MEM Awards
Remarks by the Recipient of the 2019 MEM Lifetime Achievement Award Given at the Annual Meeting of Middle East Medievalists (New Orleans, 14 November 2019)
Maribel Fierro Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
am very honored and extremely interest for you, just as the American grateful to be the 2019 recipient of academic system is of interest to me. In the Middle East Medievalists Lifetime what follows, I will mention some of the IAchievement Award. previous recipients of this award with This is an award that comes with age whom I had direct contact at some point and offers me the opportunity to look back or whose work is related to mine. in time and reflect on my trajectory. As I began my studies at the Universidad with some of the prior recipients, my path Complutense of Madrid in 1973, a year started outside the American academic that cannot be forgotten by many of system, but unlike them, it has continued my generation because of the coup in the same manner, except for brief d’état against Salvador Allende in Chile. periods when I had the pleasure of being I mention this because when I was in hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study college, politics interested me more than at Princeton and by the universities of study did. In Spain we were living the Stanford, Chicago, and Harvard. Academic last years of the dictatorship of Francisco worlds are all similar in many ways, but Franco, and events like those in Chile were also different, and these differences may easily translated into our own concerns, in strike an outsider as odd. This works both this case as another reminder of the power ways, and I can only hope that what I of the army—the army being one of the am going to discuss here will be of some major dangers that we all knew we would
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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020): iv-ix v • Maribel Fierro have to face in the transition period that intellectual freedom and integrity that, was to unfold after the dictator’s death and however small, remain exemplary and set that would, we hoped, lead to democracy. a model to follow. My supervisor, Fernando Before and after Franco’s death in de la Granja, taught me to respect the 1975, what I remember of my years at Arabic language and María Jesús Rubiera the university has little to do with books surprised me with her innovative ideas. or debates about scholarly matters. What Teresa Garulo and Emilio Tornero were remains most vivid in my mind are the always supportive and inspiring. armed police inside university buildings, But as I said, the classes were for the the almost daily students’ demonstrations most part dull and uninspiring, all the that usually ended with being chased by more so because I was the only Arabic and those armed officers, and widespread Islamic studies major in my graduating political activism aimed at putting an end class, which meant that in some courses to the glaring dissonance between what I sat alone with the teachers in the most people—especially young people— classroom. Under these circumstances, desired and sought and what the official some of my teachers were tempted to propaganda of the regime claimed we transform the class into a conversation— desired and sought. That period has given usually a monologue—about their own me a permanent reluctance to equate concerns. I recall one who was obsessed official, standard, or normative statements with the petty aspects of academic life and regarding a specific society with the spent most of our class time enumerating realities on the ground, a reluctance that I them. His case alerted me to the danger of have always found rewarding when I have letting such aspects gain the upper hand applied it to the countries I have visited, in your life as a scholar. Later experiences including those on the southern shore of confirmed that academic grievances, when the Mediterranean. nurtured, have damaging effects on both I said that my memories of college personality and scholarship. have little to do with books or scholarly If I was unlucky in not having debates; dictatorships are very bad news classmates (which, on the other hand, for scholarship and for academic life in also meant having no competitors), I was general. They stifle the free exchange of extremely lucky in meeting two older ideas, they suffocate innovative thinking, students, Luis Molina and María Luisa and they promote servile attitudes in Ávila, who befriended me and helped every area of life. During my five years as me in a myriad of ways, as they still do an Arabic and Islamic studies major, I do today. Luis Molina’s knowledge of Arabic not recall having attended a single seminar is superb, and I still consult him when I or lecture that gave rise to debate. I was know that I do not understand a text, and taught “facts” to memorize, not ideas to I am never disappointed by his guidance. ponder and discuss. The classes in general María Luisa Ávila, initially trained as a were quite boring, with some exceptions mathematician, has spent most of her because there are always, even in the academic life building an extremely useful worst of circumstances, individuals who online resource, the Prosopography of somehow manage to preserve areas of the Scholars of al-Andalus, which now
