of the Muslim faith (ʿaqīda).157
The content of the Aljamiado “demandas de los judíos” illustrates the deep concern about the Hereafter of the members of these communities, a concern which is found in other Mudejar and Morisco writings. Therefore, the idea that the “Jewish Sages” referred to in this narrative, who replace ʿAbd Allāh, do not represent the Jews but the members of the Peninsular Muslim communities themselves does not strike me as strange. We find here a clear example of the way in which social identity is formed by the opposition between groups. Group distinctiveness is transformed into a central element of the social competition between them: the Jews need to know why Muslims are better, that is: why they should convert and become part of the group of Muslims. On the other hand, the questions posed by the Jews could be the questions asked by the Mudejar and Moriscos as well. Therefore, they keep asking their Prophet: Why? Why remain steadfast to the prayers? Why perform ritual ablutions? Why fast during ramaḍān, Muḥammad? Why? What do we get in compensation for the increasing afflictions and hardships faced by us who practise Islam in the Christian lands? Why do we have to live among Jews? Answering these questions is not only a means to convert the Jews to Islam but to sharpen the community boundaries between the two minorities and to exalt the positive characteristics of the own group.
The context of political and personal submission of the members of these Muslim communities might explain why, as has been noted, the compensations which the “demandas” say the believers will receive place a heavy emphasis on the Afterlife and have little to do with the actual circumstances in which they are living. Nevertheless, the repetition of the question about the compensations is still surprising and suggests the internal fragmentation of these communities, that is, the existence of individuals or of groups of Muslims who were more or less openly wondering why they should remain faithful to Islam. From the responses it is also possible to construe where their objections are coming from. The emphasis on original sin (remember the plasticity of the metaphor of the apple remaining inside Adam’s body for thirty days) and the importance of the forgiveness of sins are definitely issues with a Christian imprint which were beginning to occupy more and more members of these minorities.
The questions put by ʿAbd Allāh to Muḥammad in the Latin translation of the Liber Doctrine Mahumeti are very different. They deal with whether Muḥammad is a prophet; what is the law of God, how many laws of God are there; why God has sent this law; what is the beginning of the Qurʾān; what is the meaning of the first letters, “abuged”, of the Arabic alphabet; and how Adam’s creation took place.158 These are issues which expect either an affirmative or a negative answer or a description, but they do not require an explanation. In contrast, the Aljamiado texts expect an explanation or, more correctly, they demand it. Perhaps it is this need to know which led to the transmission and copying the work. This possibility must be taken into account in understanding its use in polemics. In the fifteenth century, the Christian polemics against both Islam and Judaism increase, and authors like Dionysus Cartujano, Nicholas of Cusa, Juan de Torquemada, Alonso de Espina and the anonymous author of the Theophrastus Redivivus use the Liber Doctrine Mahumeti more frequently in their polemics.159 The Aljamiado copies of the “demandas que hizo ʿAbdu Allāh binu Salāma” and of the “demandas de los judíos” date from the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century, and, hence, we see that the interest of the Mudejars and Moriscos in this text runs more or less parallel to that of the Christians, and might explain the greater interest in this narrative among the former groups. The same applies to the question of whether in the case of the Aljamiado versions the concomitance in the use of the “demandas” by Christians and Muslims shows that the polemical elements might be there precisely in the rejection of a Christian discourse which uses this same text and there is a growing presence hostile to the religious minorities. This is a question on which a future study of the Arabic text of the “demandas” in MS BCLM 395 (Biblioteca de Castilla La-Mancha) might shed more light.
In the Aljamiado “demandas”, the Christian discourse is tacitly incorporated. It hovers in the background of the answers to questions which were most likely posed by the members of the Muslim communities themselves; questions which they did not formulate directly but put into the mouth of the Jewish communities who were their direct competitors for the favours of the Christian rulers. The content analysis of the Aljamiado “demandas” shows that, like in the Liber Doctrine Mahumeti, they are an attempt to reconcile the doctrine of Islam with that of Christianity through an attack on Judaism. Reading the text of the “demandas” in the light of the context in which they were (re)produced and used discloses the polemical tones in the answers of Muḥammad and the efforts made by the Muslims of Christian Iberia to raise their prestige in relation to the Jews and the Christians and improve the knowledge of Islam within their aljamas. It is my understanding that it is in this sense that the “demandas” seem to be something more than a “catechism”.
Conclusions
In this chapter, I have argued that among the sources of religious authority in Mudejar polemics against Jews and Judaism, with the exception of the Qurʾān, the Torah is the most prominent. The Mudejars seem to have regarded the Torah not only as an appropriate instrument with which to target the Jews on their own terms, a strategy widely used by Christian missionaries, but also as a means to build their identities as Muslims. I have provided evidence that such use is also found in the tradition of medieval Muslim polemics against the Jews and in Jewish models for refuting Christian arguments. Importantly, it does not necessarily follow models of Christian polemics against the Jews. Another important source of authority in Mudejar polemics against Jews and Judaism is Muḥammad. I have discussed the way in which in some of these works his teachings led to the conversion of well-known Jewish religious leaders and their communities.
Turning to the question of whether the growing anti-Judaism of the Christians could have been a determining factor in the composition of Mudejar polemics against the Jews like the Taʾyīd, a number of conclusions can be drawn. The analysis of the sources at our disposal suggests that Christian anti-Judaism could indeed have encouraged the production and consumption of Mudejar and Morisco polemics against Jews and Judaism. This is a fact that may explain the high number of Arabic copies and Aljamiado adaptations of the Taʾyīd which extend down to the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, the Mudejars do not seem to have incorporated the arguments put forward by the Christians against Jews in their works. The example of the Taʾyīd has shown that its discourse revolves around the prophecy of the advent of Muḥammad and that accusations against the Jews with a Christian “pedigree” derived from the contemporary Jewish-Christian literature occur only infrequently. This is congruent with the evidence provided in Chapter Three, in which we have argued that, although some Aljamiado adaptations of the Taʾyīd do appear to show the influence of Christian discourses against Judaism and, as we may recall, include polemical images about the Jews such as the references to the planet Saturn, the origin of the adaptors of the Aljamiado versions (who, as we have seen could have been Jewish in the case of al-Gharīb) seems to have had the greatest influence on the actual contents of the treatises. Likewise, there are significant differences between the Aljamiado “demandas” among Mudejars and Moriscos and the Latin translation of Hermann of Carinthia which was widespread among Christians. As we have discussed at length, the Mudejar narrative should be placed between the interaction with another group and the negotiation of religious norms and values within their own community of Muslims.
