Center for Middle Eastern Studies H.A.R. Gibb Arabic & Islamic Studies Lectures October 22-24, 2008 Professor Mercedes Garefa-Arenal Moriscos in Granada: the Lead Books affaire October 22: The forgeries of the Sacromonte of Granada: authorship, polemics, sacred history October 23: Is Arabic an Islamic language? The debate from Granada to the Vatican Summary: The Sacromonte Lead Books In 1588, while demolishing the old minaret of the great mosque of Granada to make way for the new cathedral, a group of workers discovered a box which contained what appeared to be an ancient parchment, written in Latin, Arabic and Spanish and dated in the period of the Emperor Neto’s reign. The box also contained human remains and ashes, immediately identified as those of Christian martyrs, and a cloth which was said to have been a scarf belonging to the Virgin Mary. Some time after this discovery, in 1595 and in subsequent years, a number of lead discs were found on the Valparaiso hill, later named Sacromonte (Sacred Mount) in reference to the findings. These discs were written in an angular Arabic script (referred to as “salomonic”) without diacritic points, There formed ‘twenty two books including the announcement of a new gospel, transmitted by the Virgin Mary. The books also made reference to a number of relics found in close proximity to them, describing these as the remains of early Christian martyrs, all of whom were Arabs, who had come to Spain with the apostle Saint James and had been converted and indoctrinated by him before their death in Granada. Thus could it be shown, or alleged, ‘that the first Christian settlers in Granada had in fact been Arabs, and that the Virgin had spoken in Arabic to her faithful followers. ‘These texts, evidently false, reworked certain legends or traditional stories concerning the Christianization of Andalusia in order to present Arabs as the earliest Christian missionaries in Spain in the First century A.D, They also presented a vision of early Christianity very close to Islam, that is to say, without any reference to the Trinity, to the divine nature of Jesus, or worship of images. At the same time the books established Arabic as a superior and eschatological Christian language, preempting an association with Islamic culture. In them, the Arabic language took on a primitive and eschatological nature as a chosen tongue. Such a use of Arabic was deliberately separated out from a practising of Islamic religion. Equally important, they established the spiritual pre- eminence of Granada at a time when a number of cities were competing for the privilege of being the primary religious see of Spain. For all these reasons local religious authorities, headed by the archbishop Pedro de Castro, were favourably inclined to regard the Lead Books as authentic and to view the finding as a miracle. It was not until 1682 that the Vatican declared the books a forgery will argue that these forgeries were fabricated by Moriscos (Muslims who had been officially converted to Catholicism). Moriscos who were erypto-muslims or who were (or wanted to be considered) Christian Arabs, and will delve on the Granadan context and the ‘aim of the forgers, as well a its success in Catholic society.October 24: Singular lives and normal exceptions: between Granada and Fez For many years my work has been increasingly drawn to the singular, to the small-scale study of individuals who do not so much stand for or fit out eategories and other such generalities as much as they jumble them up to the point of making us reconsider how and why these concepts appeared in the first place, Grendi’s very useful reference to “normal exception” was crucial to justify this option from a theoretical point of view and since then Ginzburg’ s own multitude small-scale explorations have widened the path that I intend to follow in this talk. 1 will follow several individual lives of which I have written in the past, showing its connections and interactions across the two sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. In the process, these individuals custom-made their own forms of survival, self-help and personal advancement. { will argue that they (and many others) constantly create their own identities and that if groups define themselves according to conflicts and solidarities, these ‘cannot be assumed a priori at least in the case of, for example Moriscos, traditionally considered in terms of “resistence” or “collaboration” to Christian political and religious power.