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A look at the alterity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The perception of the other in some medieval and modern texts (1200-1600)

Marica COSTIGLIOLO

Original title: Uno sguardo sull’alterità tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. La percezione dell’altro in alcuni testi medievali e moderni (1200-1600)

Published in Mirabilia Journal 34

Keywords: Alterity, Colonialism, Diversity, Islam, Middle Ages, New World, Renaissance.

The concept of otherness is complex and layered. To understand how the Western world has received, rejected, or dominated the Other is crucial for the understanding of the construction of the Western cultural identity and for trying to find the motivations that have brought Europe to a politics of colonialism that has characterized social, economic, and political relations up to modern times. In this short essay I analyse some medieval and modern works to trace the textual strategies that testify the passage from the perception of difference as a possible source of threat, of danger, to its delegitimization to existence and consequently to the “justified” dominion over the other.

Arabic inscriptions of the Andalusi period in ceramics found in Elda, Alicante

Francisco FRANCO-SÁNCHEZ, Antonio CONSTÁN-NAVA

Original title: Inscripciones árabes andalusíes aparecidas en cerámicas de Elda, Alicante

Published in

Keywords: Arabic inscriptions, Ceramics, Islam, Šarq al-Andalus.

The intention of the authors is to offer a study of the inscriptions in Arab(Arabic) of epoch almohade (centuries XII-XIII) and Spanish Muslim living under Christian rule (centuries XIV-XV) of the ceramic remains found in Elda (Alicante).

Architecture in the Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X (13th century): Huelva, the Islam and the triumph of the Virgin Mary

Bárbara DANTAS

Original title: Arquitetura nas Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X (séc. XIII): Huelva, o Islã e o triunfo da Virgem Maria

Published in

Keywords: Architecture, Islam, Middle Ages, Virgin Mary, War.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria by king Alfonso X is a work with three artistic expressions: music, literature and painting. There are about 420 songs with reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin written in galician-portuguese and accompanied by illuminations that represent words in images. The focus will be to demonstrate the presence of architectural forms in the text and the illumination of the Cantiga 273, the miracle report of the city of Huelva-Andalusia. The architecture as a record of the defeats and victories occurred in the battles between christians and moors during the centuries of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the pacific artistic syncretism of that time.

Cynocephalus in commentario? The monstrous or savage nature of infidels as juridical argument

Alejandro MORIN

Original title: Cynocephalus in commentario? El carácter monstruoso o salvaje de los infieles como argumento jurídico

Published in The Middle Ages and the Crusades

Keywords: Innocent IV, Islam, Monstrosity, Oldradus de Ponte, Savagery.

For some years a type of historiographical approach has rendered fruits about the relation Christians-Muslims, focused on the perception/construction of alterity. This is evident in different works that analyze the medieval “images” of the unbelievers created in a hostile context. But this approach can ignore the rhetorical-juridical inscription of the description of the unbeliever in teratological or wild terms. What seems an ethnographic reference that says much about the medieval Christian ethnocentrism may in certain context operate as a juridical argument that enables one type or another of justification for the conquest on unchristians. We pose here the convenience of bringing together two subjects that medievalists had developed separately: the history of the Christian stereotypes of Saracen “monstrosity” and the history of medieval law.

Kumbi Ṣāliḥ. An example of twin city. The zenith and the fall

Vicente CASTRO MARTÍNEZ

Original title: Kumbi Ṣāliḥ. Un ejemplo de ciudad gemela. Auge y caída

Published in Returning to Eden

Keywords: African values, Bilād as-Sudān, Ghana and Almoravids, Islam, Kumbi Ṣāliḥ.

The concept of twin city which, many times, is considered specifically African but, however, has its origin in the rise of Islam in territories such as Iraq and Egypt. The aim of this article is nothing but reflexing about this concept using the example of the ancient city of Kumbi Ṣāliḥ. Along the following lines there will be exposed some ideas as the origin of the city, its rise related to its condition of capital of the Kingdom of Ghana, the relation between Islamic and traditional African values and the causes of the decline that ends with the abandon of this place at the beginning of the 13th century. In addition, there will be used some sorts of resources such as archaeological discoveries, written records, and other piece of historical works. Finally, this essay has the proposal of using these resources in a complementary way.

Pain generates understanding: Fair War and Crusades

Luiz Augusto Rocha do NASCIMENTO

Original title: A dor gera compreensão: a Guerra Justa e as Cruzadas

Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Keywords: Christianity, Crusades, Islam, Just War.

The Crusades were no longer a conflict within the history of wars. They were a clash between two worldviews: Christianity and Islam. The beginning of the Crusades, unlike other wars, was based on the principles of just war. This work gave a summary of the origins of just war and Islam. Then he showed that the Church of Rome applies these principles in some cases. One such case was the Crusades.

Parallelism between the Mahometan intercession and the Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis. Another perspective

Sergi ESPINOSA POLO

Original title: Paral·lelismes entre la intercessió mahometana i el Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis. Una altra perspectiva

Published in

Keywords: Eschatology, Islam, Ramon Llull.

The parliament of the Saracen in the Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis exemplifies Ramon Llull's way of showing us the cultural and religious elements that revolve around Islam. We will see how easy it is to see the degree of fidelity that underlies the parliament of the Saracen if we compare it with the Koran and the Sunna. On the one hand, the Lullian vision of the Islamic religion will be analysed. On the other hand, the aim is to highlight the respectful way in which Ramon Llull treated both the Muslims in his work and Islam, which was far removed from the aspirations of the time.

Pletho's Nomoi - A Case of Polytheism in the Latebizantinian Era and its Reception in the Islamic World

Anna Akasoy

Original title: Ein Beitrag zum Polytheismus in spätbyzantinischer Zeit und seiner Rezeptionìn der islamischen Welt

Published in Expressing the Divine: Language, Art and Mysticism

Keywords: Byzantinian Philosophy, George Gemistos Pletho, Islam.

During his stay in Italy as a member of the Greek delegation at the Council of Union in Ferrara/Florence in 1438/9 George Gemistos Pletho criticized the intellectuals of the Latin West heavily for their overestimation of Aristotle and their disregard of Plato. Meanwhile he blamed the Arabic commentators of the Aristotelian corpus Avicenna and Averroes for this misinterpretation, Islam is used as a positive example in Plethos historical writings. On the other hand Pletho s works were received in the Islamic world as well through the Arabic translation of his Nomoi done at the court of Mehmet II. This article offers a short overview of the different aspects of the relation between Pletho and Islam and the transliteration and translation of the Arabic translation of his Compendium Zoroastreorum.

Religious formulae with prophylactic purposes within the Andalusi context

Alejandro RAMOS RODRÍGUEZ

Original title: Fórmulas religiosas con finalidad profiláctica en el contexto andalusí

Published in

Keywords: Epigraphy, Islam, Magic, Religion, Talisman.

This article presents a group of metal artifacts, which are usually classified as talismans. In these artifacts we can read epigraphic engraved legends that are related to Koran and other Islamic religious formula. This fact displays the close relationship existing between magic and religion as parts of a cosmology concerning the belief in a supernatural world. This relationship is avoided or denied by the Orthodox Establishment, although it is spread among Al-Andalus population.