Un eslabón árabe perdido de la literatura aljamiada: reuniones musulmanas (maŷālis) y la circulación de escritos andalusíes y mašriqíes entre los mudéjares y los moriscos (MS Árabe 1668, Biblioteca Real de El Escorial, Madrid) ; An Arabic Missing Link to Aljamiado Literature: Muslim Gatherings (Majālis) and the Circulation of Andalusī and Mashriqī Writings among the Mudejars and the Moriscos (MS Árabe 1668, Royal Library of El Escorial, Madrid)

The corpus of Arabic manuscripts made by Muslims from Christian territories in the Iberian Peninsula in the medieval and early modern periods (the Mudejars and Moriscos) has generally been studied to a lesser degree than the Romance writings in Latin or Arabic script (Aljamiado). This article discusses the new data in the Arabic miscellaneous codex 1668 (El Escorial), copied in 928 (=1522) most likely by Muslims in Christian Iberia. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is not totally unknown to scholars but only few attempts have been made to inquire into its remarkable contents, which until now have remained largely unidentified. An outstanding component is the Arabic copy of the world history by the ninthcentury ʿ Abd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb, the Kitāb alTaʾrīkh [The History], which is regarded as the oldest account of Arabic literature in alEl corpus de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes de los territorios cristianos de la península ibérica medieval y temprano-moderna (mudéjares y moriscos) ha sido generalmente estudiado en menor medida que sus escritos en romance en caracteres latinos o árabes (aljamiado). Este artículo discute los nuevos datos en el códice misceláneo Árabe 1668 (El Escorial), copiado en 928 (=1522) probablemente por musulmanes en los territorios cristianos. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 no es totalmente desconocido por los estudiosos, pero han sido pocos los intentos por investigar sus extraordinarios contenidos, que hasta ahora han permanecido en gran medida sin identificar. Destacable es la copia en árabe de la historia universal de ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (s. IX), el Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh [La historia], considerada como el ejemplar más antiguo de

The corpus of Arabic manuscripts made by Muslims from Christian territories in the Iberian Peninsula in the medieval and early modern periods (the Mudejars and Moriscos) has generally been studied to a lesser degree than the Romance writings in Latin or Arabic script (Aljamiado). This article discusses the new data in the Arabic miscellaneous codex 1668 (El Escorial), copied in 928 (=1522) most likely by Muslims in Christian Iberia. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is not totally unknown to scholars but only few attempts have been made to inquire into its remarkable contents, which until now have remained largely unidentified. An outstanding component is the Arabic copy of the world history by the ninthcentury ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb, the Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh [The History], which is regarded as the oldest account of Arabic literature in al-El corpus de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes de los territorios cristianos de la península ibérica medieval y temprano-moderna (mudéjares y moriscos) ha sido generalmente estudiado en menor medida que sus escritos en romance en caracteres latinos o árabes (aljamiado). Este artículo discute los nuevos datos en el códice misceláneo Árabe 1668 (El Escorial), copiado en 928 (=1522) probablemente por musulmanes en los territorios cristianos. MS Escorial Árabe 1668 no es totalmente desconocido por los estudiosos, pero han sido pocos los intentos por investigar sus extraordinarios contenidos, que hasta ahora han permanecido en gran medida sin identificar. Destacable es la copia en árabe de la historia universal de ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (s. IX), el Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh [La historia], considerada como el ejemplar más antiguo de

Introduction
It is safe to say that, in comparison to the Romance writings in Latin or Arabic script (Aljamiado), the Arabic corpus of the Muslims from Christian territories in the Iberian Peninsula in medieval and early modern times (Mudejars and Moriscos) has been studied to a lesser extent. Yet in recent times, Arabic manuscripts in particular have revealed the most novel and interesting aspects of cultural and religious practices of the members of their communities 1 . It should be kept in mind that Arabic manuscripts were a fundamental link in the transmission of knowledge in the Iberian Peninsula, in particular, between the Muslim Andalus and is only known in a unique Arabic manuscript in Oxford. Aside from this, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 has preserved an important number of narratives adapted into Aljamiado that were already known, but of which the Arabic originals in circulation among peninsular Muslims had not yet been identified. These materials supplement current evidence about the late production of Arabic writings by Iberian Muslims and the preservation within their communities of originals from al-Andalus, North Africa, and the Islamic East, some of them with illuminations. In MS Escorial Árabe 1668, we also find an Arabic-Aljamiado sermon (waʿẓ) that casts light on Muslim gatherings, sometimes held clandestinely due to the increasing restrictions placed on their communities by Christians.
literatura árabe en al-Andalus y que se preserva solamente en un único manuscrito árabe en Oxford. Además, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 contiene un número importante de narrativas adaptadas en aljamiado que ya se conocían, pero de las cuales aún no se habían identificado los originales árabes en circulación entre los musulmanes peninsulares. Estos materiales amplían los datos ya existentes de la producción tardía de manuscritos árabes de los musulmanes peninsulares y la preservación dentro de sus comunidades de originales provenientes de al-Andalus, el norte de África y el oriente islámico, algunos de los cuales contienen miniaturas. En el MS Escorial Árabe 1668 también encontramos un sermón árabe-Aljamiado (waʿẓ) que arroja luz sobre las reuniones de musulmanes que a veces se celebraron de forma clandestina debido a las crecientes restricciones impuestas a sus comunidades por los cristianos. Palabras clave: MS Escorial Árabe 1668; mudéjares; moriscos; manuscritos árabes y aljamiados; sermones (waʿẓ); reuniones (majlis); al-Andalus; Mashriq; Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh; Ibn Ḥabīb. and the Christian territories. They took root in the literature written in al-Andalus and the Muslim regions in North Africa as well as the Eastern parts of the Mediterranean; in turn, they served as models for the later Romance Latin and Aljamiado adaptations of the Mudejars and the Moriscos. Unexpected manuscript findings and mounting scholarly interest for the Arabic corpus in recent decades has strengthened the evidence of the production and copying of Arabic works by Muslims in the Christian territories well into their expulsions in the early seventeenth century. But not all sources have received the same attention, and some of them have been only partially examined. This is true for the new discoveries and also for Arabic manuscripts long known to scholars. One example is MS Escorial Árabe 1668 (Casiri 1663), a miscellaneous Arabic codex currently held at the library of the El Escorial (Madrid) 2 . So far, studies like those of García Gómez, Pareja and Epalza have provided either a general discussion of MS Escorial Árabe 1668 or have only dealt with some loose narratives, in both cases resulting in an incomplete picture 3 . The discussion next will provide evidence that the presence of important sources in the manuscript has been overlooked 4 . These considerations underpin the task of the present article, which is to take a first step towards a more thorough examination of this miscellaneous Arabic codex. With the aim that the following analysis may serve as a basis for future studies, a detailed overview of the contents is given in the final annex. The discussion is structured into four sections.
MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is introduced in the first section, which also reviews the scholarship to date (1). The second section will address the miscellaneous materials, with particular attention to those that have remained so far unstudied (2). Then, findings will be connected to some aspects of the culture and religious practices of the Mudejars and the Moriscos (3), with brief discussions of the following (3): the Arabic and Aljamiado manuscript production (3.1), the practices of gathering in the territories (3.2) and the illumination of manuscripts (3.3). The last section wraps up the analysis and brings forward a few remarks about the importance of miscellaneous works for the study of Muslims and Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Christian territories specifically (4).
MS Escorial Árabe 1668, from the Royal Library of San Lorenzo of El Escorial in Madrid, is a lengthy miscellaneous Arabic codex in Maghribī script, a number of whose narratives were copied in 928 (=1522) 5 . It consists of four main sections 6 written by one and the same hand with black ink on paper (in the third quire, a lighter ink is used and, at some spots, one can clearly appreciate the twenty-nine line folio ruled by means of misṭara of 29 lines, e.g. f. 93v, f. 94r, f. 106 r, and f. 107r) 7 . The language throughout is Arabic with the exception of folia 86r-88r, which alternates between Arabic and Aljamiado and is written by a different hand (or hands). The marginalia are written by the same hand as the main text and are rendered both in Arabic and in Aljamiado (other Arabic marginalia by a different hand could have been written by other readers). Since Aljamiado was a most characteristic cultural device of a number of Mudejar and Morisco communities, its use provides strong indication that MS Escorial Árabe 1668 circulated among their communities, indeed.
Examination suggests that the current materials in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 could have been compiled with other texts at some point, and the number of folios originally could have been higher. This can be determined on the basis of the foliation and contents of the first and last sections, which are incomplete (the first folio that we have, though it is internally complete, starts with f. 25r; the last section seems to miss some folia, too, and the text stops abruptly on f. 155v). The loss of materials occurred in two ways: ff.1r-24v, 47r-v, and 82r-85v disappeared when the compilation was done, while folia 143r-v and those after f. 155v were most likely mutilated 8 . It is, however, my understanding that this miscellaneous codex could have had more folia placed in front than the amount currently indicated in the catalogue (i.e. twenty-five). Such a claim is grounded on the following observations. On the one hand, the miscellaneous codex has an old call number from the catalogue of El Escorial (Cod. 987), but it also has the signature V.I.XVI, most likely from a previous cataloguing of the materials; we do not have a description of the materials from that time 9 . On the other hand, the codex has a dual foliation scheme that was added after the original manuscript was copied: at the beginning of a group of folia (or booklet) and also within each booklet (on each folio) 10 . The beginning of a booklet coincides with catchwords-or more accurately, catch-phrases-written by the sixteenth-century copyist, which could have served the same purpose that ensured the order of the folios was maintained (this use can be appreciated on folios 66v, 118v, 128v, 154v). We do not know how many catch-phrases were written-we also find them on places other than the beginning of a booklet, on f. 36v and 129v, and binding has partly cut off some of them together with some marginalia (e.g. 66v, 128v, 134r, 137r, 141r, 146v, 148v, 149r-v, 151v) 11 . But as a rule, the booklets are quite regular, and with one exception, a new booklet starts every ten double-sided folia, more or less. The first booklet is numbered as eight, and it is from this consideration that we could suggest that the miscellaneous codex could have had at least seventy more folia (one hundred forty when we take recto and verso). We can only wonder whether these texts were copied by the same copyist as the ones before us-if they were not, this might explain why they were left out from the current binding, although clearly the reason could have been of a completely different sort (for example they were lost, misplaced, etc.).
When we turn our attention to the studies about MS Escorial Árabe 1668, we must first observe that its contents did not leave readers unmoved. Most telling in this respect is the end note by an unknown Arabist 12 , most likely a Christian, who claims that the texts "to which the author refers [i.e. of MS Escorial Árabe 1668], addressing his teachers with elegant style, [are] similar to the Greek mores that produced a mixture of truth and lie, and moulded a vessel engraved with scenes of adultery: that is, mainly, [the notion] that they [Muslims] dare to sail in a sea full of sandbars outside the ship of Peter." 13 We will see in a Plants: the vine and wine: "huc pertinent peregrinae exercitationes et volutatio in caeno ac pectorosa cervicis repandae ostentatio. per omnia haec praedicatur sitis quaeri. iam vero quae in bibendo certamina, quae vasa adulteriis caelata, tamquam per se parum doceat libidines temulentia! ita vina ex libidine hauriuntur, atque etiam praemio invitatur ebrietas et, si dis placet, emitur. alius ut quantum biberit tantum edat pretium vinolentiae lege accipit, alius quantum alea quaesierit tantum bibit. /This is the object of the exercises that have been introduced from foreign countries, of rolling in the mud and throwing the neck back to show off the muscles of the chest. It is declared that the object of all these exercises is merely to raise a thirst! Then again, think of the drinking matches! Think of the vessels engraved with scenes of adultery, as though tippling were not enough by itself to give lessons in licentiousness! Thus wine-bibbing is caused by license, and actually a prize is offered to promote drunkenness-heaven help us, it is actually purchased." 14 García Gómez, "Un cuento árabe", pp. 7-8. 15 For example, in giving the folios that mention the date of copy; compare García Gómez, 1926, p. 7, with the list above in footnote 5 and with the notes in the coming sections. Also, folio 40r, for example, should read 39r and it is also incorrect that there is only one Aljamiado folio, and not several, in the miscellaneous codex. Morata claims that folios 97v-106r are written by another hand yet it seems more likely that what really changes is the use of the ink (and maybe, too, of another qalam). It calls attention to folio 47, which is currently missing. One may wonder whether this folio was loosely preserved between the materials (certainly not bound together with them, as there are no signs of mutilation at this spot). moment that these affirmations demonstrate great insight into the remarkable nature of the materials, but what matters to us here is the spark of admiration towards the magnificent volume before him that springs from his words. Despite the attraction that the narrations in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 seemed to garner among readers, it was not until 1926 when the well-known Arabist Emilio García Gómez embarked on the study of one of them in his doctoral thesis. The story of Dhū al-Qarnayn, Abī Murāthīdh al-Ḥamīrī, and the story of the idol and the king and his daughter (ff. 25r-29r), as he convincingly shows, was the Vorlage of the well-known work by the Andalusī polymath Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān [Philosophus Autodidactus], and it also served as a model for the seventeenth-century novel El Criticón, by Baltasar Gracián. In this publication, García Gómez rightly notes the vagueness of the description Casiri gives of the codex and points out some of its errors-for example, that the codex is undated. García Gómez may have had access to the miscellaneous codex, but he certainly did not use his own notes rather those by Father Nemesio Morata, the librarian of El Escorial at the time 14 . The notes by Morata (about the type of paper, calligraphy, binding, etc.) are not always accurate or exhaustive 15 and are also very brief. When addressing the contents, he simply says, "the first part of the codex includes tales and short narratives, the second, stories of prophets." 16 To my knowledge, only two authors have undertaken the study of MS Escorial Árabe 1668 since the pioneering efforts by García Gómez, and they either overlooked García Gómez's scholarship or did not attend to some of its flaws. Felix María Pareja did not mention this publication in the sixties when he studied a story about the life of ʿĪsā bn. Maryam (i.e. Jesus in Islam) in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 17 . This might explain why no reference is given to the existence of the Arabic-Aljamiado folia when Pareja discusses the Spanish renderings of a number of Aljamiado words in the marginalia 18 . In truth, it would take a quarter of a century until Míkel Epalza would return attention to these folia, emphasizing their importance and including their images 19 . Epalza is not fully accurate in his description 20 , but he brings forward the sound argument that the materials in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 form a coherent unit that is characterized by its narrative-normative character 21 . Before taking up the issue, however, we first need a better grasp on the contents of each part, also itemized in the annex.