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020) Remarks by the Recipient of the 2019 MEM Lifetime Achievement Award • vi comprises more than 11,000 entries. I still countries where this language was spoken. remember the computer she was using in As Hebrew and Arabic fit the bill, I started 1985 when she wrote her PhD dissertation studying Semitic philology, soon deciding on demographics in al-Andalus through that Arabic was what I really liked. an analysis of the biographies of scholars. At the university, I held on to my They both introduced me to ulamology and initial interests in heresy and the history to the thought-provoking work of Stephen of al-Andalus, but a new and related Humphreys and Richard Bulliet. interest slowly entered the fray, as My interest was not initially related to I became increasingly fascinated by the ʿulamāʾ and their scholarly and social those Muslims who thought differently practices, like theirs was. I was interested from other Muslims, who were labeled in heresy and heretics. This was an interest heretics, innovators, or even infidels by closely linked to my own family history. their coreligionists, or who considered My parents had been on the losing side themselves ghurabāʾ. Researching these of the Civil War that brought the dictator figures proved one of the most enjoyable to power. While growing up in Francoist experiences of my academic life, and I Spain, I was constantly reminded by the eventually wrote my PhD dissertation on official propaganda that there was only a tract by an early Cordoban scholar, Ibn one way to be a Spaniard, the National- Waḍḍāḥ (d. 287/900), attacking religious Catholic way, and that therefore my innovations and innovators. My focus has parents and I did not quite belong, as we mostly been on the intersection between were neither nationalists nor Catholic; politics and knowledge: how the authority hence, we were (labeled as) “outsiders” in to determine what is right and what is our own country. When, later, I was taught wrong was constructed and enforced, and Spanish national history, I was fascinated by whom, and how it changed over time, by those who had received this label in along with how violence was used in such earlier periods, among them the Muslims processes and how it was checked. who had lived in the Iberian Peninsula for When working on my dissertation, more than eight centuries. I became very I started to read about early hadith curious about them. literature, Qurʾan, and theology. These Fortunately, my parents had enrolled were topics that had never been core me in the Italian school in Madrid, so I interests of the Spanish school of Arabists, grew up knowing that there was no single especially not at the time I was studying. I way to write and understand history. longed to be able to consult with someone Having learned Italian from the age of who was familiar with such topics, and I three, I developed a liking for foreign was lucky enough to be granted a British languages and, like many Spaniards of my Council scholarship to attend the School of generation, I wanted to go abroad and see Oriental and African Studies as a “Research other ways of living. When it came time to scholar.” In 1982 London was an exciting go to college, I decided to study the most place to be, with its mixture of different exotic language that the Complutense peoples and its vibrant cultural life. There University had to offer as a way to ensure my good luck continued, as I was able a good justification to travel to the to establish contact with Michael Brett
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020) vii • Maribel Fierro and Michael Cook, who were extremely following the 1978 Constitution, which generous with their time and knowledge transformed Spain into a democracy. The and helped me make sense of the text I CSIC actively worked toward convergence was studying. Cook, in particular, read with the academic standards of the every single page I wrote, even if it was European Community, which Spain joined written in Spanish, and made many critical in 1986. In order to get a job at the CSIC, remarks and suggestions that taught me it became mandatory to first carry out more in a year than I had learned in five a long research stay abroad: exposure years of college. to other academic cultures and ways of Through Michael Cook I came into doing things was considered the only contact with a group of scholars who way to overcome the shortcomings and attended the “Late Antiquity and Early perversions introduced to our academic Islam” conferences organized by Larry culture during the dictatorship period. I Conrad, among others, and the “From also had the good fortune to overlap at Jahiliyya to Islam” conferences held in the CSIC with two colleagues with whom I Jerusalem. It was there that I attended my shared a vision of what needed to be done. first international conference in 1987, and I They were Manuela Marín and Mercedes was terrified when Professor Kister invited García Arenal, with whom I have worked me to his office, closed the door, produced closely since then—and in spite of which a manuscript, and commanded: “Read it.” we are still friends. Together we tried I then met Patricia Crone, whose writings to open up opportunities for students I found provocative and illuminating, and at the doctoral level and to offer them who many years later invited me to write the possibility of contact with scholars my book on ʿAbd al-Rahman III. I also met from abroad, leveraging our limited