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MUSLIM LEGAL RESPONSES TO PORTUGUESE OCCUPATION IN LATE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY NORTH AFRICA

2011; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14636204.2011.658698

1469-9818

Jocelyn Hendrickson,

Islamic Studies and History

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The best overview of Islamic legal rulings on Muslim minorities is CitationAbou El Fadl's survey of positions adopted across legal schools, from the eighth to seventeenth centuries. For surveys of Mālikī opinions on the obligation to emigrate from Iberia, see CitationBuzineb 54–60; CitationFierro 11–41; CitationVan Koningsveld and Wiegers 49–52; and CitationMiller 20–43. For my review of the scholarly literature on these Mālikī rulings and for additional sources, see Hendrickson esp. 11–100. 2. For an excellent overview of the history and characteristics of fatwās, see CitationMasud, Messick, and CitationPowers. For a discussion of Islamic legal genres, see CitationJohansen esp. 446–54, and CitationSkovgaard-Petersen 4–6. 3. These genres of substantive law make up the "branches" of Islamic law (furu c al-fiqh). Islamic jurisprudence, or the "roots" of Islamic law (uṣūl al-fiqh), concerns the methodological principles guiding the derivation of legal rules from the Qur'ān and the Hadith, the exemplary practices of the prophet Muhammad. 4. On the potential as well as the challenges of using fatwās as sources of social history, see CitationPowers, "Fatwās as Sources" 296–97. 5. For a discussion of this process, see CitationHallaq, From Fatwās to Furuc or ch. 6 of Authority, Continuity, and Change. 6. For a translation and analysis of one jurist's typology of muftīs, see CitationCalder. 7. For the relationships between muftīs and courts see CitationMarin for Al-Andalus and Powers (Law, Society, and Culture 17–22) for North Africa. 8. For publication information and a description of this collection, see CitationOuld Ahmed Salem. 9. For a short overview of the Portuguese in North Africa, see Disney 1–26, and for a monograph-length military history of Portuguese-Maghribī engagements, see CitationCook. Newitt's introductions in the Morocco chapter of his documentary reader (25–42) are also useful. 10. On the roles of sharīfs and Sufi orders in organizing resistance against foreign expansion, see CitationCornell, esp. Ch. 6 (155–95) and Ch. 8 (230–71). 11. Other tribal and Sufi leaders founded centers of armed resistance in the south. 12. Al-Zayyātī was likely born in Fez, travelled as far as Egypt to study Qur'ān recitation as well as the legal sciences, and settled in Tetouan, where he devoted himself to teaching, writing, and serving as imām of a local mosque until his death in 1645. For his biography, see the notices for al-Zayyātī and his father in al-Qādirī's Nashr al-Mathānī (2: 30 and 1: 198–99). CitationAl-Qādirī's notices are reproduced in al-CitationḤajjī's encyclopedia of Maghribī scholars, Mawsū c at a c lām al-Maghrib (4: 1421 and 3: 1218–19). For later composite notices, see al-CitationḤajjī, al-Ḥaraka al-fikrīya 2: 421; Dāwūd 279–80; CitationZiriklī 4: 16; and CitationKaḥḥāla 2: 159. 13. Newitt's reader contains no native sources from North or West Africa. 14. Manuscript copies of al-Tusūlī's al-Jawāhir al-nafīsa are available at the Ḥasanīya Library in Rabat (ms. 12,575) and the Tunisian National Library (ms. 5354). 15. This vast work, the best-known Mālikī compilation, contains approximately 6,000 fatwās issued between 1000 and 1500 CE by hundreds of muftīs in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Powers, Law, Society, and Culture 4–9). Its full name is al-Micyār al-mucrib wa'l-jāmic al-mughrib can fatāwī ahl Ifrīqiyā wa'l-Andalus wa'l-Maghrib (The Clear Standard and Extraordinary Collection of the Legal Opinions of the Scholars of Ifrīqiyā, Al-Andalus, and the Maghrib). 16. Al-Zayyātī's chapter on jihād includes two fatwās from early sixteenth-century Morocco that address apostasy charges against two men presumed to have converted to Christianity. One of the men is described as residing in the "land of the apostates," suggesting that willful conversion was not uncommon in this period. These two fatwās can be found in al-Wazzānī's al-Mi c yār al-jadīd 3: 49–50. 17. For full translations of Asnā al-matājir and the Marbella fatwā, see Hendrickson 340–94. The best Arabic edition of both texts is CitationNajīb's Asnā al-matājir, but the most often cited is still al-Wansharīsī, al-Mi c yār al-mu c rib 2: 119–41. 18. Permission to emigrate would have been granted by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand. 19. This summary and analysis are based on one chapter of my dissertation, "The Islamic Obligation to Emigrate: Al-Wansharīsī's Asnā al-matājir Reconsidered." For a fuller discussion of these and other fatwās included in al-Zayyātī's chapter on jihād, see Hendrickson 120–76. For my English translations and Arabic edition of the fatwās, see 395–436. 20. While al-Wazzānī includes in his two fatwā compilations versions many of the rulings preserved by al-Zayyātī, he has subjected some of them to heavy editing and misspelled some jurists' names. 21. Why are those who fish with the enemy a distinct category in the questions posed to al-Mawāsī and al-Wansharīsī? One possible explanation is that the intimacy created by working together with Christians in a risky, potentially lucrative, and essential venture could lead to the transmission of sensitive information to Christians or further the Muslims' reliance upon and trust in Christians. If those working closely with Christians exhibited trust in and contentment with Christian employers, they might weaken resistance to Portuguese rule. Another possibility is that fishermen (or other Muslims represented euphemistically by this group) might have greater incentive to apostatize or greater access to Portugal-bound vessels. The comparable group in al-Wansharīsī's Asnā al-matājir, the unhappy emigrants broadcasting a preference for Christian rule, is described as scheming to find any possible means of returning to Castile; if the fishermen were presumed to have such a means, they might be considered a flight risk capable of weakening morale among conquered populations. King Manuel's letter, quoted earlier, includes an invitation to visit other Portuguese territories by ship free of charge (Newitt 34). 22. Qur'ān 4: 97–99 are the verses most often cited as Qur'ānic evidence of the obligation to emigrate. They read: (Those whom the angels take in death while they are wronging themselves, the angels will say to them: 'In what circumstances were you?' They will say, "We were abased in the earth." The angels will say, "Was God's earth not spacious enough for you to have migrated therein?" Hell will be the refuge for such men—a wretched end! Except for the weak among men, women, and children, who are unable to devise a plan and are not guided to a way; as for these, perhaps God will pardon them. God is Most Clement, Oft Forgiving.). 23. Al-Wansharīsī goes on to list a number of items whose sale to non-Muslims living outside Muslim territory (ḥarbīs) is prohibited. This includes anything the enemy could use in war, such as horses, weapons, copper, iron, and leather. Mālikī jurists disagreed as to the permissibility of selling food to ḥarbīs if a truce had been signed with them.