MÒNICA COLOMINAS APARICIO
Al-Qantara XLI 1, 2020, pp. 95-147 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: https//doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2020.004 16 "La primera parte del códice comprende cuentos y relatos breves; la segunda historias de profetas", García Gómez, "Un cuento árabe", p. 8; see also, pp. 62-63. 17 Pareja, "Un relato morisco", p. 860. However, the end folia for the story should be corrected to f. 145v (loc. cit.). Two examples suffice to show that he did not consult this work. One is that García Gómez gives as the date of copy the year 928 of the Hegira and erroneously 1521 as the Christian year 1521, which should be 1522, which is the right equivalent to the months of Ramaḍān and Shawwāl mentioned in the text. In Pareja, in turn, the year 1522 is correct but it isn't that of 929 of the Hegira. The second example is that Pareja does not say anything about the fact that García Gómez does not include folia 47r-v and 143r-v among the missing folia, yet he notes for the first time that some materials have been left out before and after the binding of the codex (which is information not found in García Gómez's publication). Pareja, "Un relato morisco", p. 556. Pareja does not indicate the exact places where this happens but he rightly notes that folia 143r-v have been mutilated (p. 867, note 29).
18 Cf. García Gómez, "Un cuento árabe", pp. 8, 62. 19 Unfortunately, the images have a very low resolution and the footnotes are missing from the main text. Epalza, "Un manuscrito narrativo normativo", pp. 37-39 for the images, and passim for the foot notes. 20 For example, the list of folia with the date of copy is incomplete and sometimes erroneous: f. 38v and 72v, should be 39r and 71v, respectively. See, Epalza, "Un manuscrito narrativo normativo", p. 35. 21 Epalza, "Un manuscrito narrativo normativo", p. 40 and passim, which is a point also shown from the analysis that will follow. 22 Here (ff. 146v-147v) reference is made to the garden of Ṣan ͑ āʾ and to its inhabitants who are claimed to have lived according to the Injīl (Gospel). The narrative is told in connection to Qur. 68:17. 23 MS Escorial Árabe 1668, f. 31v. 24 For example, that of Alexander, discussed by García Gómez, "Un cuento árabe", p. 37, which, he argues, reveals an undoubted Eastern origin, or of Nimrod (Nimrūd bn. Mās bn. Iram ibn Nūḥ, see annex), and his connection with Iram, perhaps following the tradition recorded by al-Ṭabarī. See, Glidden,"Koranic Iram",p. 13. 25 See various references to this scholar in Rāzī, Tāʾrīkh madīnat Ṣan ͑ āʾ, p. 593. 26 Two al-Muqrī are well-known, the qirāʾa reader and the poet, the two from the Eastern Mediterranean (Kūfā and Yemen, respectively), but I have been unable to determine the identity of the individuals mentioned in the miscellaneous codex, who could have a different origin. I have consulted the standard references and also Fabian, Personennamen des Mittelalters. See for al-Muqrī, Juynboll, "Ibn Miḳsam" and Knysh, "Ibn al-Muqrī", p. 353. On the other hand, the ḥadīth of Muḥammad and the lizard (ff. 127v-129v) in the MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is told on the authority of Abū Bakr bn. ʿAlī bn. Zakariyyā al-Muqrī. García Gómez also argues that The Story of Dhū al-Qarnayn was likely told in the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq although it could have more remote origins in India. García Gómez, "Un cuento árabe", pp. 37-41.

Andalusī and Mashriqī Materials in MS Escorial Árabe 1668
The first part of MS Escorial Árabe 1668 (ff. 25r-81v) is, to a large extent, composed of texts that bear the titles ḥikāya (tale), ḥadīth (narrative), qiṣṣa (story), or majlis (gathering) and are dripping with Eastern aesthetics. We could even dare to point to Syria and Yemen as their areas of origin on account of the place names (such as Baghdād, Adūn or Ṣanʿāʾ) 22 , names of persons (Harūn al-Rashīd, Zubayda, and al-Bānūqā) 23 , and some genealogies 24 . These references to early Islamic lore, no doubt, increase the legitimacy to the sources copied in MS Escorial Árabe 1668. In addition, the indications that they belong to an Eastern tradition that reached the Ppeninsula are sometimes quite detailed. One example comes from the scribe himself, who acknowledges that he is copying the "ḥadīth of the young man and the uncle of Muḥammad, Abū Jahl" (ff. 72r-74v), from its original, as well as the work (kitāb) of a jurist from Ṣanʿāʾ (Yemen), Rabāḥ b. Zayd (d. 187/803) 25 , which is taken from Muḥammad bn. Isḥāq al-Najārī al-Muqrī and does not coincide with the versions by Idrīs bn. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Muqrī or others 26 . These texts might have belonged to an unknown work, although the possibility that they are a selection from various sources cannot be ruled out. One example of other materials that were widespread in both the East and the West is a story entitled "The Trap, the Sparrow, and the Hunter" (ff. 59-61v), which at some point became part of Thousand 27 The narrative in the present manuscript is, indeed, similar to a story not included in the first translation by Antoine Galland (1646-1715CE) but found in the translation by Burton, who used a manuscript copied in the 18 th century. See, "What Befell the Fowlet with the Fowler" in Burton,A Plain and Literal Translation,Supplemental Nights Vol. 6,also,Marzolph,Van Leeuwen,and Wassouf (eds.), The Arabian Nights, Vol. 1,No. 414. In a recent study, Lerner discusses the earliest version of the fable known to date of the "The Trap, the Sparrow and the Hunter" that bears such a title and is preserved in an eighteenth-century manuscript copy. Lerner discusses some previous versions that have been preserved to us, some of which are Andalusī. Lerner, Two Amalgamated Ancient Bird Fables, specially pp. 322-326, 332, 337-346. Besides, one Arabic illuminated copy of this story appears to have belonged to the collection by Pablo Gil y Gil of the manuscripts from Almonacid de la Sierra. Gil y Gil, "Los manuscritos aljamiados de mi colección", pp. 546-547, MS RESC/22 (Olim. J22)-corresponding to his catalogue no. XXXIII-in a codex dated in 851 H (/=1447 CE)), also mentioned in González Palencia's Historia de la literatura arábigo-española, p. 318. I thank Richard van Leeuwen for sharing with me his insights into this particular story. 28 The narrative is incomplete and it is unclear to me whether al-Jawharī is a proper name or not. 29 The narrative begins with the statement "I read in the Kitāb al-Faraj baʿd ba ͑ d alshidda," but so far, I have not been able to find the story in al-Tanūkhī's work, see Tanūkhī, al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda.
