Exhibition Lecture

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW.

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

When Abd al-Rahman I established independent Umayyad rule in Cordoba in the mid-eighth century, most of his subjects were Christian. By the time Madinat al-Zahra flourished under his descendants, Abd al-Rahman III and al-Hakam II, the majority of the caliph’s subjects were Muslim. With the support of Umayyad rule, Muslim jurists and judges ensured the integrity of Islam in al-Andalus through continuous communication with developments elsewhere in the domain of Islam and engagement with the practice of legal interpretation in the Peninsula. Umayyad rulers and Muslim scholars presided over the growth of the Muslim population in Iberia and ensured viable terms of coexistence with Christians and Jews as Protected People (dhimmis) because relationships with dhimmis mattered.

Janina Safran is an associate professor of History at Penn State University. She is interested in politics, society, and culture in Islamic Iberia and North Africa before 1500 and the history and methods of the Maliki school of law. She is the author of two books, The Second Umayyad Caliphate, and Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus, and is currently working on the legal thought of a Tunisian Maliki jurist.

This lecture is given in conjunction with ISAW's exhibition Madinat al-Zahra: The Radiant Capital of Islamic Spain. Madinat al-Zahra is curated by Antonio Vallejo Triano, director of the Conjunto Arqueológico Madinat al-Zahra, and Eduardo Manzano Moreno, Research Professor at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid. The loans are generously granted from the Conjunto Arqueológico Madinat al-Zahra, Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico de Córdoba, Museo de Jaén, Museo Arqueológico Municipal de Jerez de la Frontera, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Numismatic Society, and the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.

This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue were made possible by generous support from the Achelis and Bodman Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Leon Levy Foundation. Additional funding provided by Liz and Iris Fernandez Zimick.

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons - Córdoba (España) Arches. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arches._(49139872257).jpg

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