These findings give support to the idea that, in order to determine how Christian attitudes towards Jews and Judaism influenced the polemics of the Mudejars, more is required than simply to point, as Nirenberg does, to the fact that Jews are accused on two counts: of killing Jesus and of having denied His prophecy. The narration of Baḥīrā illustrates that such expressions often belong to a shared corpus of polemical arguments, on which the Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities thrived. The extent of Christian interference could be ascertained more appositely by inquiring into three particular points: the place of the polemical Mudejar texts in the literature of controversy in the closest environment of their communities; in the tradition of Muslim polemics against the Jews; and also in the more general tradition of Muslim literature. In this regard, one central aspect which should not be overlooked is conversion and its dual role—that is, the revival of the controversy between the Conversos and the Jews and the change in the (rhetorical) attitudes of the Christians towards Muslims noted by Szpiech.
In conclusion, the triangular relationships between Muslims, Christians and Jews in the late Middle Ages show that Christian anti-Judaism was only partly influenced by the articulation of Muslim polemics against Jews and Judaism in the Christian territories. The evidence does not allow us to infer that the Christians’ intervention policies, as for example those in legal cases between Mudejars and Jews, were instrumental in inspiring the writing of Mudejar treatises against Judaism. Instead, the composition of the latter seems to depend on such factors as the tradition of literature of Muslim polemics and the choices made by the adaptors of the texts. There is also insufficient evidence to support the assertion made by Nirenberg that the Taʾyīd is an early example of a Muslim polemic in which we can observe the incorporation of all topics of Christian anti-Jewish polemics. Moreover, against Kassin, I have argued that the Taʾyīd was not composed by a convert from Judaism and that, in all probability, the Kitāb al-Mujādala and the Taʾyīd have two different Muslim authors.
Root, 1998; Nirenberg, 2002, 2006 and 2013; Soyer, 2014. For medieval Christian views on the purity of Muslims and Islam, in particular those held by Franciscan preachers, see MacEvitt in Bley et al., 2015, and other articles on purity in this publication, more generally.
The history of Baḥīrā occupies the first pages of the Sefer Divrei Yosef, a chronicle which Shimon Shtober qualifies as “the last and the most exhaustive summary of Islam found within a Jewish historiographical context.” Shtober, 1986, 319–352; 319. In what follows, I summarize ff. 10b–11a of this work edited by Shtober.
Baḥīrā, “the uncircumcized of heart and of flesh”, Shtober, 1986, 337 quoting the Sefer Divrei Yosef, S1, f. 9b.
These two personages are indubitably Abū Bakr, the companion and father-in-law of Muḥammad and the first Rightly Guided Caliph, and ʿAlī, Muḥammad’s son-in-law and the fourth Rightly Guided Caliph. As far as I know, neither of them was originally a Jew.
Shtober, 1986, 322 quoting the Sefer Divrei Yosef, Paris MS collated with Bodleian MS, f. 10b.
Shtober, 1986, 331–332 and n. 26.
Shtober, 1986, 339 and n. 48 following Norman Daniel. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1962), 88–89, 345 (n. 35); Tolan, 2002, 204–205; Roggema, 2009, 192 ff.
Shtober and Barbara Roggema (following Shtober) quote Mann but overlook the views of this author on the ancient sources of this story. Compare Shtober, 1986, 339 and Roggema loc. cit. with Mann: “Steinschneider identifie à juste titre ce Hiyya [in Yaʿaqov ben Eliyyahū’s the Iggeret Vikkuah] avec le moine Baḥīrā sur lequel on racontait plusieurs légendes concernant ses rapports avec le fondateur de l’ Islam. Toutefois sa supposition que notre Jacob aurait utilisé pour ce récit des sources chrétiennes est invraisemblable, car elles auraient difficilement fait d’ Abou Bekr un fils d’ exilarque [of Babylon].” Mann, 1926, 376. Also Roggema, 2003, passim.
Roggema, 2003, 112.
A good example of a conversion from Judaism to Islam is that of the polemicist Samawʾal al-Maghribī discussed in the previous chapter 147. See Alfonso, 2008, 48, for the role which the knowledge of history, Muslim history in particular, seems to have had in the conversion of this author. For the conversions from Judaism to Islam in the Iberian territories, see García-Arenal, 1992 and 1997 for this scholar’s discussion of some cases of Jewish converts in al-Andalus, the Maghreb and the Christian territories and her argument that, on occasion, acculturation seems to have been a factor of greater weight than remaining faithful to their religion of origin in the definition of the social identity of individuals. García-Arenal, 1997, 248. The studies on conversion carried out so far analyse various factors related to conversion, including the socio-cultural and political context in which conversions occurred (Echevarría Arsuaga, 1999 and 2009; the edited volumes by Ingram, 2009, 2012, and (together with Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano) 2015; Szpiech, 2013b); the impact of conversions on the local communities which the neophytes either left or joined (Marín Padilla, 2004; Barrio Barrio, 2006–2008); the attitudes of the Christians towards the converts (Cohen, 1983; Chazan, 1991; Meyerson, 1992; Roth, 1994); the phenomena of Messianism, crypto-Islam and crypto-Judaism and syncretism (López-Baralt, 1980 and 1984; García-Arenal, 2003b and 2006; Meyerson, 2009; Alvarez, 2007; Soyer, 2014; Wiegers, 2011a and 2011b; García-Arenal, 2012), or the individual experiences of conversion in autobiographies and treatises of polemics.
Remensnyder, 2014, 123.
Harvey, 2000; Pick, 2007; Echevarría Arsuaga, 1999. We know that Jews and Muslims were sometimes forced to listen in silence to the disputes and sermons previously organized by the Dominicans. Valle Rodríguez, 1998, 281. See also the account by Moses ha-Kohen of Tordesillas of his disputes with converts from Judaism in the presence of Christians and Muslims provided by Américo Castro. “Disputa entre un Cristiano y un Judío.” Revista de Filología Española 1, No. 2 (1914): 173–180, on the translation from Hebrew by Isidoro Loeb, Revue des Études Juives 18 (1889), 228–229, quoted in Cardaillac, 1977, 156 and n. 12.