Nights and One Night 27 . Also unnoticed has been the "Story of the sad king who considers the opinion of everyone but not of himself" on ff. 78r-79v, also known as "The Dove, the Fox and the Heron" from the Kalīla wa Dhimna. I have not been able to identify a third story that bears the title of "The boy and the garden of al-Jawharī with the female jinn and what happened to him with her", on f. 46v 28 . It should be noted that the original (or originals) of these three narratives that the scribe is copying from seems to have had illustrations. In addition, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 also preserves a narrative of the al-Faraj ba'd ba'd al-Shidda [Relief after Hardship] on ff. 74v-76r, which may correspond to the well-known work by the tenth-century judge (qāḍī) from medieval Iraq, Abū ͑ ʿAlī al-Muḥassin b. ͑ Alī al-Tanūkhī (329/941-384/994) 29 . The last text of the first part is a complete text and has the customary praises to Aḷḷāh, but we do not know for certain whether other texts were placed after the eight folia that are now missing (ff. 86r-88r).
The second part is relatively short (ff. 84r-96r) and includes two accounts of the first-century military campaigns of Islam (ghazwa) (ff. 89r-90r; 90r-92v); a narrative about ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Jibrīl (ff. 92v-93v); one folio with a text "about the newborn [and his growth], and he is designated based of the lunar crescents" (f. 94r); and a book (kitāb) about Iblīs on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās (ff. 94v-96r). The work by ʿAbd al-Malik has been preserved in the fourth part, right after a one-folio text that deals with the creation of the clouds, the rain, and the hail, and is told on the authority of Wahb ibn Munabbih (b. Dhimar, 34/654-5-110-114/728-732) (f. 107r). We find here the complete first part of his work al-Taʾrīkh [The History] (ff. 107v-121r), which is regarded by scholars as the oldest account of Arabic literature in al-Andalus and one of the two world histories preserved from this region 32 . Al-Taʾrīkh is introduced as Kitāb al-Badī (most likely to be read as badʾ, badʾa, or badāʾ, i.e. the "Book of the Beginning") 33 , and has only small differences compared to the 1991 edition by Aguadé that is the, so far, unique manuscript in Oxford (Oxford Bodleian Library, Nicoll Collection 127, dated 695/1295-6) 34 . The sections in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 follow a slightly different order but the contents are the same and fill some of the lacunae in the current edition; moreover, they add some interesting insights into the practice of scholarly gatherings in the author's time. Pareja 35 Mentions of ʿĪsā or his sayings as well as short accounts about him are often found in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 (see the annex and the various references in the main text). In addition to the story translated by Pareja, there are two other texts of a certain length about him: the first is about a king whom ʿĪsā converts to the belief in one God (ff. 61v-63v); the second narrative is included in Ibn Ḥabīb's Taʾrīkh (ff. 120v-121r), indeed. 36 In my opinion, the full quotation on footnote 13 provided above describes quite well the contents of the fourth section of this miscellaneous codex. 37 While these narratives are not in the current edition of al-Taʾrīkh, it is unclear to me whether some of them could have belonged to it. 38 This scholar of Egyptian or Persian origin (d. 175/791) quotes a ḥadīth that goes back to the authority of ʿAlī bn. Abī Ṭālib but also a story he has heard from the East, which is interesting considering that the moment in which al-Layth lived is contemporary with the conquest of al-Andalus. He says on f. 125v: See for al-Layth, Merad, "al-Layth bn. Saʿd". a dozen folia ahead of the narrative about ʿĪsā bn. Maryam that he studied (ff. 140v-145v) 35 , (which is perhaps even more surprising since Ibn Ḥabīb's work contains on ff. 120v-121r a story about ʿĪsā, too), nor did Epalza know about the presence of al-Taʾrīkh; on the other hand, it is likely that it was meant by the anonymous reader when he referred to the "Historia anonijma de opificio septem dierum, de Patriarchis veteris testamenti […]," that is, an anonymous account about God's fashioning of the world in seven days and the Old Testament patriarchs 36 . The first part of Ibn Ḥabīb's al-Taʾrīkh can be described in this way. Furthermore, it includes references to well-known pious and prophetic characters and is followed by a number of Tales of the Prophets, or Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (ff. 121r-126r) 37 : narratives about Ismāʿīl (ff. 121r-122r); Ibrāhīm (ff. 122r-125v, including his journey on Burāq to visit his son and wife); a ḥadīth about Muḥammad recounted by al-Layth bn. Saʿd (ff. 125v-126r) 38 ; the ḥadīth of Muḥammad and the orphan (ff. 126r-127v) and the lizard (ff. 127v-129v). Other narratives about biblical characters are those of Nimrūd (ff. 129v-130r); the death of Adam (ff. 130v-131v); Idrīs (ff. 131v-132r); the sons of Adam (ff. 132v-133r), Nūḥ (f. 133r), Ayyūb (ff. 134r-137r), Yūnus (ff. 137v-139v), Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyā (ff. 139v-140v) and ʿĪsā (ff. 140v-145v)-the last one was studied by Pareja; and the People of the Ditch (ff. 145v-146v). There are also stories about biblical events and other texts such as the creation and destruction of Heaven by Aḷḷāh (ff. 146v-147v); the creation of Hell and jinns (ff. 147v-148r); the interdiction of wine (ff. 148r-150r); the prayer on the Prophet (f. 150v) and his miracles (ff. 151r-152r); and finally, a verse and short text from an unmentioned source about the ages of the animals on the authority of the well-known Jewish convert Kaʿab al-Aḥbār (f. 152v). In this part, we also find quotations of  Vol. 16,No. 60, This work by Ibn Ḥabīb has so far been only preserved in fragments. I have been so far unable to find them in the extant publications, but further inquiry is needed. See, Ibn Ḥabīb, Das "Kitāb al-Wāḍīḥa", and Ibn Ḥabīb, Kitāb al-Wāḍīḥa. Concerning Ibn Ḥabīb's work on medicine, see Ibn Ḥabīb, Mujtaṣar fī l-ṭibb; on pious narratives, Aguadé Bofill, "El libro del escrúpulo religioso;" and his work on usury (ribā), edited by Hernández López, see Ibn Ḥabīb,. On his work within the genre of anwāʾ, or star-based meteorology, see Kunitzsch, "ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb's Book on the Stars". 41 I have so far been unable to identify them, although they do not seem to correspond with the ones known to us that are attributed to him. See, Khoury, Les légendes prophétiques dans l 'Islam,First Part, In the manuscript (f. 127v), we read Karīma bint Aḥmad bn. Muḥammad bn. Khātim al-Mazūzī, but al-Dhahabī refers to her as . Dhahabī,Vol. 18,No. 110, See, the entry in EI3, Gilliot, "al-Anṣārī, Abū l-Qāsim". Other scholars are Wathīma b. Mūsā (d. 237/851), al-Ḥasan bn. al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Medina, 21/643-Baṣra, 110/728), Saʿīd (probably VII-VIII c. CE). Saʿīd is mentioned here with no addition. He reports on the authority of Qatāda and it seems most likely that here we are dealing with the same Saʿīd than the one in other works such as the manuscript by ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma, see less towards the end of ʿĪsā's story (Pareja), the copyist interrupts his work and claims that the text continues as in the last quire (kurrāsa) "in this book" (fī hādhihi al-kitāb) 43 . Taking into account that the contents of the other narratives about ʿĪsā in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 do not match this one 44 , we need to assume that he is referring to a text left out from this apodous miscellaneous codex.
