Free Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain by Matthew Carr Page B

horoscopes and almanacs and recorded propitious or unlucky dates in the calendar that might indicate bad or good harvests, rain or drought, peace or war. Like Spanish Christians also, they were often superstitious, to the dismay of their religious leaders. They wore amulets and bracelets with Koranic quotations to bring good luck or ward off the evil eye. They conjured spells and made potions that could hurt their enemies, cause individuals to fall in and out of love, cure jealousy, arouse sexual desire, or prevent evil spirits from entering a new house. There were potions that could make people invisible, enable them to travel vast distances quickly, or make it possible to see spirits by mixing the skin of a black and the fat of a white chicken and rubbing the mixture in the eyes.
    Some of these potions and spells served a medicinal function. Medicine had once been one of the most important fields of study in al-Andalus, but by the end of the fifteenth century the hospitals and medical schools of Islamic Spain had mostly disappeared, and the treatment of illnesses increasingly fell to herbalists and curanderos (folk healers), many of whom were women, who often used practices that would once have been regarded as superstitious or unscientific.
    Despite their reputation for sobriety, music, song, and dance were ubiquitous features in the lives of Spanish Muslims. Their most common instrument was the oud, the forerunner of the Renaissance lute and the guitar. Other instruments included horns, flutes, trumpets, psalteries, and a wide array of percussion devices, all of which were employed to accompany singing and dancing at parties, circumcision feasts, weddings, and other occasions. The most popular Muslim dances were the nocturnal dance known as the leila and the zambra (meaning “group of musicians”)—a dance that was unique to Spain and later became the basis for the “Moorish dance” that became popular in Renaissance Europe, which some claim evolved into English Morris (“Moorish”) dancing. Muslim wedding celebrations were particularly raucous occasions, which invariably spilled out into the streets, as the bride was led on a white mule to the nuptial chamber, accompanied by musicians, singers and dancers, and families and well-wishers throwing sweets.
    Though Spanish Muslims remained symbolically connected to the wider ummah (Islamic community) with its center in the Arab world, these connections had often become frayed during centuries of Christian rule. Granada retained most of the trappings of an independent Islamic society, with its traditional social hierarchy, religious institutions, and cultural elite and its trade and cultural links to North Africa. Here most Muslims still spoke Arabic, although those who lived closer to the frontier often spoke castellano (Spanish) as well, while the educated classes retained the classical Arabic that was the traditional language of high culture and learning.
    Arabic was also widely spoken in Valencia, with its geographical proximity to North Africa and Granada. In Castile, on the other hand, there were Mudejar populations that had lived under Christian rule for the best part of three hundred years, many of whom spoke only Castilian or a bastardized street Arabic. Cut off from the wellsprings of Islamic religion and culture, without books or calligraphers, schools, and opportunities for further study, the continued survival of Islam was largely due to the indefatigable efforts of local imams and alfaquis (religious teachers), who assumed responsibility for the religious and cultural education of their communities in their local mosques. It was a difficult task that often demanded improvisation and compromise, in which preachers were forced to write and preach in Spanish to transmit Islamic religious doctrine to an audience that could not speak the sacred language of the Koran.
    Some Muslim religious scholars questioned whether Muslims should even remain in the lands of