Al-Qayrawān has long been figured, especially in the culture of the Islamic West, as the Islamic city par excellence, as the fourth sacred place after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. The prominence of this garrison city—supposedly founded by ‘Uqba b. Nāfi‘ in the year 50/670–671—is undeniable in the traditional account of the Islamic conquest of Ifrīqiyya. Through a case study of al-Qayrawān and an analysis of the sources recounting its miraculous foundation as well as the construction of its mosque, this article aims to study the process of sacralisation of space, how this is inserted into a given context and related to power and its consolidation, particularly in times of political, cultural, and religious transition, and how it uses, appropriates, or eliminates the previous reality. To this end, the article provides a context for the creation of al-Qayrawān as a sacred space, which relates directly to the region’s Christian past and the construction of a new Islamic identity.

The Almohad movement (12th–13th centuries, Islamic West) had in the return to the direct study of the primary sources of Islam—the Qur’an and the Sunna—and in jihād, two of its most important pillars of legitimation and action. In this sense, it is an ideal period to study how both realities—Qur’an and jihād—were linked in a given historical context. During the Almohad period, the use of Qur’anic verses in accounts related to war episodes became widespread. We thus witness a “Qur’anization” of the war narrative, a resource adding greater religiosity and spirituality to the context of jihād, to its elaboration and discursive representation, and to its memory and remembrance through written testimonies. In this paper I study, through the main narrative and documentary sources of the period, how the Qur’an was inserted into and adapted to the Almohad war discourse. Likewise, this approach allows me to explore how the Qur’an came to life within the framework of the Almohad jihād, how it served for its justification and legitimation, and how it formed part of the ceremony and the war protocol of the Maghrebi caliphate, thus linking itself with other discursive and propaganda mechanisms such as architecture or military parades.

The memory of war – and the use of this – is a constant in the Middle Ages and beyond. Within all this war memory, the remembrance of great battles is, perhaps, the most recurrent phenomenon. The pitched battle had an extraordinary impact on the people of the time, which made its remembrance remain alive and dynamic in the collective memory, as moments when the balance of power was seen to have tipped, or when aspects of collective identity were shaped. The battles became places of memory. This paper studies the memory circulating in Umayyad al-Andalus about the battles of their ancestors, the eastern Umayyads. Focusing on Ḥunayn and Marj Rāhiṭ, the two “eastern” battles most remembered in Umayyad al-Andalus and both with important implications for their dynastic history, this paper analyzes how this memory is presented, how these battles are “memorialized” and “commemorated” through texts and rituals, in what contexts of memory production they appear, and for what purposes.

This article aims to compare the different conceptions of holy war in Islam and Christianity by way of its depiction by Muslim sources, and to examine if the Islamic context would have conceived of a war carried out by Christians, and therefore infidels, as a holy one. This leads to analysis of whether the Islamic idea of holy war could be understood as a transcultural one or if, on the contrary, its sole conception was limited to those actions carried out by Muslims. To that end, Ibn Khaldūn’s (d. 1406) Kitāb al-‘Ibar will be used as a case study, in which his famous Muqaddima serves as its introduction. The choice of this source is based on two considerations: it is one of the most important and influential historiographical works of the Islamic world; and Ibn Khaldūn maintains a universalist vision of history and its processes, and therefore specifically aims to be cross-cultural.

Este trabajo propone redescubrir, contextualizar y poner en valor una obra de magāzī comisionada por el califa almohade al-Murtaḍà, conservada en el manuscrito 296 de la biblioteca de al-Qarawiyyīn (Fez), y que hasta ahora había pasado desapercibida. Esta obra debe ser entendida y leída en el marco del propio contexto almohade en el que fue redactada. A través de esta noticia se analizará el interesante proyecto intelectual y legitimador puesto en marcha por el califa al-Murtaḍà y que tenía como objetivo, en el contexto de crisis del imperio almohade acaecido tras el abandono de la doctrina del Mahdī realizado por el califa al-Ma’mūn, el renacimiento del propio movimiento unitario a través de una lectura de la memoria de los primeros tiempos del islam y del movimiento almohade, y del ŷihād. Asimismo, a modo de anexo, se incluirá también una edición paleográfica de la introducción del manuscrito, donde ya se puede observar el potencial de este texto.

Este artículo tiene por objeto estudiar las cartas de victoria (kutub al-fat?) del Occidente islámico medieval entre los siglos X-XIII. Es decir, aquellas misivas destinadas a anunciar un triunfo militar. El artículo define estas epístolas y analiza su contenido y características principales, así como su lectura pública y puesta en escena. Asimismo, este análisis se inserta dentro de los debates más amplios sobre la existencia o no de una cultura documental consolidada en el mundo islámico premoderno, y sobre la importancia del discurso de ?ih?d en al-Andalus.