The important presence of the narrative genre in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is apparent from the contents detailed above and we could say that overall the aim is to entertain the listener and to shore up Islamic orthodoxy. This dual function (enjoyment and learning) can be appreciated if we briefly take some fragments from the various stories about ʿĪsā into consideration. In one of these stories, Gabriel brings ʿĪsā to an island inhabited by an unbelieving king and his people (ff. 61v-63v), and after various adventures, ʿĪsā enters a castle and exclaims: "I saw a castle that those who can see did not see before. I saw its little stones that were the jewels, and the castle's bricks of gold and silver. The majālis (i.e. the seats) leaned on a stick of green emerald and the doors were made of red sandal, and in it there were treasures and goods: that what the eye have never seen, and the ear never heard, and what never entered the human mind." 45 ʿĪsā's words leave no doubt of the luxury and sumptuousness of the building, an impression that is reinforced by the saying "that what the eye has never seen…", in clear allusion to some ḥadīths about paradise by Muḥammad connected to Qurʾān 32:17 46 . Possibly, to Muslims who lived among Christians and were sometimes forced to listen to the latter's sermons, these words may have also reminded them of a similar saying about the hereafter in an epistle to the Corinthians by the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 2:9). ʿĪsā is led by an old woman into a memorial shrine made of gold in which there is a tomb of sandal with some engraved laudatory poetry. The text provides the verses in full. Then, ʿĪsā resurrects the dead man, who turns out to be the woman's husband. The miracle of ʿĪsā is followed by the no less wondrous healing of the woman's son. The youth finds himself in a majlis (here in the sense of meeting room) that has doors of aquamarine inlaid with red gold and in which there is a Japanese bed with gold and silver, and on the bed a cupola of cedar and silk .47 . It goes without saying that the story ends with the king's acknowledgement that there is only one God, and that ʿĪsā is God's Spirit and Word.
Another text that bears the title of "majlis about the basmala" (ff. 79v-81v) provides an account of some events that occurred to ʿĪsā during his childhood, when he goes to school and his teacher obliges him to write the basmala, that is, he has to write "in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." In the same way as when he enters the castle in the previous story, ʿĪsā employs the first person and claims: "I wrote it but I didn't understand its meaning," a complaint that is followed by the exhortation to his teacher to teach him about the issue. The teacher is ready to do that, and he explains the meaning letter by letter and word by word 48 . These examples are not exceptions but rather illustrative of the didactical, normative character of the stories, in which we find extraordinary examples of how elements taken from tales framed in the purest oriental style of the Thousand Nights and One Night can be masterfully combined with other kinds of narrative to convey moral and ethical teachings to the believing Muslim. The evidence of the various dated colophons makes us wonder whether the characteristics and motifs as well as the common provenance of many of these texts was among the reasons that animated the copyist to do his work in sessions quite consecutive in time. This is, however, no more than a hypothesis, albeit a speculative one. What is beyond doubt is that MS Escorial Árabe 1668 attests to the circulation of manuscripts from the Mediterranean East, North Africa, and al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula, and is connected to some Andalusī writings (e.g. Ibn Ṭufayl's Vorlage of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān and al-Taʾrīkh by Ibn Ḥabīb).

The Arabic Manuscript Culture and the Religious Practices of Muslimsin Christian Iberia
These materials are perhaps even more remarkable because the possibility exists that they were copied in the Christian territories. Pareja argued in this respect that the scribe was a Muslim originally from Aragon (considering the date of copy in 1522, we could probably assume it was a Mudejar who would have finished his work in the years prior to the expulsions of Muslims from this region in 1526 CE). As Epalza is right in noting, Pareja did not provide evidence for his claim 49 . Before him, García Gómez also argued for an Aragonese or maybe a Valencian origin and pointed out the similarities of the ductus of the main text with that in other Arabic manuscripts, in particular MS RESC/45 (Olim. J45) from Almonacid (Aragon), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid, dated in 834 (=1431), as evidence. He moreover notes that the language use of the scribe shows errors and vulgarisms that he claims are characteristic of peninsular Muslims 50 . Although this comparison is made taking classical Arabic as a reference, García Gómez's arguments gain strength if we bear the above remarks in mind, namely, that the same hand copied the main text, the corrections into Arabic in the marginalia, and a great number of marginal annotations into Aljamiado. Examples are on f. 27r, where "dīdātihā" is corrected to "dādātihā"; on f. 30v, where "dādātī" is rendered in the margin by the same scribe into Aljamiado as "mi-nodriça" ("my nurse"); and on f. 70r, where we read into Aljamiado "maese Peḏro", i.e. "master Peter," as a translation of the proper name in Arabic Shamaʿūn 51 . The same hand, also wrote in the following Aljamiado marginalia that come to enlarge the list by Pareja: "juncos" (as a translation of the Arabic "dīsa", f. 137r); "nuḏrio (i.e. nutrió)" (as a translation of the Arabic "rabaḍat", f. 138v); "ḏesert (i.e. desierto)" (as a translation of the Arabic "barriyya", f. 139r); "seguḏe (i.e. sacude)" (as a translation of the Arabic "huzzī", f. 141v) 52 ; "se retienen" (as a translation of the Arabic "mutamass ikīn") and "la ḏesipa (i.e. la disipa)" (as a translation of the Arabic "damara"), the two on f. 146v; and "la vendema (i.e. la vendimia)" (as a translation of the Arabic "al-ṣarām", f. 147r) 53 . As a whole, there are good reasons to believe the claim that Muslims in the Christian territories had access to MS Escorial Árabe 1668 and were involved in its copy. Yet with respect to the origin of the copyist, the evidence seems to be too little to draw firm conclusions. The handful of words is insufficient, and the folia in Arabic-Aljamiado are problematic because it is not certain that the hand of the copyist here is the same as that in the main text.
