Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado

SUMMARY: This article focuses on the ethics manifest in the correspondence of Ibn 'Abbād of Ronda (d. 792/1390), particularly the theme of adab. The essay situates Ibn 'Abbād within Ṣūfī discourse on adab and within Islamic ethics generally by sketching his work as a director of conscience primarily interested in the inner spiritual forces at work in particular disciples. The problem of scruples in one disciple presents a test case for Ibn 'Abbād's general approach to moral discernment: the mandates of revelation provide a field in which the Ṣūfī disciple follows God's call, but perfection lies in the proper demeanor connected to tasting certainty, or yaqīn. Investigation of the relationship between šarī'a and ḥaqīqa forecloses any attempt to cast Ibn 'Abbād as antinomian but permits the term " hypernomian " with certain qualifications. Ibn 'Abbād of Ronda (b. 733/1333, d. 792/1390) has been called the director of conscience of his times, a moniker frequently reaffirmed by Western scholars who have studied his writings 1. In particular, his epistolary correspondence manifests his role as a spiritual mentor both for those disciples gathered around him and those living further away. This article will focus on the ethics at work in that correspondence, especially his letters to yaḥyā ibn Sarrāǧ, and consider it against the backdrop of Sufi morality in general, particularly the theme of adab. Ibn 'Abbād's letters show that while he willingly answers questions about the proper ḥukm in certain circumstances, his primary interest lies in the spiritual forces at work within the disciple. Put more strongly, he often cares less about the decision itself than about the forces which give rise to the decision and he investigates these forces in the context of the particular disciple's personality. Ibn 'Abbād's heavy criticism of jurists cannot be taken as evidence of antinomianism, although his ethics could be considered hypernomian with certain qualifications.

Thirty seven copies of the Qur’ān and of tafsīr literature have come down to us, eleven of these manuscripts are translation into Aljamia. They had been hidden in a house of the Almonacid de la Sierra village (Aragon) with no more than 1.600 inhabitants in the 16th century. Through a careful analysis of these translations, we can state that, in spite of one exception, they exhibit a strong link between themselves as far as the copyists, the ornamentation, the paper or the textual kinship. These similarities enable us to surmise that they were all produced within a very short period, in the same area (probably in Almonacid de la Sierra itself), by a small group of copyists working with common textual sources. New hypotheses about the production and transmission of books in this area can thus be put forward.

La comunidad morisca aragonesa contaba con un número desconocido de copistas, iluminadores, y correctores de manuscritos; manuscritos que, en su mayor parte, se nos transmiten a través de un peculiar sistema lingüístico: romance escrito en caracteres árabes. En estos textos se aprecia una gran preocupación por mantener y difundir el legado religioso y cultural islámico, así como por el hispánico coetáneo; pero este cuidado por los contenidos populares, moralizantes y de entretenimiento, no ensombreció en absoluto el interés de estas comunidades por la preservación del patrimonio, no solo desde el punto de vista intelectual, sino también material. En esta comunicación abordaré este fenómeno de preservación del patrimonio, que la encontramos materializada de dos formas: por un lado, como resultado de una voluntad expresa de restauración y conservación de códices mudéjares incompletos y/o deturpados, que el morisco copia y completa en el S. XVI; o de forma indirecta: entre las pocas encuadernaciones de manuscritos moriscos que se nos conservan, la mayoría de ellas son una reutilización de otras anteriores o coetáneas, musulmanas y también cristianas. Tanto uno como otro aspecto nos van a ayudar a establecer hipótesis no solo sobre el conocimiento de las artes del libro oriental y occidental por parte de los moriscos, sino también, y principalmente, sobre el interés y la importancia —cultural y práctica— que daban a elementos librarios del pasado, teniendo como consecuencia una cuidada labor de reescritura y preservación.