Whether or not the evangelization and conversion of infidels were the driving forces behind the activities of the Dominicans is still an issue of debate among scholars. As far as the concept of auctoritas in Christianity is concerned, Szpiech notes that evidence suggests that, “the arguments in which the authority of non-Christian sources became an issue of discussion were formulated from a thoroughly Christian perspective and were dictated more by the interests of Christian apologetics than by the rhetorical demands of persuasion or missionizing.” Szpiech, 2013b, 121–142, 126.
See on the tradition of Christian-Jewish polemics the new edition by Nicasio Salvador Miguel of a debate in Romance between a Christian and a Jew dated to the thirteenth century (Anonymous; Salvador Miguel, 2000), and the edition by Aitor García Moreno of another Romance Christian-Jewish polemic, dated to 1370 CE in the early fifteenth-century copy preserved to us, Anonymous; García Moreno, 2003, 9 and n. 3.
Szpiech, 2013a, passim.
Szpiech is not the first to speak of a change in the Christian discourse at this time. Authors like Robert Chazan or Amos Funkenstein have noticed the emergence of new Christian arguments of polemic against the Jews which had been encouraged by the mass conversions of Jews to Christianity. The change to which Szpiech refers has less to do with the use of post-biblical materials and is more closely linked to a change in the projected image of the enemy, in this case the Muslim. Chazan, 2010, 106. Funkenstein, 1971, passim, and by the same author, 1993, 169–219. For new polemical techniques employed by the Christian missionaries, see: Chazan, 1983 and Cohen, 1983, particularly 51–76 and 103–195.
Beaver, 2016, 39.
Beaver, 2016, 39.
Beaver, 2016, 65pp. I thank Prof. García-Arenal for having sent me this article. Historical accounts show, moreover, that this legacy seems to have transcended the geographical boundaries of the Peninsula. In the treatise Kitāb Nāṣir ad-Dīn ʿalā-l-Qawm al-Kāfirīn [The Supporter of Religion against the Infidels] by the Andalusī Morisco originally from Hornachos, Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Ḥajarī (d. after 1049 H/1640 CE), we find an account of his polemics with the Jews in France and in Amsterdam after leaving Spain. Here he discusses the dream by Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:1–47) and notes that, while Jews (and in particular, those emigrated from Spain with whom he is disputing) interpret this passage as proof of their religion. Al-Ḥajarī’s mystical teacher Aḥmad Zarrūq interpreted this passage as a sign of the coming of Muḥammad; Christians in Spain, among whom al-Ḥajarī himself had lived, cite it in their sermons as proof of the coming of Jesus. Al-Ḥajarī, 2015, 197–202.
Nirenberg, 2004. On the connection between the Taʾyīd and the permeability between Islam and Judaism in the Christian territories, see also Mònica Colominas Aparicio. “The Mudejar Polemic of the Taʾyīd al-milla and Conversion between Islam and Judaism in the Christian territories of the Iberian Peninsula.” In Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard A. Wiegers (eds). Polemical Encounters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, (in press).
Kassin, 1969, I, 104; II, 303 (f. 1).
Kassin, 1969, I, 105.
Pregill follows the views of Yohanan Friedmann in the latter’s article “Finality of Prophethood in Sunnī Islām.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 7 (1986): 177–215; 197–199, in which this author refers to the rabbis and the sages as the heirs of the prophets. Pregill, 2011, 305–306 n. 77.
Waardenburg, 1999, 64; Reynolds, 2010. It is worth noting that Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath al-Sijistānī (202–275 H/817–888 CE) (EI2 s.v. “Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī” (Melchert)), who wrote a treatise entitled the Dalāʾil an-Nubuwwa, is also the author of the Kitāb as-Sunan, one of the six hadīth compilations. The author of the Mudejar polemic, the Kitāb al-Mujādala, refers to al-Sijistānī in the Chapter on Qiṣṣat al-nabī [History of the Prophet], f. 48v, and he is most likely this ninth-century author. As I have argued in an article, the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala refers to a certain Kitāb as-Sunna which might perhaps have been the work of al-Sijistānī. Thomas, 2009. See also the Dalāʾil an-Nubuwwa [Proofs of Prophethood] by al-Bāhilī in Thomas, 2010.
See the bibliographical entry on the Kitāb ash-Shifāʾ in Serrano Ruano, 2011, 543–545. The Kitāb ash-Shifāʾ by Qaḍī ʿIyāḍ, the Kitāb ash-shifāʾ bi Taʿrīf Huqūq al-Muṣṭafā has been edited by Muḥammad ʿImāra Muṣṭafā ʿImāra, 2 vols. al-Qāhira: Majallat al-Azhar, 1436 H/2015 CE. This work would be frequently quoted by the Moriscos. Cardaillac 1977, Second part, Chapter Two, 215–216. Bernabé Pons, 1997–1998. Also well known to the Moriscos was the Kitāb al-Anwār by al-Bakrī, which is a work that, as noted in Chapter Three 76 n. 26, is bound together with the Taʾyīd in the Aljamiado manuscript MS BTNT J 9. We may wonder whether this is by chance or whether one of the reasons why these two treatises are bound together is the abundant polemical attacks against the Jews in al-Bakrī’s account of Muḥammad’s genealogy. Another reason could be the signs of his prophecy that he traces back to Adam, who was already illuminated in his face by the light of the Prophet of Islam.
Kassin, 1969, I, 243; II, 404 (f. 102).
Kassin, 1969, I, 108.
al-Maqṣad al-Asnā fī Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-Huṣnā [The Best Means of Explaining Allāh’s Beautiful Names] and Mishkāt al-Anwār [The Niche for Lights]. Van Koningsveld, 1992, 102, No. 82.
Kassin, 1969, I, 111.
Adang, 2002, 181 and 188, the latter in which Adang summarizes Ibn Adret’s answer to Ibn Ḥazm.
Gaertner et al., 1993, 3.
Gaertner et al., 1993, 2.
