Magic in Malta: Sellem Bin Al-Sheikh Mansur and the Roman Inquisition, 1605

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-90-04-49893-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 185, 594 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 1021 g

Reihe: Islamic History and Civilization

In this volume, a microhistorical approach is employed to provide a transcription, translation, and case-study of the proceedings (written in Latin, Italian and Arabic) of the Roman Inquisition on Malta’s 1605 trial of the ‘Moorish’ slave Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur, who was accused and found guilty of practising magic and teaching it to the local Christians. Through both a detailed commentary and individual case-studies, it assesses what these proceedings reflect about religion, society, and politics both on Malta and more widely across the Mediterranean in the early 17th century. In so doing, this inter- and multi-disciplinary project speaks to a wide range of subjects, including magic, Christian-Muslim relations, slavery, Maltese social history, Mediterranean history, and the Roman Inquisition. It will be of interest to both students and researchers who study any of these subjects, and will help demonstrate the richness and potential of the documents in the Maltese archives.

With contributions by: Joan Abela, Dionisius A. Agius, Paul Auchterlonie, Jonathan Barry, Charles Burnett, Frans Ciappara, Pierre Lory, Alex Malett, Ian Netton, Catherine R. Rider, Liana Saif

Autoren/Hrsg.

Agius, Dionysius A

Mallett, Alexander

Rider, Catherine

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Naher & Mittlerer Osten
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations and Figures

Abbreviations

Arabic Transliteration System

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Alex Mallett, Dionisius A. Agius and Catherine Rider

Part 1

1 The Trial of Sellem bin al-Sheikh Mansur before the Roman Inquisition on Malta, 1605: Transcription and Translation

Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider

Part 2

2 The Trial of Sellem: A Microhistorical Commentary

Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider

Part 3

3 Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur: A Muslim Magician in Catholic Malta

Joan Abela

4 The Cognitive Landscape of Seventeenth-Century Malta: Communicating Information in a Cosmopolitan Society

Dionisius A. Agius

5 The Maltese Inquisition: Expectations and Evidence in the Sellem Case

Jonathan Barry

6 The Witch and the Judge: Sellem before the Roman Inquisition, 1605

Frans Ciappara

7 An Anthropology of Confessional Practice Regarding Magic in Early Seventeenth-Century Malta: Liminality, Communitas, Exclusion

Ian R. Netton

Part 4

8 Magic and Divination Lost in Translation: A Cairene in a Maltese Inquisition

Liana Saif

9 Geomancy, Divination, and Islam

Pierre Lory

10 Learned and Common Magic in the Trial of Sellem

Catherine Rider

11 Measurement and Magic: Some Notes on the Texts on Measurement in the Inquisition Documents against Sellem the Moor

Charles Burnett

12 Magic in Ottoman North Africa, 1570–1700, as seen through European Eyes

Paul Auchterlonie

Part 5

13 Concluding Remarks

Alex Mallett, Catherine Rider and Dionisius A. Agius

Appendix 1: Evidence Presented to the Inquisition by Vittorio Cassar: Instructions for Mathematics and the Practise of Geomancy

Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider

Appendix 2: Tabula Sybillum

Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Alex Mallett is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Research and Education and a member of the team of the Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies at Waseda University, Tokyo. He researches Christian-Muslim relations in the pre-modern Mediterranean, and particularly interactions between subaltern Muslims and Christians of Western Europe and narratives of encounters between Muslims and Christians.

Catherine Rider is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the history of magic, medicine, and the Church in the medieval period. She is the author of Magic and Religion in Medieval England and Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages.

Dionisius A. Agius is Emeritus Al-Qasimi Professor of Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture at the University of Exeter, and an Affiliate Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. He is an Arabist and ethnographer with expertise in the maritime landscapes and author of many books on the Mediterranean and Western Indian Ocean. He is a Fellow of the British Academy

.