Abstract
Abū al-Qāsim ibn Aḥmad al-Burzulī’s (d. 1438) chapter on jihād in his compilation of fatāwā is a resource for investigating historical circumstances of interactions between Muslims and Christians in an era of military, political, and economic competition in the central Mediterranean. Al-Burzulī’s work is an extended commentary on fatāwās composed by a variety of jurists in different historical periods and his analysis can be read as atemporal. However, al-Burzulī occasionally relates his analysis to context, both historical and contemporary. When he locates his exegesis of legal opinions in the environment of their production, he reveals the process of legal interpretation and invites our engagement with his perspective as a view on his world.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the term “nation” here, following Constable. Constable writes: “[M]erchants from Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Marseille, and other cities saw themselves as members of distinct groups, defined along ‘national’ lines, pursuing their own personal and communal ends, which were distinct from—and in competition with—those of merchants from other European cities.” Olivia Remie Constable, Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 116.
- 2.
Abū al-Qāsim ibn Aḥmad al-Burzulī, Fatāwā al-Burzulī, ed. Muḥammad Ḥabib al-Hīla, 6 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 2002), 2: 20. See Constable’s description of the case, citing al-Wansharīsī, in Housing the Stranger , 120. Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Wansharīsī, al-Miʿyār al-mʿurib wa-al-jāmiʿ al-maghrib ʿan fatāwā ahl Ifrīqiya wa-al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib, ed. Muḥammad Hajjī, 13 vols. (Rabat: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa al-Shu’ūn al-Islāmīya lil-Mamlaka al-Maghribīya, 1981–1983), 2: 215–16.
- 3.
Constable, Housing the Stranger , 8. I follow Constable’s usage of the terms funduq and fondaco: “[A]lthough the facilities for western traders continued to be called funduqs in Arabic, their administration and organization differed from ordinary hostels for indigenous merchants. In the current discussion, for the sake of simplicity, the term fondaco will apply to facilities intended for western Christian merchants, whereas funduq designates hostelries and storage facilities for traders from within the Dār al-Islām” (110).
- 4.
Constable, Housing the Stranger , 130, describes Venetian-Ḥafṣid negotiations in 1251; she identifies an Aragonese-Ḥafṣid treaty drawn up in 1287 allowing for the ringing of bells, 119.
- 5.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 19–20.
- 6.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 17. See also al-Wansharīsī, Miʿyār, 2: 215–16: A question addressed to the jurists of Tlemcen about the Jews of Tuwāt and their houses of worship includes al-Burzulī’s rendition of Ibn al-Ḥājj’s opinion as well as al-Burzulī’s case about the fondaco’s church as examples of rulers having the authority to grant the construction of houses of worship to unbelievers who settle among them. See John O. Hunwick, “al-Maghili and the Jews of Tuwat: the Demise of a Community,” Studia Islamica 61 (1985): 155–83 and idem, “The Rights of Dhimmis to Maintain a Place of Worship: A 15th Century Fatwa from Tlemcen,” al-Qantara 12, no. 1 (1991): 133–56. Ibn Ward (d. 1136), qāḍī of Granada, also wrote an opinion on the relocated Christians, al-Wansharīsī, Miʿyār, 8: 56–64. Serrano Ruano discusses fatwās by Ibn Ward and Qadi ʿIyāḍ (d. 1149) of Ceuta concerning the property of the relocated Christians, in Delfina Serrano Ruano, “Dos fetuas sobre la expulsión de los mozárabes al Magreb en 1126,” Anaquel de estudios árabes 2 (1991): 163–82. See also Janina M. Safran, Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 205–8.
- 7.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 18–19.
- 8.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 14–15.
- 9.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 17–18.
- 10.
See Ramzi Rouighi, The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate: Ifrīqiyā and Its Andalusis, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
- 11.
Constable, Housing the Stranger, 191. Hussein Fancy, Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), describes Aragonese ambitions to rule Sicily, 75–85. See Ronald A. Messier, “The Christian Community of Tunis at the Time of St Louis’s Crusade, A.D. 1270,” in Latin Expansion in the Medieval Western Mediterranean, ed. Eleanor Congdon (Farnham, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 295–310.
- 12.
Fancy, Mercenary Mediterranean, 90–94. In treaties between Muslim and Christian rulers regarding the employment of Muslim soldiers in North Africa, Muslim rulers agreed to terms regarding ranks and salaries and granted the Christian militias the right to build churches and practice their religion. The kings of Aragon gained the right to name a captain over the soldiers who also administered the Crown’s justice.
- 13.