Echevarría Arsuaga discusses the case of a woman’s conversion from Islam to Judaism and her subsequent return to Islam in fifteenth-century Castile judged by the Christian legal scholar Alonso Fernández de Madrigal “el Tostado” (1410–1455 CE). As Echevarría Arsuaga notes on this trial, in which the return to Islam was not punished by her Muslim community of origin, “[w]hat was at stake here was the maintenance of the agreements signed with minority religions, the role of the Church as protector of some of these communities, and the conception of the role of royal or civil jurisdiction as opposed to ecclesiastical intervention in the development of policies towards minorities.” Echevarría Arsuaga, “Better Muslim or Jew? The Controversy around Conversion across Minorities in Fifteenth-Century Castile.” Medieval Encounters [Monographic Issue: Interreligious Encounters in Polemics: Late Medieval and Early Modern Iberia], 24pp., at 10 (forthcoming). I thank Prof. García-Arenal for sending me this article and Prof. Echevarría Arsuaga for granting me permission to quote it.
Kassin, 1969, I, 110, 233.
Kassin, 1969, I, 154–155. I do not agree with the phonetic transcription by Kassin. He transcribes the Arabic word with a hamza, and it should consequently read “bi-maʾad maʾad”, instead. Cf. Kassin, 1969, II, 329 (f. 27). With these words, God promises to increase the progeny of Ismāʿīl. In this instance Muslims, such as the author of the Taʾyīd, claim that the numerical value of these letters is the same as the numerical value of the letters of the name of Muḥammad. The Muslim interpretation of this verse was known to such Iberian Jews as Abraham ben Meir Ibn ʿEzra (1089–1164 CE). See for the refutation by this author of the arguments by Muslims in this respect, Roth, 1994, 219. On f. 205v of the Aljamiado manuscript MS BTNT J 9 we read “bi-madh madh”, which is translated as “mucho mucho” (many many).
Kassin, 1969, I, 115; II, 307 (f. 5).
Brann, 2000, passim.
As Sarah Stroumsa notes, “communities of southern France had been translating Judeo-Arabic and Arabic works from the eleventh century” (Stroumsa, 2009, 19), which later gave rise to the so-called Hebrew translation movement (Zonta, 1996, passim). On occasion, scholars have said that the Jews completely lost Arabic in the Christian territories and that they substituted it with Romance for everyday life situations (e.g. Chazan, 2006, 102–103). However, there is some evidence that suggests that Arabic was used at different levels in Aragon and as late as the fifteenth century in places such as Zaragoza, and that Aragonese and Castilian Jews may have had different attitudes towards the Arabic language.
Adang, 2002, 182 and n. 18 for her sources.
Kassin, 1969, I, 114; II, 307 (f. 5).
Kassin, 1969, I, 117; II, 309 (f. 7).
According to Levi della Vida, someone who might have had some knowledge of Hebrew made annotations in the manuscript in both Arabic and in Aljamiado. The work is bound together to the Sharh Shihāb al-Akhbār by a. al-Q. al-Warrāq. Levi della Vida, 1954, 162–163. Van Koningsveld, 1992, 99.
MS Ar. Or. 215 is a Mudejar manuscript from the fourteenth century which belonged to Scaliger. Kaddouri, 2014. It has to be noted as well that MS Ar. Aumer 234 contains a great number of marginalia in Castilian but Aljamiado words as well, such as أشاودوش (‘Exodus’, e.g. f. 24r) or قنفشي أو جنراليش (“confesio generalis”, or ‘general confession’, f. 128r). Whereas scholars such as Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala question the suggestion by Van Koningsveld that this manuscript may have circulated among the Mudejars (Monferrer-Sala, 2007, 360), we will see in the following paragraphs that if this was the case, it would not have been the only manuscript of the Torah to have circulated among their communities. Regarding this manuscript, see also the most recent contribution by Ronny Volandt, 2015, particularly 60 and 250.
Levi della Vida, 1971, 41; 39–42 (description of MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129).
Following, Rafael Edelmann. “On the Arabic Versions of the Pentateuch.” Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen septuagenario … dicata. Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard, 1953, 71–75, Blau claims that MS Vat. Borg. Ar. 129 is, in turn, a Christian version of the Pentateuch preserved in Leiden, MS Leid. Or. 2365. Blau, 1981, 40 and n. 4 and n. 5, and 43 and n. 5.
This author mistakes the number of the manuscript (126 instead of 129) and also overlooks the Aljamiado notes and the publication by Van Koningsveld which shows that the manuscript also circulated among Muslims in Christian Spain. Vollandt, 2007, 9 and 81 ff. See for a comparative study of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Arabic versions of the Pentateuch, Vollandt, 2015.
Van Koningsveld, Pieter Sjoerd and Gerard A. Wiegers. “The Polemical Works of Marcos Dobelio and the Original Arabic Texts of the Lead Books of the Sacromonte (Granada).” In Mercedes García-Arenal, and Gerard Albert Wiegers (eds). Polemical Encounters. Pennsylvania State University Press, 13pp. at 4 n. 11 (in press). I thank the authors for sendingg me the publication and granting me permission to quote from it. García-Arenal and Rodríguez Mediano, 2010, 618, n. 15 citing Dobelio’s Nuevo descubrimiento de la falsedad del metal, MS BCLM 285 Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha, ff. 73–74, 622, and 629. On Dobelio and the books of Pastrana, see García-Arenal and Rodríguez Mediano, 2013, 245–267, 269–275 and 280–294.
MS RAH Gy. XXXI, MS ÖNB AF 58 and MS Borg. Ar. 163; see Van Koningsveld, 1992, 97. The manuscripts known to me are in a different hand to that of MS Borg. Ar. 129.
Written as “shem ham-meforash”. Kassin, 1969, I, 192; II, 355 (f. 53).
Kassin, 1969, I, 175. EI2 s.v. “al-ʿĪsāwiyya” (Pines).
Kassin, 1969, I, 201. Various references to the Sāmirīs (çemirí.es) are found in MS BNE 4944, ff. 55v and 87v. Cardaillac, 1972, II, 82–83 and 210–211, respectively.
Kassin, 1969, I, 131.
Kassin, 1969, I, 137 and n. 4.
“ ‘His words’ refer to the noble Qurʾān”. Op. cit., I, 156.
