Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western MediterraneanBetween Dung and Blood investigates the stories of two sixteenth-century saints: the Spanish Christian Teresa de Jesús and the Moroccan Sufi Sīdī Riḍwān al-Januwī, both from families of converts. Through the stories of these saints, Manuela Ceballos reveals the roles played by blood and bodily pollution as substances and symbols in the religious and political fabric of the early modern Western Mediterranean. Drawing primarily on Arabic and Spanish sources, the author argues that in Morocco and Iberia, ideas about blood and bodily pollution helped shape processes of bodily differentiation as well as social hierarchies based on notions of ritual purity and impurity. Providing an inside look at the dynamics within Moroccan and Iberian societies as they grappled with the social and religious upheaval of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Ceballos shows that the real and imagined border between geographies and religious traditions could, at times, be porous and conducive to shared beliefs. |
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Abū Ahmad al-Andalus al-Hajarī al-Januwī Al-Murābī Aljamiado Andalusī Anidjar Arabic argued authority bleeding blood and bodily bodily filth body boundaries broader Bynum Carrión century Christian communities concept context conversion conversos Cornell cultural death descendants Discalced Carmelite discourses dung and blood Early Modern Spain early modern Western excrement García-Arenal gender hagiography hierarchies human Iberia ideas Islamic law Jewish Jews jihād Kitāb Kugle limpieza de sangre lineage linked Madrid to Purgatory Maghrib Mālikī María martyr martyrdom menstruation metaphor milk modern Western Mediterranean Moriscos Moroccan Morocco Muslim narratives North Africa notions Obras completas polemical pollution practices premodern Prophet Muhammad purification purity and impurity purity of blood Qur'an race racial relics Religion Ridwan's ritual purity ritually impure role Saint sainthood sheikh shurafā Sīdī Ridwān sixteenth-century social Spain Spanish spiritual status substances Sufi Sufism Teresa de Jesús Teresa of Avila tion tradition transmission Tuhfat al-ikhwān University Press violence