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Author: Amalia Zomeño

Editorials / Social History through documents

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Arabic legal documents and socio-economic history

Legal documents were the main guarantee for people who went to law to keep their rights intact. Thus, they approached the notaries to have these legal instruments written down. The study of the social and economic history of Islam in premodern times, using the legal documents as the main source, should always have this premise in mind, as it was mainly individuals (and not those working in the legal system) who demanded the writing out of documents. In this sense, as historians, if we bear in mind this agency for the “consumers” of Islamic law, we will foster a more dynamic perspective in the study of Islamic societies.

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CALD discussions on typology / Islamic Law in Granada (15th c.)

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Conquerors validating Arabic legal documents in Granada

Only two items in CALD bear the typology 49933 as they derive from a very specific legal procedure that only took place in Granada after the Conquest in 1492 by the Castilian authorities using Arabic. This two items were preserved in the collection of Arabic documents in the Archivo Municipal de Granada. The structure of both items is clearly that of a question on the validity of the Arabic text written down in the recto of the paper, dated in Rabī‘ II 904/August 1499.

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Documents: Archives and Collections / Islamic Law in Granada (15th c.)

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The Arabic documents in Archivo Municipal de Granada

This collection of ten documents was preserved because it forms part of a report on a lawsuit between Alonso de Cáceres and the Municipality of Granada after 1492. Alonso de Cáceres bought several immovable properties from the Muslims of Granada, but the authorities of the city required them to “Christianize” the city and open a new square. Mainly written after the conquest of Granada, these documents show the conventions of the notaries of Granada and the application of Islamic law under Castilian rule.

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