It is important, however, that the materials allow us to ask ourselves about the culture and religious practices of these Muslims. In the next three subsections I focus on three elements that struck me as having particular relevance in this respect: the Arabic and Aljamiado manuscript production (3.1); the practices of gathering and preaching (3.2); and the illustrations and figurative representations in Muslim manuscripts from the Christian territories (3.3).  See,Qur. 19:25. 53 There are also Aljamiado words on f. 98v "y ḏiose a ḏamar…"; f. 115r "s fīzo aturar"; f. 134r "en fazerlo" and a broken word; f. 142r "…jenes" and another broken word in the marginalia (a similar case occurs on f. 141r); f. 147v "…tisuneros" as a translation of the Arabic "zabāniyya"; f. 151v "ndosen…ndio" as a translation of the Arabic "iltaḥamat." In a number of cases I have been unable to decipher the words.

The Arabic and Aljamiado manuscript production of Mudejars and Moriscos
The manuscript corpus is perhaps one of the aspects on which MS Escorial Árabe 1668 sheds some light, since it seems to have preserved the Arabic originals-some unknown-of a number of Aljamiado adaptations of the Mudejars and the Moriscos. Epalza notes that the "Battle of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Aḥwaṣ and al-Barshiyya al-Bārqiyya" on ff. 89r-90r corresponds to one of the Aljamiado texts in El libro de las batallas edited by Galmés de Fuentes 54 . Also, the story translated by Pareja seems to be closely related to one text from the Aljamiado manuscript at the Real Academia de la Historia, MS RAH 11/9393 (Olim. S1 Gay.) 55 . The same is true of other narratives, for example the tale of ʿAlī ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Jawharī al-Baghdādī and his meeting with the female demons (ff. 29v-37v) preserved into Aljamiado in the manuscript from Urrea of Jalón 56 . We also know the Aljamiado adaptations of the tale of Muḥammad and the orphan 57 and, in Aljamiado and Latin characters, the colloquy of Mūsā and God (65v-67v)-although to my knowledge, the text in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 is the only Arabic copy of the colloquy we know that was in the hands of Iberian Muslims 58 .

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Al-Qantara XLI 1, 2020, pp. 95-147 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: https//doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2020.004 54 He is right, yet it has to be pointed out that the Aljamiado is strongly adapted. Epalza, "Un manuscrito narrativo normativo", p. 41. Although footnote 8 is missing from the article, it is most likely that Epalza is referring, indeed, to the narrative in these folia. 55 See Villaverde Amieva, "Los manuscritos aljamiado-moriscos", p. 109 note 84, apud Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos, pp. 242-243. 56 Corriente Córdoba, Relatos píos y profanos, pp. 220-227, Akeste es l-alḥadīṯ de ʿAlī Albagḏāḏ. The details in this story make one wonder whether this character could have had any family relationship with the mathematician and astronomer working at the service of On pp. 613-614 note 24, Villaverde Amieva draws attention to a manuscript in Arabic in the Royal Library, MS II/4216 (ff. 3v-8v) of Moroccan origin (perhaps from the 19 th century) studied by Justel Calabozo. The comparison of this source with the narrative in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 and the Aljamiado versions seems to be a relevant task to be carried out. I thank Prof. Villaverde Amieva for sending me this publication. 59 As is well known, majlis has a broad and eclectic meaning. It encompasses notions of a place for meeting, an object used to sit, and an exhortation, discourse, or prayer, just to name a few. It is, to say the least, an ambiguous term (Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon; jīn, p. 444). Even in its most common use (as a gathering or session) its significance is in need of further clarification, not only because of the complex social institution the term connotes but because of the functions that the representations of majlis fulfill in the extant writings. This last aspect has already been noted by Sidney H. Griffith in his publication about accounts of interreligious majālis at Muslim courts in Eastern lands. Griffith highlights that majlis had multiple purposes, including religious conversion, together with entertainment and religious education (Griffith, "The Monk in the Emir's Majlis", pp. 13-14. A similar picture seems to emerge from Iberian accounts, for example the Bahjat al-majālis wa-uns almujālis [The Joy of the Assemblies and the Assembled] by the well-known eleventh-century Cordovan Muslim traditionalist Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (368/463-978/1070). In this composition, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr claims that he has juxtaposed an idea with its opposite in order to instruct and amuse those who sought agreement with their companion in assembly, as well as those who sought disagreement. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Bahjat al-majalis, Vol. 1, p. 36: In short, he aims to provide tools for dialectics and disputation and to teach his readers adab, the norms and customs governing the assemblies. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr enumerates these tools as a "collection of proverbs, uncommon verses, extensive wisdom and delightful tales of many disciplines, and a great variety of religious and worldly issues." My translation of Bahjat, loc. cit.: The term, as it is translated into Aljamiado seems in my view to emphasize one of the aspects of the sessions, meetings, or councils, to wit, the coming together, or sitting together of a group of people. 60 Ruiz Bejarano,"Praxis islámica",pp. 189,204,580. Olivier Brisville-Fertin has undertook the necessary task of describing two manuscripts of the Escuelas Pías in an article now in press, Sharq al-Andalus 22 (2017-2018), "Los códices aljamiados de las Escuelas Pías de Zaragoza", and forthcoming "Los códices aljamiados de las Escuelas Pías de Zaragoza II: relación de contenidos", Sharq al-Andalus 23 (2019-2020). The alternation in the titles between majlis and asiento does not, in my view, prevent the possibility that, for the reasons given in the main text, asiento en is a translation of the Arabic. I thank Olivier Brisville-Fertin for having sent me the pre-print. 62 As for example, 1Kings 10:1-13 and 2Chron. 9:1-12. 63 One should bear in mind the important share of paraenetic works in the Mudejar and Morisco manuscript production. See Harvey, "The literary culture", pp. 143, 164-168 and, also, of the important share in it of polemics, in its varied literary forms. See for a discussion of the Mudejar production of polemics, Colominas Aparicio, The Religious Polemics. is the Aljamiado expression asiento en a literal translation of the Arabic majlis fī, we also see that the asientos deal with religious issues that are similar to the ones dealt with in the majlis in the miscellaneous codex under discussion 61 . MS Escorial Árabe 1668 has two "majlis fī." One is a majlis about the basmala on ff. 76r-77v about the benefits that God bestows upon those who pronounce the Islamic ritual formula, various teachings about the basmala, and an explanation of each of its parts. A second majlis (ff. 79v-81v) is devoted to the basmala, as well.