The Qurʾān does not mention whether it was Isḥāq or Ismāʿīl who should be sacrificed. As Firestone argues, if early Qurʾān interpreters tended to believe that Isḥāq was the intended sacrifice, “the Islamic view began to shift increasingly toward the pro-Ishmael school during the early second Islamic century and became almost universally accepted by the end of the third”, that is to say, about the ninth century. Firestone, 1989, 129 and 125–127 for the changes in the traditionalists’ views on the subject, with an overview on p. 127. The “neutrality” of the author of the Taʾyīd on this issue, contrasts with the overall purpose of this polemic which is to prove the legitimacy and excellence of Ismāʿīl to Isḥāq.
Op. cit., I, 173.
Op. cit., I, 278.
Alfonso, 2002, 66–67.
156 ff. in the translation by Millàs Vallicrosa of Abraham bar Hiyya’s the Megillat ha Megalle. Hiyya, 1929. This work was edited earlier by Posnansky with a revision and introduction by Julius Guttmann; Hiyya, Abraham bar. Sefer Megillat ha Megalle von Abraham bar Chija. [Verein Mekize Nirdamim]. Berlin: Druck von H. Itzkowski, 1924 (in Hebrew). See also, Fontaine, 1992.
Hiyya, 1929, 43.
Ibn Daud seems to have fled to Toledo after the Almohad invasion in 1147 CE. EJ s.v. “Ibn Daud, Abraham ben David Halevi” (Fontaine), and Fontaine, 2015.
Sadan, 1971, 325–327.
Sadan, 1971, 339 ff.
Adang, 2002. Nirenberg, 1996, 198 and the bibliography in n. 125. In this treatise, Ibn Adret intended to provide his co-religionists who lived in al-Andalus with arguments. Authors like Elena Lourie claim that it could be a camouflaged attack on Christianity rather than Islam. Lourie, 1990, 56 n. 175. Polemics between Muslims and Jews outside the Peninsula are also rare. See, Perlmann, 1974, 121 ff.; Sklare, 1999; and Szpiech, 2013b, 174–213 for accounts of conversions in the polemics of Samawʾal al-Maghribī, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī and ʿAbd Allāh al-Tarjumān.
Nirenberg, 1996, 189 trans. Vajda, 1957, 135.
Perlmann, 1974, 106.
My translation of Manuel Frau Cortès. Frau Cortès, 2012, 363: “Un grapat d’ autors refutaren el cristianisme i ens n’hem servit, perquè en una certa época podiem discutir amb ells sense perill. Ara bé, no hem trobat ningú que hagués refutat l’islam, tret del poc material que trobem en el Kuzarí, llibre que ja he esmentat.” transl. Keshet [§ 95]:
ואם על הנוצרים טענו קצת ומהם נעזרנו, כי גם כפניהם אנחנו מתוכחים עמהם בלא סכנה. אבל על הישמעאלים לא מצינו לשום אדם טוען עליהם, זולת אומות מעם הנזכרים בספר הכוזר אשר הזכרתי.
This dissertation is a revision of the previous editions of this work, in particular that by Prosper Murciano. Muciano, Prospero. “Keshet u-Maguen: A Critical Edition.” Ph diss., New York University, 1975. See on this point Frau Cortès, 2012, 139–142.
Chapter Four of the second part.
Majorcan dialect.
EJ s.v. “Duran, Simeon ben Ẓemaḥ” (Zimmels).
Frau Cortès, 2012, 44 and n. 117. Although Frau Cortès relies on Epstein and notes that this author does not give his sources, it would seem that the Keshet was composed before the Disputation of Tortosa in 1413–1414 CE.
It is unclear whether in his refutation of Christianity he used the work of Profiat Duran (1414 CE), the Kelimat ha-Goyim. See EJ s.v. “Duran: Simeon ben Ẓemaḥ” (Zimmels).
The Kitāb al-Mujādala does not quote Jerome.
Frau Cortès, 2012, 107–108.
Funkenstein, 1971, 375 and 381. EJ s.v. “Meiri, Menahem ben Solomon” (Ta-Shma and Derovan). For the Christian missionizing of the Jews in the thirteenth century, see Chazan, 1991.
Funkenstein, 1971, 373–374. This scheme is a good heuristic tool, but it should be noted that these types are superimposed in a number of polemics. See also, Funkenstein, 1993, 169–219.
See on this author the recent publications by Freudenthal, 2016, and Lasker, 2016.
As Daniel J. Lasker notes, this work was composed in the same year as Joseph Kimḥi’s the Sefer ha-Berit [Book of the Convenant] (1170 CE) and we do not know which was written first. Lasker, 2000, 53.
Palmén, 2016. I thank Prof. Szpiech for drawing my attention to this publication.
Tolan, 1993, 12–72 and 95–131.
John Tolan discusses the themes of the Dialogi in the introduction to his edition of the Latin text and translation into modern Spanish in Petrus Alfonsi, 1996, IX–LII and in Tolan, 1993, XIII ff. For the Milḥamot, see Trautner-Kromann, 1993; 49–122 and p. 49 quoting David Berger. “Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben.” Speculum 49 (1974): 34–47.
Resnick notes that, although we do not know of any direct answer to the dialogue with the Jews by Petrus Alfonsi, this work is considered by some scholars to be a response to the general arguments in this polemic. Petrus Alfonsi, 2006, 33–34 n. 106 following Carlos del Valle Rodríguez. “Jacob ben Ruben de Huesca. Polemista. Su patria y su época.” In Carlos del Valle Rodríguez (ed). Polémica Judeo-Cristiana: Estudios. Madrid: Aben Ezra Ediciones, 1992, 63.
This does not mean that the Christians attacks on Judaism invariably elicited a response from the Jews. For example, neither Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret nor any other prominent figure in Judaism during the late Middle Ages use the Pugio. Szpiech, 2011, 74–75. More popular were other shorter treatises partially based on Martí’s the Pugio fidei such as that by the Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270–1349 CE) as noted by Cohen 1983, 170–171 and ff. See also, Chazan, 2006, passim.
For some answers by Jewish polemicists, see also Chazan, 2004. Also, Kozodoy, 2015.
al-Lorki; Landau, 1906, passim. Kaplan, 2007. Nor do I take into consideration the multiple reactions among Jews fuelled by the conversion of Abner of Burgos. Chazan, 1984, 84 and passim.
Niclós Albarracín, 2001, passim.
