Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41681-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 164, 418 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 780 g

Reihe: Numen Book Series

Focusing on the Iberian Peninsula but examining related European and Mediterranean contexts as well, Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam traces how Christians, Jews, and Muslims grappled with the contradictory phenomenon of faith brought about by constraint and compulsion. Forced conversion brought into sharp relief the tensions among the accepted notion of faith as a voluntary act, the desire to maintain “pure” communities, and the universal truth claims of radical monotheism. Offering a comparative view of an important yet insufficiently studied phenomenon in the history of religions, this collection of essays explores the ways in which religion and violence reshaped these three religions and the ways we understand them today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

García-Arenal, Mercedes

Glazer-Eytan, Yonatan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Dialog & Beziehungen zwischen Religionen
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religiöser Fundamentalismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Forced Conversion and the Reshaping of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Tradition, Interpretation, History

Mercedes García-Arenal and Yonatan Glazer-Eytan

Part 1: Visigoth Legislation on Forced Conversion and Its Afterlife

1 Uses and Echoes of Visigothic Conciliar Legislation in the Scholastic Controversy on Forced Baptism (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries)

Elsa Marmursztejn

2 “Qui ex Iudeis sunt”: Visigothic Law and the Discrimination against Conversos in Late Medieval Spain

Rosa Vidal Doval

3 Theorizing Coercion and Consent in Conversion, Apostasy, Ordination, and Marriage (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)

Isabelle Poutrin

Part 2: Eschatology, Radical Universalism, and Remembrance: Forced Conversion during the Almohad Rule

4 Again on Forced Conversion in the Almohad Period

Maribel Fierro

5 The Intellectual Genealogy of Almohad Policy towards Christians and Jews

David J. Wasserstein

6 Medieval Jewish Perspectives on Almohad Persecutions: Memory, Repression and Impact

Alan Verskin

Part 3

Rethinking Will: The Forced Conversion of Jews
in 1391 and Beyond

7 On the Road to 1391? Abner of Burgos / Alfonso of Valladolid on Forced Conversion

Ryan Szpiech

8 The Development of a New Language of Conversion in Fifteenth-Century Sephardic Jewry

Ram Ben-Shalom

9 Incriminating the Judaizer: Inquisitors, Intentionality, and the Problem of Religious Ambiguity after Forced Conversion

Yonatan Glazer-Eytan

10 The Coerced Conversion of Convicted Jewish Criminals in Fifteenth-Century Italy

Tamar Herzig

Part 4: Between Theology and History

11 “Neither through Habits, nor Solely through Will, but through Infused Faith”: Hernando de Talavera’s Understanding of Conversion

Davide Scotto

12 Remembering the Forced Baptism of Jews: Law, Theology, and History in Sixteenth-Century Portugal

Giuseppe Marcocci

13 Theologies of Baptism and Forced Conversion: The Case of the Muslims of Valencia and Their Children

Mercedes García-Arenal

14 Epilogue: Conversion and the Force of History

David Nirenberg

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Mercedes García-Arenal is Research Professor at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), and historian of religion and culture. She is the PI of ERC Advanced Grant CORPI (Conversion, Overlapping Religiosities, Polemics and Interaction).

Yonatan Glazer-Eytan is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently completing a dissertation on the crime and cult of sacrilege in early modern Spain.