El compendio islámico de Mohanmad de Vera. Un tratado morisco tardío ed. by Raquel Suárez García

Abstract

Reviewed by: El compendio islámico de Mohanmad de Vera. Un tratado morisco tardío ed. by Raquel Suárez García Payton Phillips Quintanilla Suárez García, Raquel, ed. El compendio islámico de Mohanmad de Vera. Un tratado morisco tardío. Oviedo: U de Oviedo, 2016. 776 pp. ISBN: 978-84-16343-35-5 Sometime during the first decade of the 17th century, a man named Mohanmad de Vera, of Gea del Albarracín (Aragón), carefully compiled a text designed for the religious indoctrination of fellow Moriscos seeking to properly practice Islam. This text (BNF Manuscript Espagnol 397), now masterfully edited by Raquel Suárez García, is one of a very small number of extant manuscripts known to be written in Latin script by Moriscos on the Peninsula in the years just prior to their expulsion, carried out between 1609 and 1614. It is also the first manuscript of said characteristics to be published in the Colección de Literatura Española Aljamiado-Morisca (CLEAM) of the University of Oviedo's Seminario de Estudios Árabo-Románicos. Additionally, it is the first volume to be published by CLEAM since 2005, and thus it ushers in a new era for this longstanding and highly respected collection. Suárez García describes De Vera's compendium as an intertextual religious manual and, in her study preceding the edition ("Primera parte: Estudios sobre la obra"), she demonstrates how De Vera, as author / compiler, was concerned with presenting his Aljamiado source texts faithfully while still producing a practical tool for Islamic instruction in a community that lacked access to both the Arabic language and its alphabet. Not only does De Vera use Latin script to write in a modern, learned, literary Castilian, but even his religious language is more highly Christianized than that found in similar texts. This convergence offers today's readers a rare glimpse into a world of deeply Hispanicized Moriscos practicing–or interested in practicing–Islam while living on the very cusp of expulsion. Indeed, De Vera was likely one of the two thousand Moriscos expelled from Gea del Albarracín in 1610, leaving only eighty Old Christian neighbors behind. In spite of its unique import, however, De Vera's compendium has been regretfully understudied. This situation will most certainly be remedied by Suárez García's edition. Chapter 1 ("El compendio de Mohanmad de Vera") offers a summary of existing scholarship that addresses MS. Esp. 397, namely the works of Silvestre de Sacy (1827), A. Morel-Fatio (1892), L. P. Harvey (1958), Louis Cardaillac (1979), and, most notably, Gerard Wiegers (1989). Suárez García also gives us a complete codicological and paleographic description of the manuscript, and later an [End Page 125] exposition of what is known–or can be reasonably surmised–about the author, his place of origin, and the circumstances in which he wrote / compiled his book. Suárez García then places the compendium in the context of four other manuscripts that share its key qualities: all were written by Moriscos on the Peninsula in Latin script, apparently based on earlier Aljamiado versions, and within the decade preceding the beginning of the expulsion. Even within this context, however, De Vera's work stands out. Stylistically and linguistically, it is both more Castilianized and more Christianized than these other examples, aligning it much more closely to works written by Moriscos in exile. Even so, Suárez García convincingly argues–in line with Harvey, Cardaillac, and Wiegers–that the compendium was written on the Peninsula and not (as previously suggested by Epalza) in North Africa: the author dates his text using the Christian calendar, writes it on paper watermarked by a Latin cross (common to peninsular– and peninsular Morisco–manuscripts of the period), and relies heavily on Yça de Gebir's Breviario çunní -a mid-fifteenth-century peninsular treatise on Islamic religious and legislative practices completed in 1462 that lost favor in exile, where a wide variety of Islamic treatises were readily available for consultation and consumption. In addition to extensive selections from the Breviario çunní, De Vera's compendium comprises Las encomiendas de Mohanmad a Ali (a collection of...