Moses had a dispute in Ávila with the convert Juan de Valladolid, physician to King Enrique II of Castile in 1375 CE. Afterwards, he wrote down his arguments in his Ezer ha-Emunah. EJ s.v. “Moses Ha-Kohen of Tordesillas”; Shamir, 1975. The Latin text of a public dispute of Juan de Valladolid with the most prominent members of the Jewish community in Burgos, in 1375 CE, has been preserved, see Soto Rábanos, 2010, passim.
The work Scrutinium scripturarum contra perfidiam iudaeorum (1432 CE) by Pablo de Santa María is considered to be an answer to the Sefer ha-Ikkarim [Book of Principles] written by Joseph Albo after the Disputation of Tortosa (1413–1414 CE). Baron, 1965, 283–284 n. 40; 292 n. 6; 302 n. 20. Hillgarth, 1978, 158.
EJ s.v. “Bonafed, Solomon ben Reuben” (Suler and Sáenz-Badillos). EJ s.v. “Rimoch, Astruc”.
Trautner-Kromann, 1993, 51. For the sources and methods with philosophical content in Jewish polemics against Christians, see Lasker, 1977, passim.
See, Ibn Qutayba in Waardenburg, 1999, 145–147.
Also known as the Takhjīl Ahl al-Injīl wa-l-Nahj aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ fī Radd ʿalā man baddala Dīn ʿIsā ibn Maryam al-Masīḥ [The Shaming of the Followers of the Gospel and the Correct Way to Refute Those Who Have Altered the Religion of Jesus, Son of Mary, the Christ] and the al-Takhjīl li-man baddala-l-Tawrāt wa-l-Injīl [The Shaming of Those Who Have Altered the Torah and the Gospel].
This has also been preserved in two separate manuscripts, Morabia, 1979a and 1979b. Hoover, 2012.
“The Qurʾan, although it is greater than the Torah, is of similar nature, and for this reason learned men among the Christians used to consider Moses and Muḥammad together. […] Similarly, God Himself has linked the Torah and the Qurʾan”, followed by a Qurʾānic passage. Ibn Taymiyya, 1984, 145. As the Gospel is devoid of legal precepts, so it has a lower rank. Morabia, 1979a, 110 ff. Despite his respect for the Torah, Ibn Taymiyya says that the Scriptures, both before and after the time of Muḥammad have been falsifie See also the edition of the al-Jawāb by Michel in Ibn Taymiyya, 1984, Chapter Two, specially 210–240.
Morabia, 1979a, 106. For the influence of Ibn Ḥazm on the al-Jawāb, see Ljamai, 2003, 175–183.
Ibn Taymiyya, 1984, 145. In Q. 28:48: Ar. siḥrān.
Kassin, 1969, I, 189. With exception of the ʿIsāwiyya (see above in this chapter, footnote 50).
Ibn Taymiyya, 1984, 381. Emphasis in the original.
Mirza, 2013. Also, in a personal communication in January 5, 2014 in Washington and in his presentation that day [“Muslim Bible Criticism: Ibn Taymiyya’s Evaluation of the Torah and the Gospels”] in the joint panel at the American Historical Association “Religious Diversity in the Medieval Mediterranean: Inter-communal Disputation and Discussion”.
Louis Cardaillac mentions Ibn Taymiyya because of the dissemination and fame of his work, but he does not mention his sources. He also notes that the principles of al-Ghazālī in al-Radd al-Jamīl ʿalā Sarīḥ al-Injīl [The Polite Answer to the Evident in the Gospel] are to be found in some works of Morisco polemics. According to Cardaillac, who follows Anawati and Epalza, Ibn Taymiyya would endorse the views of earlier authors such as al-Ghazālī, who claimed that the Scriptures were not completely corrupt: therefore they should be interpreted literally or metaphorically according to the degree of contradiction to the evidence of reason. Cardaillac 1977, Second part, Chapter Two, 212–214, particularly 214 and n. 19.
Demiri, 2012a, 481–482.
Thomas, 2013, 541–543.
Saleh, 2008; for a brief biography of this author and his work see, 7–20. For a comparative study of al-Biqāʿī’s approach to the Bible with that of Johannes Reuchlin (1522 CE), see Saleh, 2015. This chapter is included in a most recent monograph on exegesis, religious polemics and the making of community boundaries in the Mediterranean edited by Szpiech. Szpiech, 2015.
EI2 s.v. “Ibn al-Zubayr” (Pellat).
Lazarus-Yahfeh, 1992, 76.
Kassin, 1969, I, 107 and 154 ff.
Slightly adaptation of Kassin, 1969, I, 192–193. Very similar claims are made by Samawʾal al-Maghribī in the Ifḥām, in which we read that, “Moses was taught by God the Divine Name composed of forty-two letters”. Perlmann, 1964, 42.
Kassin, 1969, I, 192–193; II, 355–357 (ff. 53–55).
We certainly know of the existence of these contacts. Salicrú i Lluc, 2008. Wiegers, 1994, passim.
MS ÖNB AF 58, f. 51r.
مسلة اخرى لليهود لعنهم الله اذا قال اليهود للمسلمين ليس لكم شرعا.
This utterance represents an inflection in the otherwise even-tempered tone used by the author throughout the work.
MS ÖNB AF 58, f. 40v.
Nirenberg, 1996, 189 trans. Vajda, 1957, 135: “[…] when the Muslims profess their faith at the hour of their assembly, those poor Jews who have no part of religion associate themselves with them, reciting beside them the ‘Hear O Israel.’ Then they make the most vivid praise of the nation of that contemptible individual [Muhammad].”
Nirenberg, 1996, 189–190.
An example is found in the sermons of the bishop of Barcelona Martín García Puyazuelo (1441–1521 CE), where he attacks Judaism on these grounds, so we read: “Etiam non est lex uniuersalis […]. Etiam quo ad locum quia de multis cerimoniis solum in terra sancta, et non in alio loco poterant.” Montoza Coca, 2013, 29. Manuel Montoza Coca is preparing a critical edition of the sermons by Martín García at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona under the direction of Dr. Cándida Ferrero Hernández and Prof. Mercedes García-Arenal. On the life and sermons of Martín García see the previous publications by De Hebrera y Esmir, 1700 and Ribera Florit, 1967. On the circle of preachers and polemicists around the figure of Martín García (like Juan Andrés and Joan Martí de Figuerola) and their approaches to Arabic and to Islamic sources, see the recent publication by Soto González and Starczewska, 2016.
