2013/05/01 by Thomas E. Burman · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Historical and Linguistic Studies #Hispanic-African Historical Relations #Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia
paper · doi:10.1093/jis/ett026
openalex publication_date 2013/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
In the year 1606 ce a Spanish-Muslim scribe, perhaps a certain Muḥammad Rubio, hastily copied a manuscript that contained the Qurʾān in both Arabic and in Aljamiado—Spanish, that is, written in Arabic characters—just as all of Spain’s Moriscos (crypto-Muslims whose ancestors had been forcibly converted to Christianity a century earlier) were being expelled from the Peninsula. In his haste, he decided, he tells us in a colophon at the end of the first quarter of the text, to copy just the Spanish translation and to do so in Latin script (what he tellingly calls letras cristianas) rather than Arabic script. The resulting manuscript, now Toledo, Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha, MS 235 (hereafter T235), survived the destruction of what must have been countless Arabic and Aljamiado codices that occurred in conjunction with the expulsion, and is the only complete Spanish vernacular Qurʾān of Muslim origin to survive. It is the singular fortune of modern scholars that Consuelo López-Morillas, the leading scholar of Iberian vernacular Qurʾāns, has produced an exceptional edition of this unique manuscript, an edition that is the result of enormous labours, remarkable learning, and exacting attention to detail.