Circulaciones mudéjares y moriscas: redes de contacto y representaciones Edición: Alice Kadri; Yolanda Moreno Moreno; Ana Echevarría Arsuaga , 2018, pp. 93-125.
En mi Tésis Doctoral se incluye este texto. Ver:
https://www.academia.edu/99337921/La_religiosidad_de_los_musulmanes_castellanos_y_aragoneses_de_%C3%A9poca_mud%C3%A9jar_y_morisca_a_partir_del_estudio_de_su_legado_manuscrito

Among the Arabic and Aljamiado manuscripts found in Almonacid de la Sierra (nowadays in the TNT library of the CCHS-CSIC in Madrid), there are two copies of the translation into Aljamia of the muḥtaṣar-tafsīr of Ibn Abī Zamanīn of the first quarter of the Qur’ān. The present paper is a first time presentation of the manuscript RESC/52.1 which contains a copy of the text defective of its beginning and its end but highly interesting because it belongs to the same textual tradition as RESC/51. The latter has been written by another scribe than that of RESC/52.1, but the two copyists were nevertheless working in close relationship, transcribing probably from the same original, in the same place and at the same time. Both handwritten witnesses provide important clues about the textual transmission among the Moriscos as well as about the importance given to Qur’ānic exegesis in the second half of the 16th century, especially to Ibn Abī Zamanīn’s work.

Çūrat algāsiat (45v-47r) Çūrat alfağr (47r-49v) [Çūrat yā '-çīn] (50r-61v) Çūrat almulk (61v-66v) Çūrat c amma (66v-70r) Çūrat a l nāzi c at (70r-73v) Çūrat c abaça 21. [Rogaria de la setena] (74r-80r) 22. Este es el pergüeno đel-a ala (80v-81r) 23. A l ddu c ā para rogar đespués đel pergüeno 24. Esta es el-alīqāmah đel-a ala (81v-82v) 25. Capítulo đe lo que vino en-el alwa ū' ađewđeçiđo. Sacađo đel-Almu ta ar (82v-83r) 26. Capítulo đe lo que vino en-el-alwa ū' açunnađo. Del-Almu ta ar (83r-v) 27. Capítulo đe la đotrina en-el vestir. Sacađo đe Bidāyāti Ilhadāyāti (83v-85r) 28. Capítulo en la đotrina đel-alwa ū'. Sacađo đe Bidāyāti Ilhadāyāti (85r-88v) 29. Capítulo đe lo que đerrueca el-alwa ū'. Sacađo đel-Almu ta ar (88v-89r) 30. Capítulo đe lo que vino en bañar đe la suçieđađ. Sacađo đel Almu ta ar (89r-91r) 31. Capítulo que trata đe lo que đerrueca el-a ahhur. Y-es đel libro đe c Īçā đe Ğābir (91r) 32. Capítulo đel a l ttayammum. Sacađo đel-Almu ta ar (91r) 45. [Los gualardones đel-a l ala] (92r-v) 9. Las lunas del año por el cuento de los muçlimes (93r-97r / 20v-21v) 4. [El castigo que dará allah al dexađor del a l ala estando sano de su persona] (101r-108v / 10r-12v) 44. [Advertencia de la obra] 109r-v 33. Regimiento del a l zzakkā y norma para los cogedores đ-él (110r-v)

This paper examines the viability of memetics for approaching Aljamiado-Morisco writing, as well as its potential for conceptualizing the transmission of ideas and culture across the Hispano-Muslim communities that produced and consumed Aljamiado texts. Memetics, whose proponents describe it as a means to explain and understand the transmission of cultural information using evolutionary models (thus the meme is analogous to the gene), provides an appealing theoretical framework for approaching the discourse of these communities, singularly concerned with survival and the preservation of cultural heritage and religious identity. The paper first examines the concept of the meme and its potential for discussing the substance and form of Aljamiado writing. This is followed by the identification and examination of possible memes that circulated broadly within Morisco discourse, and their representation in a selection of pseudo-prophetic texts and other writings prominent among Morisco communities.

