chapter 5 Christian Theology in Arabic and the Mozarabs of Medieval Toledo: Primary Texts, Main Themes, and Potential Problems

Jason Busic

In the decades following the conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI of Castilla-León in 1085, the city received migrants from across the Pyrenees, North Africa, and throughout al-Andalus, and included Christian and Jewish communi- ties. An important group of migrants was the Mozarabs—Arabized Christians from Islamic Spain. These newly arrived Mozarabs enriched a community of Arabized Christians residing in the city prior to 1085. This chapter comple- ments Hackenburg and Beale-Rivaya’s contributions to the current volume by providing a broader view of the intellectual life of the Mozarabs and, con- sequently, their role in Toledo in the centuries following Christian conquest. However, the present chapter also reaches beyond an overview through a com- parative reading of two Mozarab theological works in order to highlight the intellectual nuance of this community as well as its cultural agency as heir to the Latin and Arabic archives.1 The term “Mozarab” originates from the Arabic participle mustʿarib (active) or mustʿarab (passive) from a verb form meaning, “to Arabize.” Although reli- giously neutral in the Islamic world, it defined a group along religious-ethnic boundaries in the Christian kingdoms of Spain. The term first appears in a Latin document in León in the 11th century, but the Mozarabs, as a legal class, came into being in Toledo when they were distinguished from Castilians and Franks by a fuero granted to them by Alfonso VI.2 The Mozarabs played key roles in Toledo from the 11th through the 13th centuries due to their number and func- tion as intermediaries between Christian and Muslim Iberia. The present essay

1 The present chapter approaches this corpus in the broader framework proposed by Wallis and Wisnovsky in their introduction to Medieval Textual Cultures. Here they observe that medieval cultures inherited the cultural legacies of the Mediterranean, but that this recep- tion constituted a “creative cultural act” characterized by agency, p. 1. 2 For discussions on the origin of the term, its use in the Middle Ages, and problems associated with its use in modern scholarship, see Aillet, Les mozarabes, pp. 2–9; Aillet, “Introduction,” pp. xi–xii; Molénat, Campagnes et monts de Tolède du XIIe au XVe siècle, pp. 38–39; and Hitchcock, Mozarabs in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, pp. ix–x, xviii–xix.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004380516_007 Christian Theology in Arabic and the Mozarabs 141 explores the Mozarabs’ contribution to the intellectual milieu of the city as theologians in Arabic. It reviews Toledo’s role as a center for the Mozarabs, the principle texts associated with these Mozarabs, and themes within their works currently debated by scholars. The review introduces the non-specialist to this unique corpus while also contextualizing this chapter’s original con- tribution. In addressing themes in the main theological corpus, this chapter offers alternatives to current interpretations of these texts, as well as Mozarabic Christology. I then focus on Maṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin (Book of the Existing World). Traditionally read in terms of similarity with another Mozarabic work, Tathlīth al-waḥdānīya (The Trebling of the Oneness), I emphasize the distinc- tiveness of Maṣḥaf ’s method and theology.3 I argue that this distinctiveness reflects a degree of complexity in this corpus that readers often miss.

1 The Mozarabs and Toledo (11th–13th Centuries)

Toledo was not the only city or region with significant Mozarabic populations, though it was unique in the Peninsula as a Mozarabic center from the 11th through the 13th centuries. Under the Umayyad dynasty in the 9th and 10th centuries, Córdoba replaced Toledo as the administrative and cultural capital of Hispania, and it was also in Córdoba where the literary culture of the Mozarabs flourished. There the progressively Arabized church leader- ship studied and produced Latin and Arabic texts.4 Other regions, such as Seville, likewise hosted important Christian communities and contributed to the Church’s intellectual life in al-Andalus. Mozarabs served as ambassa- dors between Muslim and Christian rulers, and there existed a steady flow of Mozarabs migrating to the North, particularly to Asturias and León, attracted by

3 Due to Burman’s foundational study Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c. 1050–1200, Tathlīth al-waḥdānīya is generally translated as Trinitizing the Unity. However, in his new English translation of the text included in this volume, Hackenburg has opted for The Trebling of the Oneness. I wrote this chapter without access to Hackenburg’s piece, but I have since had the opportunity to read it. I have made minor revisions and adopted Hackenburg’s The Trebling of the Oneness for consistency. 4 The bibliography on the Latin production of the mid-ninth century in Córdoba is exten- sive, but see sections 1 and 2 of Herrera Roldán’s Cultura y lengua latinas entre los mozárabes cordobeses del siglo IX. Also see Gil, “Aproximación a la literatura latina de los mozárabes;” and Colbert, The Martyrs of Córdoba (850–59). For the transition from Latin to Arabic in Córdoba, see Urvoy, “Introduction,” pp. xiv–xix; van Koningsveld, “Christian Arabic Literature from Medieval Spain,” pp. 203–12; and Aillet, Les mozarabes, pp. 177–83.