In MS ÖNB AF 58, ff. 52v–53r, immediately after the question of al-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar and the examples of the Kitāb as-Sunna. Some biblical passages quoted in MS ÖNB AF 58, ff. 52v–53r reappear in ff. 42v–40v.
MS ÖNB AF 58, ff. 40v–41r. This passage is based on the Book of Kings Chapter 1, Verse 12. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon asks the older men about how to treat the tribes of Israel because they are upset. The latter recommend he patronize them, but the young men advise him to treat them firmly. Rehoboam follows the advice of the younger men. As a result, he loses his command over ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. According to the author of the Kitāb al-Mujādala, it is a decision which can only be understood as the fulfillment of the divine decree of God.
We have seen above, the example of the ruler who orders a thief to kill someone; the ruler can crucify him for stealing but not for committing a murder. MS ÖNB AF 58, f. 52v.
My translation of Frau Cortès, 2012, 333: “Respecte al lliure albir donat a l’home en les seves accions, la perfecta Torà estableix aquest albir de manera absoluta: “escolleix la vida”. […] l’home és lliure d’elegir i serà compensat d’acord amb les seves bones accions i castigat d’acord amb la seva dolenteria.”
Frau Cortès, 2012, 203 ff.
EJ s.v. “Sin” (Lipinski and Jacobs).
EJ s.v. “Wine”.
EJ s.v. “Sin” (Lipinski and Jacobs).
MS ÖNB AF 58, f. 62v.
Kassin, 1969, I, 99.
See Van Koningsveld, 1996. The image of King Paul, the King of the Jews, is found in the story by al-Tamīmī and in al-Qaysī’s Kitāb Miftāḥ ad-Dīn, MS BNE 4944, (“se levantó Pablos el judío”), f. 36v and f. 62v. See Szpiech, 2012b for the tradition of King Paul from al-Tamīmī’s account through Ibn Ḥazm, al-Qaysī, MS BNE 4944, to the Confusión o confutación de la secta mahomética y del Alcorán [Confusion or Confutation of the Mohammedan Sect and the Qurʾān] (1515 CE) by the Muslim convert Juan Andrés. On al-Tamīmī’s account, see also, Anthony, 2010.
Kassin, 1969, I, 271. MS BNE 4944, f. 6v and 35v.
Ibn Kathīr; al-Mubārakfūrī, 2003, 212.
EI2 s.v. “ʿAbd Allāh b. Salām” (Horovitz). See also, Steinschneider, 1966, 110–114.
There are also narratives on Christian conversions which I shall not discuss here. His questions are collected in narratives such as that recited by the Syrian Christian Sharjīl ibn Sharjūn to Abū Bakr and ʿAlī before his conversion to Islam. See, “El-alḥadīš de Šarǧīl ibnu Šarǧūn” in Hegyi, 1981, 73–85.
As shown in the work of the famous historian and commentator al-Ṭabarī, the Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk [History of the Prophets and Kings].
Among other languages, we find Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Tamil, Malay, Javanese, Sudanese and the Buginese versions of this narrative. Ricci, 2009, passim. For a study of this work in Arabic, Persian, Indian, Turkish, Malay and Javanese and a critical edition from the Malay, see Pijper, 1924.
Theophanes, the Confessor, 1982, 34. Number ten in this chronicle matches a known ḥadīth in which Muḥammad says: “had only ten Jews (amongst their chiefs) belief in me, all the Jews would definitely have believed in me.” Al-Bukhārī (d. 256 H/870 CE) translated by Mahmood Matraji; al-Bukhārī, 1998, Vol. V, Book 58, ḥadīth 277. An almost identical ḥadīth is quoted by the Andalusī author Abū-l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Suhaylī (1114–1185 CE). See al-Suhaylī, 1387–1390 H/1967–1970 CE, Vol. IV, 409.
Shtober, 1986, 322–323 quoting the Sefer Divrei Yosef, Paris MS collated with Bodelian MS, ff. 10b–11a.
Ferrero Hernández, 2011a, 193 and passim. Also Ferrero Hernández, 2013a and 2013b. I thank Cándida Ferrero Hernández for sending to me these articles.
MS BCLM 395, Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha, ff. 1r–41r, dated to the sixteenth century. I have not used the Arabic version for the present inquiry because of the amount of time that the study of more than eighty Arabic folia would have taken. However, a first analysis will appear in Mònica Colominas Aparicio. “Translation and Polemics in the anti-Jewish Literature of the Muslims of Christian Iberia: The Conversion of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār or the ‘ten lines of the Torah’.” In Camilla Adang and Mercedes García-Arenal (eds). Translating Sacred Texts in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. Leiden, Boston: Brill (forthcoming). A preliminary examination suggests differences with the Aljamiado versions and also interesting insights into the religious views of the Mudejars, as among these the answer to the question: Of what kind of soil was Adam made? where it says that part of him was made of “min turāb arḍ al-jazīrah” or “the dust of the soil of the Peninsula” (it is not clear whether Algeciras might also have been meant here). Moreover, in the Conference Polemical Encounters held in Madrid on September 29–30 and October 1, 2014, Ferrero Hernández answered my question about the existence of the Arabic originals of the Liber Doctrina Mahumeti negatively. Collaboration with the Islamolatina to investigate how closely the Latin translation follows the Arabic in MS BCLM 395 would be a desideratum.
