Minorities in Contact in the Medieval Mediterranean brings together seventeen essays which re-examines the term ‘minority’, and the encounters between minority groups. Geographically, the essays cover Egypt, Greater Syria and the Levant, and the Iberian Peninsula, from the 8th to 15th centuries.

The editors’ “Introduction,” alongside the opening chapter--“Minorities in Contact or Processes of Categorization,” from Annliese Nef, set the stage for how the volume understands the term ‘minority’. Here, ‘minority’ is defined in its broadest sense and refers to groups who were either inferior numerically or ‘minor’ with respect to power. They further contend that people have multiple affiliations and allegiances, possessing attributes that may confer ‘minority’ status, noting that this does not always translate into individuals being treated as a ‘minority’ at all times in a consistent manner and in all contexts (17). Ultimately, this collection questions what scholars mean by ‘majority-minority’ and the utility of such binary terminology. Nef continues the discussion of the limitations of the term ‘minority’ and how modern scholarship’s usage of the term can downplay and simplify the complexity of social dynamics of medieval societies. Nef highlights that when using religious categorisation the categorisation is never ‘neutral’ and that social groups constantly evolved. Through a case study of Norman Sicily, Nef illustrates how Sicily’s religious minorities constructed, conceived of, and re-imagined their social identities in the context of Christian conquest.

The following essays, Uriel Simonsohn’s “Women at the Crossroads of Muslim/non-Muslim Encounters: Conversion and Intermarriage in the Classical Islamic Period” and Alexandra Cuffel’s “Conversion and Religious Polemic between Jews and Christians in Egypt from the Fatimid through the Mamluk Periods,” broadly address the question of conversion. Simonsohn nuances the notion of a politically and religiously dominant Islam by focusing exclusively on the place of women within religiously mixed families in early Islamic society. Conversion and intermarriage became increasingly common as the Islamic world expanded but, as Simonsohn shows, communal and confessional boundaries were permeable, particularly in domestic spaces. Simonsohn surveys the response of the Jewish and Christian male elites to the phenomenon of women’s conversion to Islam, how many retained links with their families, and how mixed marriages affected the upbringing and identity of their children. Cuffel focuses on the little-studied topic of proselytization between Christians and Jews living in Fatimid and Mamluk Egypt. Although conversion to a religion other than Islam was forbidden, she highlights that this was not uniformly enforced across time and space, and that many Muslim legal authorities did not intervene when individuals converted from one minority religion to another. Many of these conversions were the result of daily interaction and proximity of living quarters. In other cases, converts came from the ‘minority’ group of enslaved persons in Jewish households. Like Simonsohn, Cuffel questions the relationship converts had with their former religious group, noting that many remained connected in some way. Cuffel also explores Jewish-Christian ‘minority’ encounters through Arabic polemical texts suggesting that since Arabic was a shared language one cannot assume only an internal readership for such texts. Such an examination offers insight into different inter-‘minority’ dynamics when competing religions shared minority status under Muslim rule.

Through a case study of Jewish and Christian exegetical responses to passages from Jeremiah, in “Jewish-Christian Theological Polemic as Reflected in Judaeo-Arabic Biblical Interpretations,” Zvi Stampfer argues that the need for Jews to rebuff Christian polemicists continued in Islamic lands. Barbara Roggema’s “Polemics between Religious Minorities: Christian Adversus Judaeos from the Early Abbasid Period” examines Christian Arabic polemical texts illustrating how Arabic-speaking Christians continued the tradition of adversus Judeos in the early Abbasid period, and how such polemics shaped the identity of Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East. One particular strength of Roggema’s essay is her brief discussion of Jewish attacks on Christianity, made possible by their shared minority status under Muslim rule.

Essays by Jan Vandeburie--on “Latins and Levantine Christian Minorities after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): Jacques de Vitry’s Descriptions of Eastern Christians in the Kingdom of Jerusalem”-- and Tamar M. Boyadjian-- “Lamenting Jerusalem: The Papacy, the Kings’ Crusade, and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia”--shift the focus to intra-Christian contacts in the eastern Mediterranean during the Crusades. Through a reassessment of the writings of Jacques de Vitry, Vandeburie shows how Jacques’ encounters with eastern Christians were influenced by the agenda of the Fourth Lateran Council and Pope Innocent III--namely pastoral care and crusade. After Saladin’s victory in 1187, and the Frankish capture of Constantinople in 1204, Latin Christians sought allies and resources from eastern Christians. Whereas Jacques found the Maronites and Georgians suitable allies, he took less positive views of other eastern Christian groups and noted that many were resistant to reform and unification with Rome. Boyadjian’s essay explores a poetic lamentation about the loss of Jerusalem written by the Armenian High Patriarch Grigor Tlay as a means to petition Latin Christians for a new crusade, to the benefit of the political aims of the Cilician Armenians to establish their own kingdom. Boyadjian sheds light on the often overlooked position of the Armenians as players in the Crusade, and their increasing interactions with the Latin Church.

Armenians are once again the subject of study in Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala’s “‘And the Lord will raise a great emir in a land’: Muslim Political Power Viewed by Coptic-Arabic Authors: A Case in the Arabic ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo Athanasius II,’” which surveys the Armenian viziers of late Fatimid Egypt, an ethnic minority, and their contacts with the Coptic Christian religious minority. Monferrer-Sala uses the Arabic ‘Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius’ to suggest that its glowing portrayal of Emir Badr al-Jamili was written to illustrate how a good politician should rule. Through his sound policies, Emir Badr made agreements with the Coptic Church which led the author of the ‘Apocalypse’ to present a favourable account of the relationship between the Armenian viziers and the Coptic Church--as an era of peace, stability and prosperity for Coptic Christians. Both groups are traditionally defined as ‘minorities’ in Fatimid Egypt, though Monferrer-Sala nuances what this meant in a socio-political context.