Les manuscrits complets produits, copiés et/ou transmis par les Mudéjares et les Morisques, de même que les fragments et documents qui ont été employés dans les ais de reliures qui leur ont appartenu, constituent des témoins uniques pour nous permettre d'étudier l'ample éventail linguistique et culturel de ces communautés1. Nous possédons une vingtaine de documents et environ deux cents manuscrits écrits principalement sur du papier, mais également sur du parchemin; il existe des copies de grand format et d' autres très petites, des livres très volumineux et des documents d'un seul feuillet ; ils peuvent être en une seule langue ou dans plusieurs-principalement arabe et castillan (dans différents stades linguistiques), mais aussi catalan et latin, les uns et les autres transcrits dans trois alphabets différents: arabe, latin et hébreu2. Pour bien comprendre cette production écrite, il faudrait prendre en compte les facteurs qui régissent tout acte de communication : émetteur, destinataire, voie, code, message et contexte. Pour parler de la littérature morisco-aljamiado, cette façon de procéder a été simplifiée et on a tendu à identifier le « code » employé par les Mudéjares et les Morisques avec le castillan en caractères arabes en oubliant les autres composants de la transmission. Cette absence de répertoire de données objectives et d' analyse linguistique en relation avec le contexte nous offre des résultats qui peuvent conduire à des erreurs3. Seule une perspective plus large, mettant en rapport la langue 1 Martínez de Castilla, «El libro manuscrito». 2 L'alphabet hébreu est associé uniquement à des documents en judéo-espagnol ou en hébreu aljamiado réemployés dans les ais d'un manuscrit d'Almonacid de la Sierra (Aragon). Voir §1.1.4. 3 Les éditions de textes écrits (ou au moins copiés) en arabe au sein de ces communautés, de même que le développement de recherches à leur sujet, sont pratiquement inexistants. De fait, on relèvera que des passages en arabe ont été complètement omis dans des thèses docto

The Aljamiado-Morisco literature consists mainly of religious writings produced mostly in the 15th and the 16th centuries by a cryptic Iberian Muslim community. With twenty seven codices known up to this date, the Koranic translations are of great linguistic interest.
Recent studies paid special attention to the textual criticism of the manuscripts and attempts to classify them in families of texts were made for twenty six of them. However, given that the studies in question didn’t rely on the correct original Arabic text, some of the
scribal errors might not be actual errors. If that is the case, the finding will call for a review of the above-mentioned classification. In the present paper I aim to identify the original Arabic text for eleven of the codices. The novelty of this study resides in the analysis
of the J 101 manuscript, as well.

In the present paper we look into the different ways in which one of the Arabic modalities of proximity, viz. kāda, is rendered in Hispanic Qur´anic translations ranging from the 16th century and up to the early 17th one. The analysis is thus based on an assortment of jewels2 from the Mudejar-Morisco cultural
heritage, a corpus of manuscript texts that offer a valuable testimony to the Islamic hiero-variety of Romance in the context of an Islamic hiero-Sprachbund, as postulated by Casassas (2010: 368-396).
We follow in our analysis the classification of Arabic modalities provided by Nadia Anghelescu (1999: 130-134) and we look into the different mechanisms used by the Morisco translators in order to transpose Arabic structures into the Romance vernacular. We also include a revisited version of the calque taxonomy put forth by Soha-Abboud (2000: 141-148), by taking into account the semic analysis of some
peculiar Romance structures that exhibit a marked Arabic influence.

This paper provides an account of the phonetic transformations of the Arabisms in Morisco manuscripts dated back to the 16th century and the first decade of the 17th one, by analysing various translations and transcriptions of the Qur’an. The present work is therefore a partial replica of a previous linguistic study carried out by Reinhold Kontzi on the Qur´anic Morisco fragment found in RESC/41.1. Perhaps the most important novelty of the paper at hand is the inclusion of two unedited manuscripts in the research, viz. RESC/37M.2 and RESC/101D.2 of Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid.

Among the diverse and usually rather carelessly produced Morisco handwritten manuscripts we find twin copies of the “Morisco Qurʾān”, dating from the end of the sixteenth century. Each is made up of a series of gatherings, the remains of two larger yet unbound codices, which contained the usual Morisco selection of Qurʾānic extracts. To date, these are the only examples from the Morisco period of two exactly similar copies
of a text. Although this fact might seem exceptional in the Iberian Peninsular Islamic context, it is by no means isolated: the beginning of the seventeenth century witnessed the development of what has come to be called the “standard Ottoman Qurʾān”, with fifteen lines of text to the page. Are these parallel developments or resulting from the influence of one production on the other?

