Overview

Taking as its main subject a series of notorious forgeries by Muslim converts in sixteenth-century Granada (including an apocryphal gospel in Arabic), this book studies the emotional, cultural and religious world view of the Morisco minority and the complexity of its identity, caught between the wish to respect Arabic cultural traditions, and the pressures of evangelization and efforts at integration into “Old Christian” society. Orientalist scholarship in Early Modern Spain, in which an interest in Oriental languages, mainly Arabic, was linked to important historiographical questions, such as the uses and value of Arabic sources and the problem of the integration of al-Andalus within a providentialist history of Spain, is also addressed. The authors consider these issues not only from a local point of view, but from a wider perspective, in an attempt to understand how these matters related to more general European intellectual and religious developments.

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Reviews

In The Orient in Spain researchers, historians, and scholars are treated to a unique study of an important era of Spanish intellectual history. At a time when researchers increasingly risk over-specialization, Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano demonstrate with great skill how one set of texts can reveal the continuities that are present within and between medieval and modern Spain. In this light, the book comes as a welcome volume to the field for those who study early-modern Spain and Islam in Europe. Charles Tieszen, Fuller Theological Seminary, California, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 25:2 Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano's reconstruction of these complex intellectual networks is complemented by an exhaustive twenty-three page bibliograph of primary and secondary sources. Any scholar interested in the history of European Orientalism or Muslim-Christian relations in the early modern world will find this book to be an indispensable resource. Alison Weber, University of Virginia, Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVI 2 (2015) This review cannot begin to do justice to the achievement of The Orient in Spain, which begins in Granada and then ranges across the Mediterranean world to northern Europe, into secret crypts, lost books, and the hearts of a people determined to preserve their religious and cultural identity. It is an immensely important book, [...] one that will reward anyone who is interested in a completely different view of the cultural and intellectual history of Early Modern Spain. Sara T. Nalle, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Medieval encounters 21 (2015) Based on vast research in European and Arabic sources, The Orient in Spain is a major scholarly achievement. It makes important contributions to the cultural history of Spain and the Moriscos, the history of European scholarship, and the cross-cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean. Daniel Stolzenberg, University of California, Davis, Renaissance Quarterly, 67:1 Specialists in Spanish and European history will appreciate the sheer volume of information consolidated here, along with the extensive bibliography at the end. Likewise, the book's organization according to major figures and their biographies will lend itself well for researchers trying to locate specific information. Jessica L. Chen, Stanford University, Religion, 46:1

In The Orient in Spain researchers, historians, and scholars are treated to a unique study of an important era of Spanish intellectual history. At a time when researchers increasingly risk over-specialization, Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano demonstrate with great skill how one set of texts can reveal the continuities that are present within and between medieval and modern Spain. In this light, the book comes as a welcome volume to the field for those who study early-modern Spain and Islam in Europe. Charles Tieszen, Fuller Theological Seminary, California, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 25:2 Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano's reconstruction of these complex intellectual networks is complemented by an exhaustive twenty-three page bibliograph of primary and secondary sources. Any scholar interested in the history of European Orientalism or Muslim-Christian relations in the early modern world will find this book to be an indispensable resource. Alison Weber, University of Virginia, Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVI 2 (2015) This review cannot begin to do justice to the achievement of The Orient in Spain, which begins in Granada and then ranges across the Mediterranean world to northern Europe, into secret crypts, lost books, and the hearts of a people determined to preserve their religious and cultural identity. It is an immensely important book, [...] one that will reward anyone who is interested in a completely different view of the cultural and intellectual history of Early Modern Spain. Sara T. Nalle, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Medieval encounters 21 (2015) Based on vast research in European and Arabic sources, The Orient in Spain is a major scholarly achievement. It makes important contributions to the cultural history of Spain and the Moriscos, the history of European scholarship, and the cross-cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean. Daniel Stolzenberg, University of California, Davis, Renaissance Quarterly, 67:1 Specialists in Spanish and European history will appreciate the sheer volume of information consolidated here, along with the extensive bibliography at the end. Likewise, the book's organization according to major figures and their biographies will lend itself well for researchers trying to locate specific information. Jessica L. Chen, Stanford University, Religion, 46:1

In The Orient in Spain researchers, historians, and scholars are treated to a unique study of an important era of Spanish intellectual history. At a time when researchers increasingly risk over-specialization, Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano demonstrate with great skill how one set of texts can reveal the continuities that are present within and between medieval and modern Spain. In this light, the book comes as a welcome volume to the field for those who study early-modern Spain and Islam in Europe. Charles Tieszen, Fuller Theological Seminary, California, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 25:2 Garcia-Arenal and Rodriguez Mediano's reconstruction of these complex intellectual networks is complemented by an exhaustive twenty-three page bibliograph of primary and secondary sources. Any scholar interested in the history of European Orientalism or Muslim-Christian relations in the early modern world will find this book to be an indispensable resource. Alison Weber, University of Virginia, Sixteenth Century Journal, XLVI 2 (2015) This review cannot begin to do justice to the achievement of The Orient in Spain, which begins in Granada and then ranges across the Mediterranean world to northern Europe, into secret crypts, lost books, and the hearts of a people determined to preserve their religious and cultural identity. It is an immensely important book, [...] one that will reward anyone who is interested in a completely different view of the cultural and intellectual history of Early Modern Spain. Sara T. Nalle, William Paterson University of New Jersey, Medieval encounters 21 (2015) Based on vast research in European and Arabic sources, The Orient in Spain is a major scholarly achievement. It makes important contributions to the cultural history of Spain and the Moriscos, the history of European scholarship, and the cross-cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean. Daniel Stolzenberg, University of California, Davis, Renaissance Quarterly, 67:1 Specialists in Spanish and European history will appreciate the sheer volume of information consolidated here, along with the extensive bibliography at the end. Likewise, the book's organization according to major figures and their biographies will lend itself well for researchers trying to locate specific information. Jessica L. Chen, Stanford University, Religion, 46:1 Fascinating to read and thoroughly stimulating (...) it is a vivid snapshot into how Arabs, Islam, and even Jews and Judaism were Christianized and assimilated into Spain. Jamsheed K. Choksy, Indiana University, Comparative Sociology 17 (2018).

Author Information

Mercedes García-Arenal is Research Professor at the National Council for Scientific Research, Madrid. She has published about cultural and religious aspects of the Muslim West and of ethnic-religious minorities in Spain and the Magreb. Among her books, Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdis of the Muslim West (Leiden, Brill,2003) with Gerard Wiegers, A man of three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan jew between Catholic and Protestant Europe, (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 2006). Fernando Rodríguez Mediano is Scientific Researcher at the National Council for Scientific Research, Madrid. His has published about the history of Morocco and its relationship with Spain (15th-20th centuries). Among his publications: Fernando Rodríguez Mediano and Helena de Felipe (eds.),El Protectorado español en Marruecos. Gestión colonial e identidades, Madrid, CSIC, 2002; Familias de Fez (ss. XV-XVII), Madrid, CSIC, 1995.

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