Preaching Paul to the Moriscos: The Confusión o confutación de la secta mahomética y del Alcorán (1515) of “Juan Andrés”

“No es esto sino hystorias de los antiguos”: Between Medieval and Early Modern Narrations in Juan Andrés’ “Confusión”

“…About his origin, preaching and reign, being faithful to his story and his writings, I explained quite briefly in order to expose the cruelty and malice of those people. In addition, may the interest of the reader turn to how the mendacious revelation of the evil man Muhammad shaped from his heart the pestilential venom, with which he tied the lustful souls almost as with knots, and so the smallest shall learn to However, the goal of this analysis is not to demonstrate that Juan Andrés was using the same sources as the above mentioned authors; what has been stressed about this preface is that the strongest rhetorical claim made by Juan Andrés is his special condition of being a "testigo de su nación", "a witness of their nation", the specific situation of a convert who is proselytizing his ex co-believers (Szpiech, 2012a(Szpiech, , 2012b. A similar claim is presented in the preface to the medieval (between 1085 and 1135) Liber denudationis siue ostensionis aut patefaciens (a.k.a Contrarietas alfolica): refrain from fables and to tie themselves with the cords of Adam and be dragged by the bonds of charity", Starczewska (2011).…”

“…Juan Andrés (2003, p. 91, n. 9). 3 The issue of whether Juan Andrés was a historical figure has been placed in doubt by Wiegers (2004 and2010) and considered by Szpiech (2012a and2012b 11-12. 5 The Book of the Genesis served also as the etymological explanation for calling the Muslims Saracens or Agarenes (Hagarenes): Hagar (or Agar), was Sarah's, Abraham's wife's, servant, who gave birth to Abraham's son Ishmael.…”

“…8 The preface quoted above does not come from two hundred years before Juan Andrés but rather from between 380 and 430 years before him; it can be noticed, however, how both of the prefaces share not only the their authors' condition of a convert but also the importance and the authority which they give to the Quranic text ("Et si huic operi mendacium obiecerunt, Alchoranum suum mendosum ostendunt" vs. "porque en el cargo que tenía de sus Altezas de predicar a los moros podiesse, con las auctoridades de su misma ley, confundirlos y vencerlos"). As it has been highlighted (Szpiech, 2012a), even when Juan Andrés is attacking the Qur'ān, he relies heavily on the Islamic tradition, as in the following example:…”

Comparing Comparisons in Muslim Polemical Writings from Christian Iberia and Exile: Muḥammad al-Qaysī’s Kitāb Miftāḥ al-Dīn and the Anonymous Tratado de los dos caminos

“…The third section focuses on the personal experiences of the author during his captivity and the religious polemics he held with a monk in front of a Christian king (Van Koningsveld and Wiegers 1994, especially 166). Szpiech (2018) provides an interesting comparison between the polemics by al-Qaysī and those by the well-known Christian, Ramon Llull (d. 1316).…”

“…One should note that ʿĪsā (written as ʿĪçā here) is also referred to in the manuscript as Jesus, for example, on f. 395r. For a discussion of the image of Paul in Morisco polemics, in which attention is paid to al-Qaysī's work and to its adaptation in manuscript Aljamiado 4944 from Madrid, National Library of Spain, see Szpiech (2012). 17 "no-se kont.rastaría ell-attawrāti i los avanjeli.os, porke l-kitāb d-Allah, todo es uno i.-es verdadero" (Cardaillac 1972, 2:217).…”