By Gleb Cherevichnyy

The StoryMap “Law and Convivencia in al-Andalus” seeks to explore the ways in which legal rulings from the Umayyad period up to the Spanish Inquisition affected the daily lives of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia. The project has a particular focus on the rulings of major qadis (judges) up to the fourteenth century before shifting its focus onto the crowns of Castile and Aragon’s relation with minority communities. Throughout this, it is understood that the promulgation of laws occurs because there is an underlying issue to be solved. In the case of al-Andalus, many oxymorons could be true at once. For instance, as will be shown, the peak of legal tolerance to dhimmi (protected) communities occurred around the same time as a mass Christian martyrdom occurred in Cordoba. In other cases, the laws that qadis propose reveal to us more about the relatively tolerant state of affairs than a straight-forward reading of the text might suggest. The StoryMap also includes such events as the 1391 pogrom in Barcelona to examine the ways in which popular discontent could influence the law, although it usually took the form of antisemitic violence before turning to challenging local elites. Useful terms of reference for the StoryMap include: qadi (judge), fatwa (legal ruling issued by a mufti or religious scholar), and hisba (book of guidance).