Slightly later in the volume, “A Reassessment of Frankish Settlement Patterns in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: 493-583/1099-1187,” Bogdan C. Smarandache’s contribution, wades into the debate over whether Franks settled in mixed communities in the Holy Land, or whether they segregated from the local populations during Latin rule. Surveying the textual and archaeological evidence, accompanied by detailed appendices, Smarandache suggests mixed settlements around Acre and Jerusalem, the Galilee and Samaria, and in the Lebanon Mountains; the sacred topography also lent itself to cohabitation. The essay tentatively concludes that, rather than a policy of segregation, the Franks settled in different permutations and that cohabitation resulted in contacts between Franks and Muslims.

The volume once again changes direction, this time to the topic of non-Muslim administrative officials within the Muslim world. Antonia Bosanquet’s “Keeping their Place: The Prohibition on Non-Muslim Scribes in Ahkām ahl al-dhimma” analyses a section of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Ahkam ahl al-dhimma, a work which considers Ibn Qayyim’s thoughts on the status, social place, and function of minorities in Islamic law, and the state. As Ibn Qayyim belonged to the newly-Muslim elite Mamluk minority, the text’s arguments against non-Muslim scribes seeks to maintain the status quo of rigid separation between religious communities to demonstrate Muslim superiority. This was not a simple matter of flexing Muslim superiority but also sheds light on how minorities jostled for influence, legitimacy or power in Mamluk Eygypt. Luke Yarbrough considers “A Christian Official in the Mamluk State Speaks: Ibn al-Suqā‘ī on Minorities and Power,” and continues in a similar vein with a discussion of the work of the Christian official al-Muwaffaq Fadl Allah Ibn Ali l’-Fakhr al-Suqa’i in Mamluk Syria and Ibn al-Suqa’i’s ruminations on his own position. Ibn al-Suqa’i accepts that his world is an Islamic one, but does not accept that it should exclude Christian officials. The chapter reflects on how non-Muslims participated in elite Muslim culture, but also on their vulnerability as a minority. The famous Banu Naghrila of al-Andalus is the subject of Alejandro Garcia Sanjuan’s “Jews in Government Functions in al-Andalus during the Taifa Period: The Case of the Banu Nagrila of Granada.” The mutual mistrust amongst the Berber minority created an administrative vacuum that was often filled by Jews. The essay takes note of how the Banu Naghrila are portrayed, distinguishing between pragmatic, propagandistic, and dogmatic, all of which highlights the complex relationship between dhimmi law and historical realties.

Final contributions by Clara Almagro Vidal, Ana Echevarria, and Maria Filomena Lopes de Barros--respectively “More than Meets the Eye: Readings of Economic Interaction between a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian in Castile,” “Does Cohabitation produce Convivencia? Relationships between Jews and Muslims in Castilian Christian Towns,” and “Muslims and Jews in Medieval Portugal: Interaction and Negotiation (14th–15th c.)”--discuss contacts between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula. Almagro Vidal uses a court case about a disputed property transaction to explore how Jews and Muslims, as religious minorities in Castile, could be placed in positions of economic dominance over Christians. Vidal zooms out to contextualise the case, which occurred during a dynastic dispute, and reveals how Jews and Muslims, in this instance, acted as intermediaries in the kingdom-wide power struggle. The essay further highlights how Castile’s religious minorities exerted agency in their inter-communal contacts. Echevarria similarly surveys inter-communal contacts in Castile and their cohabitation in Christian towns. She assesses the legal status of Jews and Muslims both at local level and within royal law, noting how cities granted different rights to minorities. Echevarria examines how the close living quarters of Jews and Muslims found economic, organisation, or political advantages and that the two ‘minorities’ often worked together in common interest against various Christian authorities. Barros’ contribution offers an account of contacts between Jews and Muslims in Portugal and the structural differences that set them apart. Muslims were confined to one geographical location without a communal spokesman, whereas Jews could be found throughout the kingdom with a chief rabbi to act as intermediary between the community and Christian authorities. Although seemingly isolated communities, Jews and Muslims would band together (similar to their Castilian counterparts noted by Echevarria) to protest against Christian legislation, and to seek exemptions. Barros’ conclusions can fittingly be applied to the volume as a whole: as much as segregation between ‘majority-minority’ and between minorities may have been ideologically and legally enforced, inter-communal contacts were indispensable to minorities’ survival and there was significant communal cross-cutting for political and economic benefit.

Minorities in Contact in the Medieval Mediterranean is an excellent collection that forces the reader to reconsider how scholars study inter-confessional contacts and how to balance evidence from literary sources with documentary evidence of lived experiences. The volume gives voice to the power and agency of so-called ‘minorities’ across time and space in the medieval Mediterranean, and the encounters that occurred between them. As John Tolan notes in the volume’s conclusion, scholars must not downplay the diversity amongst minorities as none were monolithic, nor the overlap and interconnectedness between them (373-4). Many of the essays have opened up little-discussed subjects and provided further avenues for research; all have challenged the binary notion of majority/minority that the editors have set out to interrogate, and have effectively begun to dismantle.