Notes on Contributors
Pierre Guichard
Emeritus Professor, Université Lumière Lyon-2. He helped to launch a new way of studying al-Andalus by reaffirming its nature as a diverse Islamic society, substantially different from the feudal Christian Peninsular societies among which it developed. He also helped to introduce archaeology into studies of al-Andalus. His recent publications include Les débuts du monde musulman (VIIe-Xe siècle). De Muhammad aux dynasties autonomes, co-edited with Thierry Bianquis and Mathieu Tillier (Paris, 2012).
Antonio Malpica Cuello
Full Professor at the University of Granada, where he is in charge of the teaching and research of Medieval Archeology. He has combined the study of urban planning, fortifications, and the social organization of space in medieval times, especially from the Nasrid period, with historical analyses of landscapes and research on the exploitation, use, consumption, and trade of different natural resources. He is the author of Las últimas tierras de al-Andalus. Paisaje y poblamiento del Reino de Granada (Granada, 2016).
Rafael G. Peinado Santaella
Full Professor of Medieval History at the University of Granada. His research has focused on Nasrid elites and the development of systems of agrarian landholding in different areas of Nasrid territory, requiring thorough knowledge of documentary sources from the period immediately following the Castilian conquest. Among his many publications is “Como los vencedores disfrutan cuando se reparten el botín”. El reino de Granada tras la conquista castellana (1483–1526) (Granada, 2011).
Gerard Wiegers
Full Professor of Comparative Religious Studies in the Department of History at the University of Amsterdam. His research concentrates on the relations between Islam and other religions in Europe and the Muslim West, and the history of Islamic and Jewish minorities. His projects have led to publications in major peer-reviewed journals and book series, including P.S. van Koningsveld and G.A. Wiegers, The Sacromonte Parchment and Lead Books: Critical Edition of the Arabic Texts and Analysis of the Religious Ideas (2019).
Christine Mazzoli-Guintard
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History (Université de Nantes, 1993), promoted to Professor (2003), member of the Casa de Velázquez, Madrid (1990–1992), Foreign Corresponding Member of the Real Academia de la Historia. Her research centers on the urban history of al-Andalus from a variety of perspectives based on documentary and textual sources and archaeological records: Villes d’al-Andalus (Rennes, 1996), Vivre à Cordoue au Moyen Age (Rennes, 2003), Madrid, petite ville de l’Islam médiéval (Rennes, 2009).
Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo
Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Granada. Her main area of specialization is the history, society, and culture of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, in particular the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada (13th–15th centuries), and the study of women in al-Andalus and the Maghreb. Among her recent publications on these topics is Ibn al-Aḥmar. Vida y reinado del primer sultán de Granada (1195–1273) (2017).
Raúl González Arévalo
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Granada. His research interests encompass late-medieval social, economic, and diplomatic history in the Western Mediterranean, particularly between the Crown of Castile, the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, and the Italian States. He is the author of Navegación institucional y navegación privada en el Mediterráneo medieval (Granada, 2016).
Alberto García Porras
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Granada. His research interests have focused on the archaeology of ceramic production in the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, as well as the theoretical exploration of the archaeology of industrial processes. His fieldwork activity has largely concerned the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, including intensive fieldwork in the Alhambra itself. He was the editor of Arqueología de la producción en época medieval (Granada, 2013), containing his contribution “Arqueología medieval. Historia de la cultura material y arqueología de la producción.”
Bilal Sarr
Currently holds a Ramón y Cajal Contract from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. His research has always been framed within medieval history, revolving around three axes: the Berbers/Amazighs in al-Andalus, History and Archaeology of the Intrabaetic Basin cities (Granada, Madīnat Ilbīra, and Guadix), and settlement and exchanges between the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and al-Andalus. Chief among his publications is La Granada Zirí (1013–1090) (Granada, 2011).
Francisco Vidal-Castro
Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universidad de Jaén, concentrating on the political history of the Nasrid emirate of Granada. He is a specialist in Islamic law and institutions in al-Andalus and the Maghreb, particularly under the Nasrids (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), and in those spaces’ political and cultural relations with the Christian world. His publications include “Una década turbulenta de la dinastía nazarí de Granada en el siglo XV: 1445–1455,” in En el epílogo del Islam andalusí: la Granada del siglo XV, edited by C. del Moral (Granada, 2002).