Constable, Housing the Stranger, 128–33, 192–93; Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 124–26; Rouighi, Mediterranean Emirate, 25–45.
- 14.
Abun-Nasr, History of the Maghrib, 118–34; Rouighi, Mediterranean Emirate, 50–53, 89–93.
- 15.
For a full biography, see the introduction to al-Burzulī, Fatāwā by Muḥammad al-Ḥabīb al-Hīlla, 1: 5–46. On Ibn ʿArafa, see Saad Ghrab, Ibn ʿArafa et le mālikisme en Ifrīqiyā au VIIIe/XIVe siècles (Tunis: Publications de la faculté des Lettres de la Manouba, 1992–1996).
- 16.
See Zomeño’s discussion of variant narrative styles in fatwās and fatwā collections in Amalia Zomeño, “The Stories in the Fatwās and the Fatwās in History,” in Narratives of Truth in Islamic Law, ed. Baudouin Dupret, Barbara Drieskens, and Annelies Moors (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 25–49.
- 17.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 1: 61.
- 18.
See Joseph Schacht, “On Some Manuscripts in the Libraries of Kairouan and Tunis,” Arabica 14 (1967): 225–58.
- 19.
The Andalus-oriented content of many of the opinions al-Burzulī attributes to Ibn al-Ḥājj, his frequent pairing with Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (d. 1126), and direct reference to his tenure as qāḍī of Cordoba (Fatāwā, 1: 518) lead me to attribute the Nawāzil to Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Tujībī, known as Ibn al-Ḥājj (d. 1134), of Cordoba, rather than to the Egyptian jurist Ibn al-Ḥājj al-ʿAbdarī al-Fāsī (d. 1336), author of al-Madhkal.
- 20.
Often he continues his discussion of a particular text with “and in it”; the reader must take care to follow the logic of his unfolding discussions and chains of references.
- 21.
The full verse reads: “There is no blame on those who are infirm, or ill, or who find no resources to spend (on the cause) if they are sincere (in duty) to Allah and his messenger; no ground (of complaint) can there be against such as do right: and Allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.” ʿAbdullah Yūsuf ʿAlī, The Meaning of the Holy Qurʾān (Bethesda: Amana Publications, 1997), 9: 91.
- 22.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 13–14.
- 23.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 14.
- 24.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 15.
- 25.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 15.
- 26.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 15. Al-Burzulī also discusses the subjection of the Muslims of al-Qawṣara to Christian rule in his commentary on the status of the property of Muslims living amid unbelievers and the masala addressed by Mālik’s students about whether the property and family of the ḥarbī (enemy from the land of war) who converts to Islam and emigrates, or does not emigrate, are subject to Muslim predation. In his view, those Muslims in al-Qawṣara who were conquered (and could not leave) and had freedom of action (to live as Muslims) did not have their rights impugned (they were despicable but did not suffer jurḥa—loss of legal probity and rights, in this case). Those who were there by choice did suffer jurḥa and the legal decision regarding their property was thus affected. They are similar (in circumstance) to the people of al-Andalus. Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 22–23.
- 27.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 41.
- 28.
Al-Burzulī , Fatāwā, 2: 45–46. This is part of a longer question regarding Muslims’ trade in Sicily. Hendrickson discusses versions of al-Māzarī’s fatwā and provides a full translation in appendix A of Jocelyn Hendrickson, “Is al-Andalus Different? Continuity as Contested, Constructed, and Performed across Three Mālikī Fatwās,” Islamic Law and Society 20, no. 4 (2013): 371–424. See Sarah Davis-Secord, “Muslims in Norman Sicily: The Evidence of Imām al-Māzarī’s Fatwās,” Mediterranean Studies 16 (2007): 46–66.
- 29.
Hendrickson, “Is al-Andalus Different?”
- 30.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 46.
- 31.
Saḥnūn, Mudawwana, 4: 270.
- 32.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 46.
- 33.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 46.
- 34.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 1: 595–98. See Hendrickson’s discussion in “Prohibiting the Pilgrimage: Politics and Fiction in Mālikī Fatwās,” Islamic Law and Society 23 (2016): 182–86 and appendix A.
- 35.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 1: 595.
- 36.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 11.
- 37.
Al-Burzulī dedicates a chapter to “Opinions about Brigandage, Apostates, and Heretics.” As he reports, “jihād against muḥāribūn was considered jihād” among Mālikīs as a general statement of principle (6: 179). Ibn ʿArafa expressed another way of determining that fighting against dhimmī brigands could be considered jihād: they have violated the terms of their protected status. Al-Burzulī discusses Ibn ʿArafa’s position in a case in which a Christian was caught trafficking in Muslim children: contrary to the position of the other jurists, he argued that the dhimmī muḥārib loses his status as a protected person for violating the treaty of protection and thus he becomes a captive subject to the ruler’s discretion. The alternative view was to treat him as a brigand and punish him with death and crucifixion (Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 6: 184).
