Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus

Reviews / Votes

[This book's] special genius is its deliberate juxtaposition of the idea of predetermined boundaries between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in al-Andalus with the reality of their perpetual negotation and renegotiation by jurists in light of changes in the historical conext.... For an older generation of Iberianists like me, who originally operated under the assumption that the Arabic sources of early medieval Spain-in marked contrast to the Latin ones-had little to offer on the subject of dhimmis and their relationship to the dominant community, the work of Safran has proved especially eye-opening.

- Kenneth Wolf (H-Catholic) [Safran] is able to make such good use of al-Khushani against the background of the whole vast range of the Islamic literature relating to the legal scholarship of Islamic Spain. I must stress the immense amount of coordinated hard work that will have gone into this present study. Perhaps we may hope that Professor Safran will soon in a further volume follow the story through to its sad end in 1492?

- L. P. Harvey (Journal of Islamic Studies) Her work is insightful and readable, and it makes a significant contribution to the field of Andalusi and interfaith studies. The use of juridical literature to analyze society is a fast-growing field in Islamic studies, and Janina M. Safran's volume is an important and engaging new contribution.

- Amira K. Bennison (The American Historical Review) Janina Safran has written a rich, clearly structured, and readable book. The main contribution of the book is that it consistently details the historical contingencies that formed the legal construction of religious categories and the management of interreligious relation under Umayyad rule. By thoroughly examining legal deliberation, Safran treats Islamic law as a contextual, situated, intrinsically social, and necessarily ambivalent discourse of negotiation, adaptation, and transculturation. In doing so, she spoils the monolithic picture of Islamic law as dogmatic and uniform, just as she disturbs the notion of al-Andalus as a prime example of interreligious tolerance under Muslim rule, offering instead a welcomed and well-researched analysis of the legal management of religious diversity in al-Andalus.

- Oskar Verkaaik (Journal of the American Academy of Religion) Safran's analysis is illustrated with many examples and also brings in a wide range of chronicle and other material. The book puts this case law within the reach of any interested reader, in a sophisticated and well-organized discussion.

- Ann Christys (Bulletin of Spanish Studies) This important book is a meticulously detailed contribution to the growing body of literature on how Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in al-Andalus. It stands apart from the line drawn in the 1940s and 1950s by Americo Castro and Claudio Sanchez Albornoz between a happy convivencia on the one hand, and a fractious cohabitation (unavoidable following the Arab-led invasion of a supposedly fully-fledged Christian Spain) on the other.

- Stuart Green (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies) This is a clever and original book, whose importa nce should not be disguised by its compact and economical style. The implications of Safran's arguments have applications far beyond al-Andalus-not only elsewhere in the Islamic world, but also as regards subject Muslim communitie s living under Christian rule.

- Brian A. Catlos (Comitatus) We depend on scholars of medieval Islamic law to produce books on the subject as useful and accessible as Janina Safran's Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus... As a scholar of the literary, visual, and material manifestations of Iberian culture, I can think of many ways in which studies such as Safran's might offer us fresh lenses for the examination of these phenomena-far too many to list here.

- Cynthia Robinson (Speculum)