Dissimulation in Sunni Islam and Morisco Taqiyya

Abstract

This study provides an outline of the religious doctrine of taqiyya or dissimulation in Sunni Islam, drawing on Qur’ānic commentaries, hadīth compilations, legal manuals, and ethical treatises. Moriscos and the North African jurists who advised them had access to discussions of taqiyya and the closely connected legal dispensation of coercion ( ikrāh ) through these sources, many of which were wellknown in al-Andalus before the Reconquista, and some of which continued to be popular afterwards. Attention to this material helps one to interpret the 1504 fatwā of Ibn Abī Jum’a al-Wahrānī to the Moriscos and in particular his discussion of blasphemy under coercion.