Expiración García-Sánchez
Researcher, Escuela de Estudios Árabes, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Granada. Expertise in the history of scientific knowledge in al-Andalus, particularly nutrition, agriculture, and botany, with further interrelated subjects: pharmacology, historic gardens, and ethnobotany. She has edited al-Ṭighnarī, Zuhrat al-bustān wa-nuzhat al-adhhān (Madrid, 2006).
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza
Associate Professor of Art History at the Universidad Complutense (Madrid). His research has focused particularly on the mutual artistic synergies between al-Andalus and the Crown of Castile in the later Middle Ages, islamic art, and the relationship between messages and their artistic forms. His recent publications include “Hispania, Al-Andalus and the Crown of Castile: Architecture and Constructions of Identity,” in Another Image: Jews and Muslims Made Visible in Christian Iberia and Beyond. Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Antonio Urquízar-Herrera (Leiden, 2019).
María Elena Díez Jorge
Full Professor of Art History at the University of Granada. Specialist in Mudejar art, mainly working on architecture and on the late Middle Ages and the transition to the Early Modern period. She has led various related R+D projects, currently Vestir la casa: espacios, objetos y emociones en los siglos XV y XVI. In the field of architecture and domestic space she has recently edited De puertas para adentro. La casa en los siglos XV y XVI (Granada, 2019).
Daniel Baloup
Senior Lecturer at the Université de Toulouse II – Jean Jaurès since 1999; Director of Ancient and Medieval Studies at the Casa de Velázquez (Madrid), 2007–2013. He has worked extensively on forms of religiosity in the Kingdom of Castile and the idea of Holy War and its relation to the Crusades at the end of the Middle Ages. His recent concerns include the ideological structures and special practices that supported the Reconquest in the Iberian Peninsula. His next book will be L’Homme armé. Expériences de la guerre et du combat en Castille au XVe siècle (Madrid, forthcoming).
Adela Fábregas
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Granada. She has focused her research on the economy of the Nasrid kingdom, with attention to productive activities and international trade, also studying the economic bases of power in the Nasrid kingdom. She has published monographs and articles on the subject, including “Other Markets: Complementary Commercial Zones in the Nasrid World of the Western Mediterranean (Seventh/Thirteenth to Ninth/Fifteenth Centuries).” Al-Masaq 25, no. 1 (2013).
Ángel Galán Sánchez
Full Professor of Medieval History at the University of Málaga. His research focus has been the Muslim population of the Kingdom of Granada in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In recent years he has been studying the Royal Treasury in the kingdoms of Granada and Castile. Since 2008 he has directed Arca Comunis, a research group on fiscal and financial matters from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries. Author of Una sociedad en transición: los granadinos de mudéjares a moriscos (Granada, 2010).
Amalia Zomeño
Tenured researcher at the Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo, Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid. Postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University (1998–2000). The main topic of her research is Islamic law, and she is the author of Dote y matrimonio en al-Andalus y el norte de África (Madrid, 2000). She has also written articles on family and property in Granada based on collections of Arabic legal documents in various archives in the city. She has compiled two catalogues of Arabic manuscripts preserved at the Abbey of Montserrat.
Roser Salicrú i Lluch
Senior Researcher in Medieval Studies at the Milà i Fontanals Institute (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) in Barcelona. Former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Anuario de Estudios Medievales (2010–2019). Group Manager of the research group “The Crown of Aragon, Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean” formed by the Generalitat de Catalunya CAIMMed (2009–). Her research interests include the relations between Christianity and Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean in the Late Middle Ages, with specific attention to Granada and the former Crown of Aragon, trade, navigation, shipbuilding, travelers, and medieval captivity and slavery. Author of El sultanato nazarí de Granada, Génova y la Corona de Aragón en el siglo XV (2007).
María Dolores Rodríguez-Gómez
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Semitic Studies (Arab-Islamic Studies), University of Granada. Her Ph.D. dissertation analyzed commercial and cultural relations on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar during the domination of the Nasrid and Benimerin dynasties. Among her publication is “Describing the Ruin: Writings of Arabic Notaries in the Last Period of al-Andalus.” Studia Orientalia [Societas Orientalis Fennica] 112 (2012).
José Miguel Puerta Vílchez
Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of Granada. He co-directed the Biblioteca de al-Andalus and is the author of works such as Aesthetics in Arabic Thought from Pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus (Leiden, 2017). His research centers on the aesthetic thought, literature, and arts of al-Andalus and the modern Arab world.