Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages

9. Walls of Hatred and Contempt: The Anti-Muslim Polemics of Pedro Pascual

 9  Wallsof HatredandContempt The Anti-Muslim Polemics of Pedro Pascual Over the last thirty years, a number of scholars have written about the place of Muslims in Christian Spain. Some have studied the polemical and apologetical works of medieval Christian writers for whom Islam was a sordid heresy founded by Muhammad, a sly pseudo-prophet whom the devil inspired to spread his heresy by the sword. Others have elucidated the roles assigned to Muslim minorities in the societies of Christian Iberia by analyzing legal and archival sources, while the picture that these documents provide is varied and complex—in general, Muslims under Christian rule have roughly the same status as dhimmis in Muslim societies. Few historians have tried to elucidate connections between the theological anti-Muslim polemics of clerical writers and the legal and social role of Muslims in Christian societies. Are the legal and social restrictions imposed on Muslims based (explicitly or implicitly) on a polemical perception of Islam? Or do political, social, and military interest call for and inspire a theologically based ideology that justifies Christian hegemony and Muslim social inferiority? If historians have little to say about the possible links between anti-Muslim polemics and the place of Muslims in Christian Iberian societies, the main reason is perhaps because the sources make no such explicit links. Dozens of fueros enumerate the rights and obligations of Muslims without giving any theological justification. In the rich archives of the Kingdom of Valencia, when royal documents justify the rights of Mudejars (subjected Muslims) or limitations imposed upon them, they do so by invoking the 134 / Sons of Ishmael surrender treaties in which conquered Muslims had accepted their new subject status, not by referring to theological arguments about the supposed inferiority of Islam. Yet if we examine the numerous texts that describe (and denigrate) Islam and its prophet, we can discern the social functions of this negative image of Islam. A few of these texts are meant for evangelization: their intended audience is either Muslim readers or Christian missionaries; their authors seek to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity. Such is the case, for example, of the Contra sectam sive haeresim Sarracenorum by Peter of Cluny, of the De seta machometi by Ramon Martí, and the Arabic texts of Ramon Llull. This negative image of Islam is not limited to polemical and apologetic texts. In other texts, the denigration of the “law of Muhammad” justifies Christian kings’ military conquest of the peninsula or the obligation of Muslim rulers to pay parias (tribute) to them. Such is the case, for example, of the chronicles of Lucas de Tuy and Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and of the Estoria de España attributed to Alfonso X el Sabio, king of Castile and León (1252–84). Although theoretically limited to the history of the Iberian peninsula ), these chronicles recount the life of Muhammad, whom they present as a heresiarch and a false prophet in order to affirm the illegitimacy of Muslim dominion in the peninsula. Thus the three chronicles present the Muslim invasion of 711 as an event of near-apocalyptic significance.1 The denigration of Muhammad and of Islam justifies the reconquista. Here religious polemics serve political ideology. Juan Manuel uses the biography of Muhammad in the same way in his Libro de los estados.2 The social barriers between the Christian majority and the Muslim (or Jewish) minority, in theory clearly delineated by law, were far from watertight . Christians, Muslims, and Jews traversed them daily, rubbing elbows with neighbors of different religions, working with them, buying and selling with them, exchanging advice or jokes, forming friendships, and indulging in forbidden interreligious sexual relations. All of this, some members of the three communities feared, could blur the distinctions between them. The law was insufficient to maintain the desired separation without some sort of mutual repugnance. David Nirenberg has shown how the ritualized violence against the calls (Jewish quarters) of Catalan towns reinforced this separation. Louise Mirrer has described the warrior ideology of the Castilian romances, which affirmed the right of valorous Castilian men to dominate the “weak,” be they women, Muslims, or Jews.3 It is in this context that I examine Sobre la seta Mahometana by Pedro The Anti-Muslim Polemics of Pedro Pascual / 135 Pascual, a text that manipulates traditional anti-Muslim polemics, seeking to inspire in its readers hatred and disdain for Islam, in order to prevent them...