Third Party Funds Group - Overall project
Acronym: Qānūn
Start date : 01.06.2019
End date : 31.05.2021
Extension date: 31.08.2024
The establishment of Muslim rule over vast parts of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 initiated a profound transformation of the political, societal, and cultural conditions, which soon marginalized the autochthonous Christian communities in Southern Iberia. The Christians in medieval al-Andalus had to develop various strategies of acculturation to adapt to these changed conditions.
The Islamic Law granted Christians a protected but inferior legal status, allowing them administrative and juridical autonomy in internal affairs. However, very little is known, so far, about the practice of this inner-Christian self-government. Valuable insights are to be expected from an extraordinary, yet hitherto rather neglected source: the unique Arabic version of the Hispana Canon law collection, preserved in an 11th-century manuscript from the Escorial Library.
The international research project "Qanun" examines this law code as the normative basis of the communal autonomy of the Christian minorities in al-Andalus. The focus will be both on the legal contents of the collection as well as on the techniques of adaptation and translation of Christian knowledge and tradition into the linguistic and cultural codes of the dominating Islamic-Arabic elites in al-Andalus.