973: Ibn Ḥawqal on Christian-Muslim Marriages in Sicily: Difference between revisions

There are, however, cases in which derivations of the root ''sh-m-d'' were also used to characterize those Jews, who had indeed defected from Judaism, namely due to external pressure and persecution. Evidence for this can be found in the Tosefta and the Talmud, where e.g. the reign of emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) is referred to as “The Time of Oppression”, ''sha’at ha-shemad'' in Hebrew.<ref name="ftn19">Langer, ''Cursing'', p. 50; according to Grossberg, ''Heresy'', pp. 120-121, this is, however, not a contemporary designation.</ref> If ''ha-shemad'' is deemed as oppression or persecution, the ''meshumadim'' could be considered as those who gave up Judaism because of repressive political measures.<ref name="ftn20">Teppler, ''Birkat'', p. 67. </ref> In a similar vein, ''shemad'' and ''meshumadim'' can also be found in the writings of Maimonides (d. 601/1204), namely in his “Letter of Repression/Apostasy” (''Iggeret ha''-''shemad''), in which he addresses the Jews living under Almohad rule after 1161''.''<ref name="ftn21">Kraemer, ''Maimonides'', pp. 104-111.</ref>

From the perspective of historical linguistics and etymology, the common translation “bastards” for Ibn Ḥawqal’s ''al-mušaʿmiḏūn'' seems inaccurate, and also the translation of “apostates” is at least ambiguous. In fact, the translation “bastards” would ultimately not carry the implications inherent in Ibn Ḥawqal’s criticism, given that a “bastard” is usually defined as the offspring of an illegitimate union. In the Qurʾān, marriages between Muslim men and Christian women are not objectionable.<ref name="ftn26">According to Q 5:5; on the prohibition for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men see Q 2:221; 60:10; 4:141.</ref> According to Islamic law, the offspring of these marriages should invariably adhere to the religion of the father. From this point of view, a violation of the norm would be, firstly, that girls born from Muslim fathers in Sicily became Christians with their mothers and not Muslims, and secondly that the ''mušaʿmiḏūn'' did not perform their Islamic duties in a correct manner. Therefore, the “bastardization” does not refer to the parentage, but—as with the halakhic meaning of ''meshumadim—''to the corruption of religious practice. Thus, instead of witnessing a process of consecutive Islamization, Sicily saw a “production” of Christian women and male ''mušaʿmiḏūn'', but not of “proper” Muslims. It is interesting to note that this marriage practice with its gender-specific regulation of religious affiliation, which is also attested in other sources that pertain to Sicily,<ref name="ftn27">See Metcalfe, Transkultureller Wandel, pp.&nbsp;79-81.</ref> was apparently free of conflict on the island itself.<ref name="ftn28">On children of interreligious marriages, also see König, Caught Between Cultures, pp. 65-68, with a comparison to the “martyrs of Córdoba“ and the Turcopoles (τουρκόπουλοι); idem, ''Transkulturelle Verflechtungen'', pp. 84-90.</ref> Instead, indignation at the violation of the norm is reflected through the outside perspective of the traveler Ibn Ḥawqal—who used a word, which the Arabic-speaking Jews of this period linked with a lax practice of faith, and maybe even with an ideological proximity to Christianity.