Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

The lines describe Othello’s mission to
confront a Turkish fleet bearing down on
Cyprus.
2
Some commentators may insist that Muslims
still see jihad as a religious obligation.
There is no need to enter the controversy.
Commentary in the text and in the notes
will provide sufficient explanation about the
function of jihad in history.
3
Jihad invites contentious discussion. For
a sampling of the debate, see Malise Ruthven,
A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on
America (London: Granta Books, 2002);
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy
War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random
House, 2004), esp. 29–32; Bernard Lewis
also edited the entry for “Djihad” in The
Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, 13 vols.
(Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1991),
2:538–40; Laurent Murawiec, The Mind of
Jihad (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2008); Dan Diner and Steven Rendall,
Lost in the Sacred: Why the Muslim
World Stood Still (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009); Karen Armstrong,
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (New
York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009); and
John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of
Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2010).
4
Verse 3.1.7, Al-Muwatta, http://bewley.virtualave.net/muwcont.html,
also see, the version
of the Muwatta at http://www.sultan.
org/books/Muatta.pdf. All references to the
Muwatta come from these versions.
5
Hubert Howe Bancroft, The History of California,
7 vols. (San Francisco: The History
Company, 1883), 2:223. The speaker is Pablo
de la Guerra, resident of Santa Barbara.
6
Ibid., 2:236.
7
For a sophisticated and passionate defense
of Islam as a contemplative faith whose
approach to war is misunderstood, see
Ziaddun Sardar, Reading the Qur’an: The
Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of
Islam (New York: Oxford University Press,
2011). For a more personal approach to the
subject, see Ed Husain, The Islamist: Why I
Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw
Inside, and Why I Left (New York: Penguin
Books, 2007).
8
We are speaking about the idea of convivencia,
the hypothesis that the different
religions and cultures of Spain learned
to accept and work with one another. The
argument is controversial. I give a sampling
of the literature. For a classic description,
see Américo Castro, The Structure of Spanish
History, tr. Edmund King (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1954). Other
scholars support the idea: Jerrilyn D. Dodds,
Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval
Spain (University Park: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1990), 58; Jerrilyn
Dodds, María Rosa Menocal, and Abigail
Krasner, The Arts of Intimacy (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2008), 117–20; and
Dominique Urvoy, “The ‘Ulama of Al-
Andalus,” ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 2 vols.,
The Legacy of Muslim Spain (New York: E. J.
Brill, 1994), 2:850. Some scholars express
their doubts or at least say the subject is
prone to overstatement: L. P. Harvey, Islamic
Spain: 1250–1500 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990); Henry Kamen, The
Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish
Culture (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2007); and Dario Fernández-Morera,
“The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise,”
The Intercollegiate Review (Fall 2006): 23–31.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not
mention Robert I. Burns and his views on
convivencia. Burns writes that the question
deserves subtle treatment and must allow
for exceptions and outright deviations. As
one example of his work, see Muslims, Christians,
and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of
Valencia: Societies in Symbiosis (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984).
9
Some may say we even misunderstand
Franciscan devotion. To put the matter
bluntly, they did not want to kill so much
as they wanted to be killed and earn the
martyr’s crown. For further discussion on
Franciscan spirituality in the New World,
see John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom
of the Franciscans in the New World, 2nd
ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1970). Also see Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl
and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican
National Consciousness, tr. Benjamin Keen
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1976).
10
Jacqueline Chabbi, “Ribat,” in The Encyclopedia
of Islam, New Edition, 8:493–506.
To complicate matters, a ribat could also
take the name zawiyya. See Mustafa ‘Abdu-
Salam al-Mahmah, “The Ribats in Morocco
and their influence in the spread of knowledge
and tasawwuf” [the Islamic practice
of spiritual development] from al-Imra’a
al-Maghribiyya wa’t-Tasawwuf (The Moroccan
Woman and Tasawwuf in the Eleventh
Century), http://bewley.virtualave.net/ribat.
html. One could also argue that ribat could
compare with a hisn, a Muslim castle. For
more on this subject, see Thomas F. Glick,
From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle:
Social and Cultural Change in Medieval Spain
(Manchester, England: Manchester University
Press, 1995).
11
Manuela Marín, “La práctica del ribat en
al-Andalus,” El ribat califal: Excavaciones
y estudios (1984–1992), ed. Rafael Azuar
Ruiz (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2004),
191–201, esp. 191–92.
12
For further discussion, see the collection
of essays in El ribat califal: Excavaciones y
estudios. Also consult Robert Hillenbrand,
Islamic Architecture: Form, Function, and
Meaning (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994), esp. 331–38; Peter Harrison,
Castles of God: Fortified Religious Buildings
of the World (Woodbridge, England: Boydell
Press, 2004), 225–26; andMustafa ‘Abdu-
Salam al-Mahmah, “The Ribats in Morocco.”
13
For further discussion see, Carmen Martínez
Salvador, “Sobre la entitad de la rábita
andalusí omeya, una cuestión de terminología:
Ribat, Rábita y Zawiya,” in El ribat
califal: Excavaciones y studios, 173–89, esp.
176–86.
14
For criticism about the ribat as fortress,
see Chabbi, “Ribat,” 493–506; and Jorg
Feuchter, “The Islamic Ribat: A Model
for the Christian Military Orders? Sacred
Violence, Secularized Concepts of Religion
and the Invention of a Cultural Transfer,”
Religion and Its Other: Secular and Sacral
Concepts and Practices and Interaction, eds.
Heike Bock, Jorg Feuchter, Michi Knecht
(Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag,
2008), 115–41.
15
For other views of the Sufi brotherhoods
in the Islamic world, see Eric Wolf, “Society
and Symbols in Latin Europe and in the
Islamic Near East: Some Comparisons,”
Anthropological Quarterly 42, no. 3 (July
1969): 287–301; Richard J. A. McGregor, “A
Sufi Legacy in Tunis: Prayer and the Shadhiliyya,”
International Journal of Middle East
Studies 29, no. 2 (May 1997): 255–77; and
Gerald Elmore, “New Evidence on the Conversion
of Ibn Al-Arabi to Sufism” Arabica
45, no. 1 (1998): 50–72.
16
Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History
(Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006), 2, 136; Elena Lourie, “The Confraternity
of Belchite, Ribat, and the Temple,”
Viator 13 (1982): 156–79, esp. 165.
63