Here is stated more particularly to the circumstances of revelation (or asbāb al-nuzūl) of Qurʾān 27:30, "Lo! it is from Sulaymān, and lo! it is: In the name of Aḷḷāh, the Merciful, the Compassionate." This verse belongs to a sūra in part devoted to prophet Sulaymān and his encounter with the Queen of Sheba that ends with the Queen's conversion to Islam (from verses 15 to 44). Christian and Jewish sources provide varying understandings of the meeting between the two rulers, and this narrative has thus been the object of polemics; in it we also find the account about ʿĪsā as a young student mentioned above 62 . These majlis narratives served the inquiry into religious issues and most likely were used for Muslim sessions of prayer, mystical meetings, and meetings devoted to ethical and moral instruction, and further provided useful knowledge to strengthen someone's' faith and defending it in the polemical encounter with Christians and Jews 63 ; we should also note that there are many loose references to majlis in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 and that they are among the elements that give cohesion to the materials in the miscellaneous codex as a whole.
The preceding discussion adds to the existing evidence of the late production of Arabic manuscripts by the Mudejars and the Moriscos and indicates that this corpus was contemporary with the production of Aljamiado adaptations. The special place of Arabic in Islam easily accounts for the efforts of peninsular Muslims to preserve the Qurʾān and other religious texts in this language. This does not necessarily apply for MS Escorial Árabe 1668, whose narratives do not stand out so much because of their religious character-though this is not completely absent-but rather because they deal with earthly pleasures and human emotions, such as love, in a remarkable way. The beauty and the extraordinary images that these narratives evoke and the will to preserve Islamic heritage are likely strong reasons for copying them into Arabic in a period (the first half of the sixteenth century) when a number of Aljamiado adaptations of these narratives already existed. Such an effort suggests that Muslims in the Christian territories could have had different levels of literacy and degrees of language proficiency in Arabic, ranging from a fairly good command to complete ignorance. We should not altogether dismiss the possibility that when educated Muslims copied and used Arabic texts-and they did so not only for personal reasons but also as religious leaders, to teach their coreligionists-they assumed that the addressed audiences understood some Arabic, too 64 .
When we look at the Aljamiado corpus, we probably do not err much when we work from the hypothesis that copyists had more knowledge of Arabic than merely the alphabet. This follows from the language alternation (Arabic, Romance) in Aljamiado texts and also from an element that is also found in MS Escorial Árabe 1668, the juxtaposition or combinations of the narrative genre with the normative one. In the eyes of the Muslim religious leaders and educated individuals, such use no doubt could serve as an effective means to reach communities with heterogeneous educational backgrounds. The story of a woman who seeks repentance for her infidelity (MS RESC/4 (Olim. J4), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid, ff. 84v-88v) is illustrative in this respect and, here, the account of her meeting with Muḥam-mad is rendered into Romance (Aljamiado) but it ends with a long duʿāʾ, or supplication, in Arabic. It thus appeals to the senses and to Islamic devotion. To conclude these brief comments on the production of Mudejar and Morisco manuscripts, it is interesting to note that Ibn Ḥabīb is the main transmitter of the isnād, or chain of authorities, of the story in MS RESC/4 and also of the previously unidentified story in Aljamiado of Ḥabīb al-Najjār (or the Carpenter) in one of the manuscripts of the Escuelas Pías de Zaragoza, following a majlis (MS CEPZ 12 (Olim. B), ff. 114v-138r) 65 . When placed next to the new evidence about Ibn Ḥabīb in MS Escorial Árabe 1668, one can only wonder about the Mudejars' and Moriscos' interest in his figure and writings.

Practices of Gathering and Preaching among Mudejars and Moriscos
MS Escorial Árabe 1668 delves into the literary topoi of the majlis and it also provides us with remarkable glimpses into the practices of gathering by the Mudejars and the Moriscos, about scholarly meetings in the first centuries of Islam, and about the later reception of writings on such practices by Andalusī authors. One fragment from Ibn Ḥabīb's al-Taʾrīkh that is not found in the current edition by Aguadé refers to the majālis by the Qurʾān scholar and cousin of Muḥammad, Ibn ʿAbbās, that were considered to be the most dignified gatherings of its kind ever known. A large number of scholars from different disciplines (fiqh jurists, grammarians, and Qurʾān and ḥadīth scholars) came to these gatherings and asked questions that Ibn ʿAbbās answered with a wide 14. In the account told on the authority of Ibn Ḥabīb, the name of the third envoy sent to Antioquia is Julius, but as Masʿūdī rightly remarks in his Murūj al-dhahab [The Meadows of Gold], this name has been subject to discussion and he claims it is "Botros (Petrus) in Latin, Siman in Arabic and Chimoun alsefa in Syriac". My translation of Masʿūdī (Xth c.), Les prairies d'or, Vol. 1, p. 128. His profession is also disputed. See Vajda, "Ḥabīb al-Nadjdjār" and, also, Busse, "Antioch and its prophet Ḥabīb al-Najjār", and the references to an abridgement of the story by al-Ṭabarī in Ṭarafī, The stories of the Prophets, on p. 108 (No. 499-500) and pp. 186-187 for the Arabic text. range of responses. A great amount of food was served. Next, we find a report of Ibn Ḥabīb's pupil, (Yusūf ibn Yaḥyā) al-Maghāmī (d. 288/901) 66 in which Ibn Ḥabīb talks about the generosity of his teacher from Medīna,. We come to know that al-Mājishūn fed his students and allowed strangers to attend his meetings and gave them clean clothes 67 : ʿAṭāʾ (ibn Abī Rabāḥ, Mecca, 653-732) said: "I never saw a majlis more dignified than the one by Ibn ʿAbbās. Those studied in fiqh, grammar, Qurʾān, and ḥadīth asked him questions, and he answered with a wide range of answers." Ibn Sīrīn (Basra, 8 th c.) said: "I have not seen more fiqh, ḥadīth, food and drink in a house than what I saw by Ibn ʿAbbās." . . . Al-Maghāmī heard ʿAbd al Malik saying that al-Mājishūn was elderly but fed his disciples and accommodated them and Ibn Ḥabīb saw strangers dwelling in his (i.e. al-Mājishūn's) house and that he ordered his servants to wash their clothes and fed them and improved their condition.