Ferrero Hernández, 2011a, 193–194. However, among the Berber manuscripts in the Leiden Library, in Or. 23.334 (Ar. 5279) copied between 1788–1789 CE, we find a couple of Arabic texts which might correspond to two narratives collected in several Aljamiado manuscripts. Num. 3 in Or. 23.334 is a text which contains questions put to God by Moses (10v–11r) and num. 36 bears the title of Qiṣṣat al-Bahāʾim wa-l-Ṭuyūr wa-l-Wuḥūsh wa-Masāʾil al-Yahūd (ff. 194v–195v, incomplete). See, Van den Boogert, 2002, 57–63. I have not yet had the opportunity to consult Or. 23.334 to see if the questions of Moses correspond to the Syrian “Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai”. Comparison shows that the so far unknown Arabic version of this colloquy in circulation among Muslims in the Christian territories included in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 (ff. 65v–67v) was the Vorlage of the Aljamiado narratives in MS RAH 11/9410 (Olim. T 13, f. 215r–221v), MS RAH 11/9415 (Olim. T 19, f. 159r–188v), and MS RAH 11/9405 (Olim. T 8, f. 132v–176r)—in the volume edited by Rodríguez Rodríguez, 1983, 161–234—yet I had no access to MS RESC/4 (Olim. J 4, Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, CSIC, Madrid, ff. 52r–67v), MS RESC/40 (Olim. J 40, 5th booklet, ff. 6v–27v), MS 11/3226 (Olim. IV–C–4 and 2–G–6 R. 160, Real Biblioteca, Madrid, ff. 73r–82); or, in Latin characters, in MS II/1767 (Olim. 2–B–10, Real Biblioteca, Madrid, ff. 1r–6v). I am currently pursuing this last line of inquiry, and will soon publish an article on this manuscript (please also see my footnote on 66 in Chapter One above). Further, I have yet not inquired whether the “demandas de los judíos” might have had something to do with these questions considering the parallelism which exists between the withdrawal of Muḥammad to Mount Ḥirāʾ and that of Moses to the Sinai. EI2 s.v. “Ḥirāʾ” (Weir and Montgomery Watt). Pascual Asensi, 2003–2007, 182–183 and n. 54, quoting Ibn Hishām’s Sīrāt an-Nabī. Vol. I. Cairo, 1963, 156–157. For the Syrian version of the dialogue of Moses, see Suomala, 2005.
MS Urrea of Jalón 170r–171r in Corriente Córdoba, 1990, 256–257, and in MS CEPZ D (Est. p. Tab. V, No. 26), ff. 288v–316r.
According to Martínez de Castilla Muñoz, the contents and textual traditions in MS BNF arabe 774 and MS RAH 11/9415 (Olim. T 19) coincide. Martínez de Castilla Muñoz, 2004, 416 n. 623. For the transcription of this narrative in MS RAH 11/9415, see op. cit., 416–425.
Ferrero Hernández, 2011a, 194–195.
“le correspondería, tal vez, la denominación de catecismo de la religión islámica”, Ferrero Hernández, 2011a, 195. Here, she also refers to her earlier publication with Cruz Palma in which they follow Margoliout (Margoliout, Moses. A pilgrimage to the land of my fathers. Vol. 2. London: Richard Bentley, 1850, 1–40) and Pijper, 1924.
The two editions of these manuscripts briefly discuss its contents, see above Chapter Three 79.
Studies such as that of López-Morillas, 1994. Pascual Asensi, 2009, 871–872.
For the history of Buluqiyyā which, is told by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām in the Qiṣṣas al-Anbiyāʾ [Tales of the Prophets] by al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427 H/1035 CE), see López-Baralt, 2004. I did not consult the translation from the Arabic by William M. Brinner of al-Thaʿlabī’s ʿArāʾis al-Majālis fī Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ or “Lives of the Prophets”. Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 2002.
Pascual Asensi, 2009, 882: “Pero si el texto de Teófanes nos permite conocer datos de la biografía del Profeta que han pervivido en la recensión de la Sira de mano de Ibn Hišam, también puede, igualmente, proporcionarnos algún otro dato sobre lo que no pervivió de la primitiva Sira de Ibn Ishaq.” Pascual Asensi, 2003–2007, 191. Pascual Asensi’s argument that the Chronographia of Theophanes refers to the murder of Muḥammad and that this detail is included only in the sīra of Ibn Isḥāq is not conclusive proof that Theophanes took Isḥāq’s work as a source. This is because, although we find the phrase (usque ad caedem eius) in the Latin translation of Theophanes Chronographia by Anastasius Bibliothecarius (Chronographia Tripartita, c. 870 CE)—which is one of the sources on the life of Muḥammad most relevant to the West (Tolan, 2010, 227–228)—it should be taken into account that not all Greek versions contain this detail. So I think it could be a later addition (by Anastasius?) to the work of Theophanes with a polemical purpose and, therefore, unrelated to the sīra of Ibn Isḥāq. See for Anastasius, Neil, 2009, 788.
He does indeed provide references to the studies about the Aljamiado manuscripts which contain these questions but he does not address these texts and his interest is drawn to some of the stories which also appear in Buluqiyyā. Pascual Asensi, 2003–2007, 190–195.
Sánchez Álvarez, 1982, 160 quoting MS BNF arabe 774, f. 51v.
This is shown by the interrogation before the tribunal of the Inquisition of Andrés Ximénez, a Morisco from Granada and resident of Villarrubia de los Ojos (Castile). Andrés blames his parents for having raised him in Islam and describes the daily ritual prayers and the exact names of these prayers in detail. Dadson, 2012, 61–65.
Sánchez Álvarez, loc. cit.
Vázquez, 2007.
Vázquez, 2007, 22.
Vázquez notes, however, that this should not be confused with the letter referred to in the narratives. Vázquez, 2007, 22 ff and 100 ff. It seems that the Moriscos—and perhaps also the Mudejars (?)—also observed the custom of burying their dead with a letter of intercession written in Arabic.
Sánchez Álvarez, 1982, 161 quoting MS BNF arabe 774, f. 53r.
EI2 s.v. “Ṣirāṭ” (Monnot).
Sánchez Álvarez, 1982, 35 ff. Sánchez Álvarez notes that some Muslims, such as the muʿtazilīs, opposed these ideas. Op. cit., 36 n. 99.
Sánchez Álvarez, 1982, 174–175 transcription of MS BNE 5223, ff. 240r–241r.
“por todas kuantas venas tenía en su cuerpo i alkançó la virtudh dh-ello a todas las kuerdas i a los kabellos de su kuerpo”. Sánchez Álvarez, 1982, 164 quoting MS BNF arabe 774, ff. 59r–v.
See EQ s.v. “Creeds” (Schmidtke).
Ferrero Hernández, 2011a, 197–201. However, I do not know whether the same can be said about the Aljamiado version of these questions that I have recently identified in the Colegio Escuelas Pías de Zaragoza. See above, Chapter Three 80 and footnote 39.
Here, I paraphrase Ferrero Hernández, 2013a, 566. For the treatises in which these authors use the Liber de Doctrina Mahumeti, see loc. cit. n. 49–53.