Sin and Redemption: Woman’s Body, Necrophilia, and Spanish Islam

Abstract

Sin and Redemption:Woman’s Body, Necrophilia, and Spanish Islam Miguel Ángel Vázquez It could have happened at some point during the late 15th century or the first part of the 16th century. It could have been anywhere in the region of Aragon. It was probably under the cover of night, illuminated only by the faint light of a candle. He could have belonged to the Mohamed Escribano family (López-Morillas, “Copistas” and “Trilingual”). The details are not very clear, but one thing is certain: the enterprise he was engaged in was at the same time pious and extremely dangerous. He was a Morisco (a Christian converso from Islam) and he was breaking the law by writing using the Arabic alphabet. But he felt it was worth the danger since the spiritual salvation of his community was at stake. He may have paused to wonder how did it all come to this? His ancestors had ruled the Peninsula (which they called Al-Andalus) for hundreds of years, and had advanced the arts and sciences. Where did they go wrong?1 The beginning of the end started soon after the fall of the Cordoban caliphate (1031) when the Christians started the series of wars called the Reconquista.2 This process culminated in 1492 with the Fall of Granada and, and in 1501, with the subsequent ultimatum given to the mudéjares of Castile and Leon: forced conversion to Christianity or expulsion.3 Those who decided to stay and convert came to be known as “Moriscos.” The conversions, however, were, for the most part, not sincere but just a way to remain on Spanish soil as the newly converted minority engaged in the practice of Islam in secrecy. As part of the clandestine activities of the Moriscos to preserve their culture, they engaged in the production of a corpus of manuscripts containing everything a person would need to know about Islam and the Morisco situation in 16th-century Spain. Since the possession of such a manuscript was grounds for an inquisitorial process, the Moriscos hid them in false floors, walls or columns, where they remained after their expulsion in 1609 and the reason why the manuscripts were able to survive until their discovery in the 19th century. To understand the impact the Moriscos had not only on the culture that surrounded them but also on our understanding of the complex culture of 16th century Spain, we must remember that the official discourse of the Christian authorities was one of homogeneity where purportedly all Spaniards spoke one language (Spanish), professed one religion (Catholicism), and were part of one culture. But the mere presence of the Moriscos in the Iberian Peninsula attempted against the actuality of that discourse.4 The Moriscos may [End Page 147] have had Christian names, but they also had Muslim names that they used in secrecy; their literature was in Spanish, but it was filled with Arabic words, phrases and calques; and they practiced Islam even though they claimed to be Christians. This notion of the “other Spain” that were the Moriscos can also be seen from a literary standpoint. Consider for instance the Moorish novels that were published during the Early Modern period of which the Abencerraje is one of its finest examples. In it, the first appearance of the Muslim protagonist, Abindarráez, seems to come right out of the Arabian nights: he is dressed with a luxurious red tunic embroidered with gold and silver threads, speaks with wonderful Spanish rhetoric, is the model of nobility—Christian nobility that is—and becomes the best friend of the Christian protagonist. But the literature that the Moriscos themselves wrote has little to do with this type of idealistic scenarios. A text like the Tafsira of the Mancebo de Arévalo (edited by María Teresa Narváez) presents the reader with a different kind of Morisco, not idealized, and very much aware of the precarious state of his community in Spain. Morisco poetry is also of note. Writers like Mohamad5 Rabadán (edited by Lasarte López) and Ibrahim Taybili, known in public as Juan Pérez (edited by Bernabé Pons), used traditional Spanish poetic forms to...