Paronomasia, used as a grammatical device, is a construction much favoured in Semitic languages. It comes as no surprise to encounter such structures in calque languages.
However, considering that those translations are very literal, it’s unusual to come across paronomastic constructions when they don’t appear as such in the original texts. That is the case of the Romance translations of some superlatives in the Aljamiado-Morisco Koranic manuscripts. Hence, the present paper aims at addressing the following question: Does a
translation such as la más ermosa figura ḏ e las figuraš (manuscript J 39, 150 r) – meant to render the superlative ’aḥ sani taqwīmin (Koran, 95:4) – rely on a certain “oriental” mental logic of the translator, as linguist Galmés de Fuentes (2009: 118) noted, or is actually the result of the translator’s efforts to render the original text as accurately as possible?

As opposed to its earlier counterparts written in Aljamiado – i.e. Romance transcribed in Arabic letters –, the late Morisco Ms. 235 (Toledo, Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha) was copied in Latin script. Produced in early 17th century, in the eve of the Morisco expulsion, the codex contains the sole complete vernacular Koranic translation from the Mudéjar and Morisco era to survive until the present day (López-Morillas, 2011: 113). On these grounds, linguists designated it in several occasions a veritable ‘jewel’ of the Aljamiado literature (Cotto Andino and Fernández Martín, 2001; López-Morillas, 2011; Ayerbe Betrán, 2012).
The current paper aims to validate the hypothesis brought forth by López-Morillas (1994: 17-24), according to which the Aragonese prefix des- was used in this Romance vernacular not only with an adversative role, but also in order to intensify the meaning of the base, as a consequence of the translator’s attempt to render into Romance the Arabic ḍll root and its semantic load. Therefore, we identify throughout our corpus the Morisco translations of this root and we contrast them with the renderings of two other roots that carry same meaning, devoid, however, of the former’s emphatic nuance (i.e. ġwy and ṭġy). We analyse the samples (two hundred fifty-four of them) and we interpret the data by means of statistical coefficients χ2, p and φ.

This contribution intends first to trace the conceptual framework of the Islamic apocalyptic (the minor and major signs, the Daǧǧāl or Antichrist, the trumpet, the bridge, the intercession of the Prophet, the Uprising, the Resurrection, the Meeting, the presentation of the «Book of Acts», the Balance, Paradise and Hell). These themes are also present in aljamiado-morisca literature, the so-called Islamic variant of Spanish literature of the sixteenth century. The apocalyptic text that had most widespread among the Moriscos was L-alḥadīẕ del Ḏía del Judiçyo, with its seven manuscript testimonies whose filiation is offered. Although the Arabic original has not been found, two sources have been identified: the Bustān al-Wā'iẓīn of Ibn al-Ǧawzī and another anonymous one (Borg. ar. 161 of the Vatican Library).

This highlights the importance of the eschatological and popular eschatological literature, exhortative genre (maw'iẓa) to which Bustān al-Wā'iẓīn or Salwat al-Aḥzān belong. Finally, the exhortative genre is linked to the preaching of the faqihs among the Moriscos population and to the elaboration and dissemination of manuscript copies. The popularity of these stories is inseparable from the beliefs in prophecies and the identification of the signs of the Day of Judgment with contemporary events. This occurred both in Moriscos times and in modern times.

This contribution intends first to trace the conceptual framework of the Islamic apocalyptic (the minor and major signs, the Daǧǧāl or Antichrist, the trumpet, the bridge, the intercession of the Prophet, the Uprising, the Resurrection, the Meeting, the presentation of the «Book of Acts», the Balance, Paradise and Hell). These themes are also present in aljamiado-morisca literature, the so-called Islamic variant of Spanish literature of the sixteenth century. The apocalyptic text that had most widespread among the Moriscos was L-alḥadīẕ del Ḏía del Judiçyo, with its seven manuscript testimonies whose filiation is offered.

Although the Arabic original has not been found, two sources have been identified: the Bustān al-Wā'iẓīn of Ibn al-Ǧawzī and another anonymous one (Borg. ar. 161 of the Vatican Library). This highlights the importance of the eschatological and popular eschatological literature, exhortative genre (maw'iẓa)
to which Bustān al-Wā'iẓīn or Salwat al-Aḥzān belong. Finally, the exhortative genre is linked to the preaching of the faqihs among the Moriscos population and to the elaboration and dissemination of manuscript copies. The popularity of these stories is inseparable from the beliefs in prophecies and the identification of the signs of the Day of Judgment with contemporary events. This occurred both in Moriscos times and in modern times.