Gauthier Juynboll, who pushed me to write resources to bring to Madrid scholars my first paper in English. At the time, such as Wadad al-Qadi and Fred Donner. he was writing his book on early hadith, We also developed fruitful relations with and he immediately asked me: “Who our French colleagues thanks to a French was the first person to introduce hadith institution located in Madrid, the Casa in al-Andalus?” Having come up with an de Velázquez, which has played a crucial unsatisfactory answer, I decided to work role in advancing the study of al-Andalus. on a better one. I have learned a great deal from French When I returned to Spain after my scholarship, and it saddens me that today SOAS experience, I was again lucky in many scholars, especially the younger that I found a job almost immediately, ones, ignore anything that is not written first at the Universidad Complutense in English. In more recent times, I have and afterward at the Consejo Superior been given the opportunity—thanks to the de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), a Alexander von Humboldt foundation—to national research institution. Although I get to know the German academic context could have stayed in both, I finally opted better, an experience that has enriched for the CSIC. The reason was the CSIC’s my own work in many ways. Traditionally, proactive approach to the opportunities in Spain, our contact with the Arab and offered by the new political situation Islamic worlds has mostly been via North
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020) Remarks by the Recipient of the 2019 MEM Lifetime Achievement Award • viii
Africa. I have a longstanding love of both as something unique and almost self- Tunisia and Morocco and have always explanatory. The first Spanish Arabists felt at home in these countries, whether tried to legitimize the study of al-Andalus looking at manuscripts in their rich within the framework of Spanish national collections or through my contacts with history by rebranding al-Andalus as professors such as Mounira Chapoutot- “Muslim Spain.” The way we name things Remadi and Halima Ferhat. is related to the way we conceive of them, I have enjoyed every minute of my time in turn influencing how we study them. at the CSIC, and I will continue enjoying The choice of terms has always fascinated it as I still have some years ahead of me me, and it was by tracing the history of a before retirement. There have been term that I made my first incursions into difficult moments, especially the awful studies that transcended al-Andalus. An blow that we were dealt in the 2008 early Andalusi rebel was called al-Fāṭimī, economic crisis, which erased much of our and this led me to study how that term progress toward convergence with our was used in Arabic sources inside and more advanced European neighbors. With outside al-Andalus. While searching Manuela Marín, I have pursued a shared for Fatimids, I came across some rebels interest in the political and intellectual referred to as al-Aṣfar, sparking research history of al-Andalus, a topic dealt with by that led me to conclude that some of the Sam Gellens in his seminal study of the riḥla Arab conquerors had painted their faces practices of the Andalusis. I have written yellow, thus offering another explanation extensively on political, religious, and for the term Ṣufrīs. I am presently doing intellectual developments in al-Andalus, research on the sacrifice of she-camels, more in Spanish than in English, though a practice that I first encountered when sometimes these writings do get translated studying the rituals of the Fatimids in into English. We Spanish scholars are well North Africa and that has now led me to aware that anything written in Spanish is Safavid Iran, passing through Norman very rarely read outside Spanish-speaking Sicily. It is exhilarating to venture outside contexts and that to exist in the global al-Andalus while at the same time never academic world one must write in English, losing sight of it. I abhor nationalism, but even if it means an extra effort for those I do love Spain and thus I love al-Andalus. of us who have learned English late and Along the way I have met many imperfectly. scholars, of different ages, both inside and Although I continue to work on Andalusi outside Spain, who have been extremely topics, several decades ago my interest generous with their knowledge and time. expanded to encompass North Africa, I have also been fortunate in having as it became clear to me that I could not contact with younger scholars, whose study the one without the other, especially enthusiasm and vocation have helped me when dealing with the Cordoban Umayyad to keep my own alive. If I have been able to caliphate and with the Almohads. It may offer them help at all resembling the help sound silly, but in Spain al-Andalus has that I myself have received from others traditionally been studied in and of itself throughout my academic life, I will be
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020) ix • Maribel Fierro satisfied. I only hope that in the troubled in 1973, and that those who live and work and troubling times in which we now live, in dictatorial contexts will be as fortunate they will be not exposed to the kind of as I was in eventually finding themselves context in which I started my career back in better times.
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 28 (2020)