Hussein Fancy
Yale University, History, Faculty Member
- University of Michigan, History, Faculty Memberadd
- History, Anthropology, Religion, Cultural History, Medieval History, European History, and 28 moreMedieval Crown of Aragon, Political Theology, Violence, Violence (Anthropology), Iberian History, Medieval Spain and North Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the Middle Ages, Mediterranean and North Africa, Islamic History, Islamic Law, Medieval Islam, Medieval Iberian History, Al-Andalus, Al Andalus (Islamic History), Secularization, Religious Conversion, Slavery, Medieval History of Spain, History of Piracy, Diplomacy, Military History, Mediterranean Studies, Sovereignty, Jewish - Christian Relations, Medieval Sicily, Mercenaries, and Almohad Empireedit
Sometime in April 1285, five Muslim horsemen crossed from the Islamic kingdom of Granada into the realms of the Christian Crown of Aragon to meet with the king of Aragon, who showered them with gifts, including sumptuous cloth and... more
Sometime in April 1285, five Muslim horsemen crossed from the Islamic kingdom of Granada into the realms of the Christian Crown of Aragon to meet with the king of Aragon, who showered them with gifts, including sumptuous cloth and decorative saddles, for agreeing to enter the Crown’s service.
They were not the first or only Muslim soldiers to do so. Over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Christian kings of Aragon recruited thousands of foreign Muslim soldiers to serve in their armies and as members of their royal courts. Based on extensive research in Arabic, Latin, and Romance sources, The Mercenary Mediterranean explores this little-known and misunderstood history. Far from marking the triumph of toleration, Hussein Fancy argues, the alliance of Christian kings and Muslim soldiers depended on and reproduced ideas of religious difference. Their shared history represents a unique opportunity to reconsider the relation of medieval religion to politics, and to demonstrate how modern assumptions about this relationship have impeded our understanding of both past and present.
They were not the first or only Muslim soldiers to do so. Over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Christian kings of Aragon recruited thousands of foreign Muslim soldiers to serve in their armies and as members of their royal courts. Based on extensive research in Arabic, Latin, and Romance sources, The Mercenary Mediterranean explores this little-known and misunderstood history. Far from marking the triumph of toleration, Hussein Fancy argues, the alliance of Christian kings and Muslim soldiers depended on and reproduced ideas of religious difference. Their shared history represents a unique opportunity to reconsider the relation of medieval religion to politics, and to demonstrate how modern assumptions about this relationship have impeded our understanding of both past and present.
Research Interests: Religion, Comparative Religion, Military History, Sociology of Religion, Medieval History, and 19 moreHistory of Religion, Medieval Studies, Religion and Politics, Sovereignty, Political Theology, Medieval Crown of Aragon, Medieval Slavery, Theories of Sovereignty, Mediterranean and North Africa, Hohenstaufen in Sicily, Berber studies, Mudejares, Sicily, North Africa, Mercenaries, Granada, Marinid dinasty, Anthropology of Religion, and Ḥafṣids
Around 1280, a Christian mercenary captain led Muslim soldiers bearing crosses on their chests, in the fashion of crusaders, into battle against other Muslims. At least, this is what Pedro Barrantes Maldonado reported in his Ilustraciones... more
Around 1280, a Christian mercenary captain led Muslim soldiers bearing crosses on their chests, in the fashion of crusaders, into battle against other Muslims. At least, this is what Pedro Barrantes Maldonado reported in his Ilustraciones de la casa de Niebla about the well-known nobleman, Don Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, later called Guzmán el Bueno (Guzmán the Good) and the Muslim soldiers under his command in Morocco. Rather than simply dismissing this episode as fiction, as it has been in the past, this essay interrogates that impulse to dismiss, which it identifies with an enduring secular bias in the study of religious encounters in the medieval Mediterranean. Using Latin, Arabic and Romance sources, this essay places the history of Guzmán el Bueno in a broader context, arguing that moments such as that from Barrantes Maldonado point towards a more complex picture of religious interaction than imaginable in secular terms.
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ABSTRACTIn its emphasis on ritual and sacred kingship, Azfar Moin's The Millennial Sovereign bears the imprint of anthropological theory, but Moin addresses this inheritance only obliquely. This essay seeks to draw out that tradition and... more
ABSTRACTIn its emphasis on ritual and sacred kingship, Azfar Moin's The Millennial Sovereign bears the imprint of anthropological theory, but Moin addresses this inheritance only obliquely. This essay seeks to draw out that tradition and to place theories of sovereignty and sacred kingship in their intellectual and historical context. Ultimately, it questions the value of these theories to the study of political authority.
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UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Mercenary logic: Muslim soldiers in the service of the Crown of Aragon, 1265--1309. by... more
UMI, ProQuest ® Dissertations & Theses. The world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses. Learn more... ProQuest, Mercenary logic: Muslim soldiers in the service of the Crown of Aragon, 1265--1309. by ...