Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond

Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers (eds), Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond. Iberian Encounter and Exchange, 475–1755 (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019) 440 pp. ISBN: 978-0-271-08121-2

Contents

Introduction

Part I The Medieval Iberian World

1. “‘When I Argue with Them in Hebrew and Aramaic’: Tathlīth al-waḥdānīyah, Ramon Martí, and Proofs of Jesus’s Messiahship,” Thomas E. Burman

2. “Qurʾānic Quotations in Latin: Translation, Tradition, and Fiction in Polemical Literature,” Antoni Biosca i Bas and Óscar de la Cruz

3. “The Mudejar Polemic Ta’yīd al-Milla and Conversion between Islam and Judaism in the Christian Territories of the Iberian Peninsula,” Mònica Colominas Aparicio

4. “‘Sermo ad conversos, christianos et sarracenos’: Polemical and Rhetorical Strategies in the Sermons of Vincent Ferrer to Mixed Audiences of Christians and Muslims,” Linda G. Jones

Part II Around the Forced Conversions

5. “Jewish Anti-Christian Polemics in Light of Mass Conversion to Christianity,” Daniel J. Lasker

6. “Theology of the Laws and Anti-Judaizing Polemics in Hernando de Talavera’s Católica impugnación,” Davide Scotto

7. “The Double Polemic of Martín de Figuerola’s Lumbre de fe contra el Alcorán,” Mercedes García-Arenal

8. “Art of Conversion? The Visual Policies of the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Mercedarians in Valencia,” Borja Franco Llopis

9. “Marcos Dobelio’s Polemics against the Authenticity of the Granadan Lead Books in Light of the Original Arabic Sources,” Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld and Gerard Wiegers

Part III Mediterranean and European Transfers

10. “Prisons and Polemics: Captivity, Confinement, and Medieval Interreligious Encounter,” Ryan Szpiech

11. “The Libre de bons amonestaments by ‘Abd Allāh al-Tarjumān: A Guidebook for Old and New Christians,” John Dagenais

12. “Poetics and Polemics: Ibrahim Taybili’s Anti-Christian Polemical Treatise in Verse,” Teresa Soto

13. “Torah Alone: Protestantism as Model and Target of Sephardi Religious Polemics in the Early Modern Netherlands,” Carsten Wilke

Bibliography / Index

REVIEWS

“Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers have fundamentally advanced our understanding of and the debate around the meaning of medieval polemic. This collection of essays is original, impressive, and will undoubtedly inspire a new generation of scholars.” —Hussein Fancy, author of The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon

“Mercedes García-Arenal, Gerard Wiegers, and their brilliant collaborators have once again joined voices to provide us with a work of polyphonic scholarship. Polemical Encounters is a volume uniquely suited to revealing the intimate agon of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the premodern world.” —David Nirenberg, author of Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today

“This fascinating and valuable collection of essays takes us deep into the medieval and early modern worlds of interfaith relations. Experts across a range of subfields ask fresh and original questions about the nature of the polemical enterprise. From Mozarabic communities in the twelfth century to the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth, we are introduced to a variety of polyglot polemicists who fashioned new styles of discourse from changing geographic and demographic realities both in Iberia and beyond. The basic but profound conclusion of this wide-ranging volume is that the more Christians, Muslims, and Jews challenged each other polemically, the more polyvalent, fractured, and open to reform their own religious hierarchies became.” —Alex Novikoff, author of The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance

“This volume contributes to an important, ongoing revision of Iberian cultural and religious history in the late medieval and early modern periods. It challenges a conventional approach to Iberian polemical exchange that has emphasized theological argument among recognized authorities in clearly defined Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. This volume, in contrast, highlights polemical exchange in an Iberian context of shifting identities, cross-confessional borrowing, and wide situational variation.” —Miriam Bodian, author of Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam

“This multiauthored volume brings detailed philological and historical research to bear on the unusually complex spiritual, cultural, and linguistic relations among Muslims, Jews, and Christians during Spain’s troubled and incomplete transition from medieval diversity to early modern uniformity. Readers from a wide range of scholarly disciplines will be rewarded with novel perspectives on the remarkable textual evidence that emerged from this conflictive yet productive encounter.” —James S. Amelang, author of Parallel Histories: Muslims and Jews in Inquisitorial Spain

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History / Medieval / Religious Studies & Religion / History of Religion / Medieval and Early Modern Studies / Medieval History / Medieval Religion