Lecture by Juan Martos Quesada, from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Three Cultures Foundation.
31 October, 7 p.m.
Muslim law established a series of specific rules for the so-called "People of the Book", i.e. for Jews and Christians, regulating the way and manner in which they could comply with their religious precepts, the limitations they had to suffer in matters such as dress or the professions they could exercise, the rules of commerce, relations with Muslims, etc.
In Muslim Spain, although the treatment of Jews and Christians varied according to the different historical stages, it had its own specificities and peculiarities, as can be seen from the legal decisions that have come down to us, from the sentences of the cadis, from the laws emanating from the authorities and from the legal responses that the Muslim alfaqis and juriconsults made to the problems of coexistence that arose.
Juan Martos Quesada
He was born in Huelma (Jaén) in 1953 and received his PhD in Semitic Philology from the University of Granada in 1985, with a thesis on Islamic Law in al-Andalus, having been director of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid.
He has been a lecturer at the University of Oran (Algeria), secretary of the Spanish Cultural Centre in Algiers, coordinator of the Spanish educational centres in eastern Morocco and visiting lecturer at the University of Benghazi (Libya), Fez and Casablanca (Morocco), Sana'a (Yemen), Tehran (Iran) and Cairo (Egypt).
He has written numerous articles and monographs on his two main lines of research, Arabic science and Islamic law, including the following works The Muftis of al-Andalus (1987), Introduction to the legal world of Muslim Spain (1999), The legal world of al-Andalus (2004), Reason and religion on both shores: a Spanish-Moroccan philosophy conference (2007), Spanish views on Ibn Khaldun (2008) , Al-Andalus (2009), Frontiers under discussion: The Iberian Peninsula in the 12th century (2012) y 711-1616: from Arabs to Moors. A part of Spanish History (2012).
He has been secretary of the scientific journal Arabic Studies Shelf"and editor of the magazine Hesperia. Cultures of the MediterraneanHe has also been president of the Spanish-Arab Friendship Association, a member of the board of directors of the Spanish Society of Arab Studies and a member of the European Association of Arabists and Islamologists.
Portuguese