- 38.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 8. Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hārūn (d. 1349) and Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 1308) were Ibn ʿArafa’s teachers; see Ghrab, Ibn ʿArafa 1: 234–41 and 1: 248–51.
- 39.
Fancy explains that Mālikī jurists accommodated exchanges of militias between Aragonese kings and North African Muslim rulers in their approval of treaties specifying that Muslims would only be used to fight against Christians. He observes, “When examining the Islamic legal traditions concerning the [Muslim] residence in Christian territories or the performance of jihād, one cannot speak simply and clearly of licit and illicit actions but rather competing norms and sensibilities.” Fancy, Mercenary Mediterranean, 128. Al-Burzulī does not address the subject of Christian mercenaries in the chapter on jihād.
- 40.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 16.
- 41.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 16.
- 42.
Al-Burzulī, Fatāwā, 2: 16.
- 43.
Al-Burzulī presents only excerpts of the fatwās he comments on, to the effect that he may distort aspects of their original intent. Hendrickson refers to this kind of manipulation as an aspect of “fiction in the fatwās” in “Prohibiting the Pilgrimage.”
Bibliography
Primary Sources
al-Burzulī, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Aḥmad. Fatāwā al-Burzulī. Edited by Muḥammad Ḥabib al-Hīla. 6 volumes. Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 2002.
al-Wansharīsī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā. al-Miʿyār al-mʿurib wa-al-jāmiʿ al-maghrib ʿan fatāwā ahl Ifrīqiyā wa-al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib. Edited by Muḥammad Hajjī. 13 vols. Rabat: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa al-Shu’ūn al-Islāmīya lil-Mamlaka al-Maghribīya, 1981–1983.
ʿAlī, Abdullah Yūsuf. The Meaning of the Holy Qurʾān. Bethesda: Amana Publications, 1997.
Secondary Sources
Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Constable, Olivia Remie. Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Davis-Secord, Sarah. “Muslims in Norman Sicily: The Evidence of Imām al-Māzarī’s Fatwās.” Mediterranean Studies 16 (2007): 46–66.
Fancy, Hussein. Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Ghrab, Saad. Ibn ʿArafa et le mālikisme en Ifrīqiyā au VIIIe/XIVe siècles. Tunis: Publications de la faculté des Lettres de la Manouba, 1992–1996.
Hendrickson, Jocelyn. “Is al-Andalus Different? Continuity as Contested, Constructed, and Performed across Three Mālikī Fatwās.” Islamic Law and Society 20, no. 4 (2013): 371–424.
———. “Prohibiting the Pilgrimage: Politics and Fiction in Mālikī Fatwās.” Islamic Law and Society 23 (2016): 161–238.
Hunwick, John O. “al-Maghili and the Jews of Tuwat: the Demise of a Community.” Studia Islamica 61 (1985): 155–83.
———. “The Rights of Dhimmis to Maintain a Place of Worship: A 15th Century Fatwa from Tlemcen.” al-Qantara 12, no. 1 (1991): 133–56.
Messier, Ronald A. “The Christian Community of Tunis at the Time of St Louis’s Crusade, A.D. 1270.” In Latin Expansion in the Medieval Western Mediterranean, edited by Eleanor Congdon, 295–310. Farnham, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013.
Safran, Janina M. Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Schacht, Joseph. “On Some Manuscripts in the Libraries of Kairouan and Tunis.” Arabica 14 (1967): 225–58.
Serrano Ruano, Delfina. “Dos fetuas sobre la expulsión de los mozárabes al Magreb en 1126.” Anaquel de estudios árabes 2 (1991): 163–82.
Rouighi, Ramzi. The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate: Ifrīqiyā and Its Andalusis, 1200–1400. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Zomeño, Amalia. “The Stories in the Fatwās and the Fatwās in History.” In Narratives of Truth in Islamic Law, edited by Baudouin Dupret, Barbara Drieskens, and Annelies Moors, 25–49 and 325–27. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008.
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Safran, J.M. (2021). A Tunisian Jurist’s Perspective on Jihād in the Age of the Fondaco. In: Davis-Secord, S., Vicens, B., Vose, R. (eds) Interfaith Relationships and Perceptions of the Other in the Medieval Mediterranean. Mediterranean Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83997-0_10
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