The deliberation about religious issues seems to have been accompanied by a certain preoccupation with hospitality, surface-level considerations, and the bodily needs of the assembled. 68 One finds this element in the wondrous majlis in MS Escorial Árabe 1668, but it is reasonable to assume that material concerns like food were only secondary in scholarly gatherings. They had the main function of providing expert knowledge through question and answer, as illus-trated, for example, in the majālis on medical education during the Ṭāʾifa period preserved in an Escurialense manuscript, MS Escorial Árabe 887 69 .
On the other hand, MS Escorial Árabe 1668 contains an Arabic-Aljamiado text that is not a "kind of prologue" but a sermon 70 . This remarkable composition stands as a genuine work of the Mudejars and the Moriscos, indeed. The text, written in the first person, is introduced as a waʿẓ (sermon) 71 . Some elements, such as the partial rendering of Qurʾānic verses followed by the expression "until the end of the verse" (f. 86v), suggest that it was most likely written as a memory aid 72 . The learned Muslim says, "Honored gentlemen, all of you, and the clean ḥurris, the caste women, I acknowledge that I have to be excused for being unable to stand up in front of this enlightened representation on account of two reasons and causes." 73 The preacher addresses a distinguished council, an esclareçiḏa representaçion or majlis, that is mixedsex (without necessarily precluding segregation). We also infer from his words that those assembled-including women-are seated, so he sits as well. His reasons for not standing include that this is not tactful for a humble person who claims to bear God's verses, Word, and ad-

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Al-Qantara XLI 1, 2020, pp. 95-147 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: https//doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2020.004 69 See for this manuscript Arvide Cambra, "Nota sobre la práctica y la enseñanza de la medicina". 70 Cf. Epalza, "Un manuscrito narrativo normativo", p. 42. Several studies have shown that preaching was a common practice among the Mudejars and the Moriscos, and we have examples of sermons copied by their communities, both in Arabic (e.g. MS RESC/100 (Olim. J100), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid) and in Aljamiado (e.g. MS RESC/17 (Olim. J17), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid). See for the latter Attou, Los sermones de Ibn Nubāta, and for the first, as part of an illuminating study on the subject of oratory in the Medieval Muslim World, see Jones, The Power of Oratory. 71 MS Escorial Árabe 1668, ff. 86r-88r. It is unclear to me whether the diacritical of ẓ corresponds to a spot one could see on the paper at great distance to the left of the letter, or if the word is written with ṭ, instead. 72 We also read, at the very beginning, the phrase "ṣalawū ʿalā Muḥammad thalātha marrātin thumma tazaʿum li-āya," which indicates the protocol of praying thrice for Muḥammad, followed by Qur. 67:1-2 in Arabic. 73 MS Escorial Árabe 1668, f. 86r. There are two types of ink and pen used in these folia, and it is not clear whether this indicates two different hands. In what follows, they will be referred to as Q1 and Q2; most of the text is with Q1. Additions that facilitate the understanding of words and sentences are provided between parenthesis; the punctuation (with exception of * and of the commas between parenthesis) is also mine: (f. 86r) Q1 "(H)onrraḏos señores los toḏos en jerenal (i.e. general) y a las linbias ḥurris castas ḏe las mulleres, por çierto reconoçiendo que yo seria ḏescusaḏo ḏe levantarme en aquesta esclareçiḏa representaçion por ḏos cabsas y respectos". monitions to the prudent "çides alfaquíes" who attend the gathering 74 . No more specifics about this meeting are known 75 but the data add to other evidence of such Muslim gatherings as the one in 1534 in the writings of the prolific but rather obscure late fifteenth-century figure
The inclusion of a sermon of such characteristics strongly indicates that the interests of the Mudejars and the Moriscos in the materials that make up MS Escorial Árabe 1668 went beyond the mere preservation of their Muslim heritage and included the stabilization of knowledge within the communities 81 . The latter was indeed among the preacher's aims and it was achieved by making a selection and organizing the materials for the sermon so as to convey a unitary discourse that would make his coreligionists aware of death, "[a]ny Muslim should think about death and be aware of it, because in the end we have to enter where the prophets, the walīs (i.e. holy men), and the friends of God died." 82 The gathering is set up through a strategy that takes recourse to a variety of sources, mostly Arabic ones, though the author also intersperses Aljamiado words and Aljamiado sentence fragments. The

AN ARABIC MISSING LINK TO ALJAMIADO LITERATURE
Al-Qantara XLI 1, 2020, pp. 95-147 ISSN 0211-3589 doi: https//doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2020.004 80 For example, in MS RESC/3 (Olim. J3), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid, we read the following on f. 177r: "the call to prayer is obligatory for the Muslim community (aljama) in the mosque, and in the cities, towns, and places. The call to prayer is welcomed in the gatherings outside the mosque, in the houses. And the call to prayer is disapproved of on the roads. It is not allowed (from an Islamic point of view; ḥarām) for women to say the call to prayer. A womenwoman cannot be a worship leader (imām) of other women nor of men, no matter how wise she is. Likewise, a young, unmarried man cannot be an imām." My translation of: "el pergüeno es deuḏo con la (a)ljama en la mezquida y en las çiudades y en las villas y lugares * y es amaḏo el pergüeno en los ajuntamientos fuera de la mezquida en las casas * y es esquivo el pergüeno en los caminos * y es kharam (sic) a las mujeres el pregonar * y la mujer no sea al-imām de las mujeres * ni de los hombres bor sabia que sea ni el mancebo por casar *". The fragment is also transcribed by Kontzi,Aljamiado Texte,Vol. 2,p. 543. 81 On the circulation of knowledge through the networks established between the various local communities, with the Muslim communities outside the Christian territories, and its preservation by scholars, see Miller, Guardians of Islam; and Kadri, Moreno Moreno and Echevarría Arsuaga (eds.), Circulaciones mudéjares. 82 MS Escorial Árabe 1668, f. 86v: "Conviene cualsiquiere muçlim pensar en la muert porque a la final y y aperçebirse por ella porque a la final en ella (h)abemos ḏentrar porque ḏonde los al-nabies y al-walies y amigos ḏe Aḷḷāh murieron". On the approaches to death by the Mudejars and Moriscos, see the publication by Vázquez, Desde la penumbra de la fosa. This is a recurring subject that lasts in their literature after the expulsions, as evidenced, among other examples, in the chapters devoted to it by the Morisco known as the "refugee in Tunisia". See Galmés de Fuentes, Tratado de los dos caminos, pp. 457-474. sources include sayings by ʿĪsā and Ibn ʿAṭiyyah (who should most likely be identified with the twelfth-century Granadan scholar and mufassir [481/1086-541/1147]); riwāyas about ʿĪsā, Dāwūd 83 , and Muḥammad 84 ; some verses that are very similar to those by al-Mutanabbī and are introduced by "qāla al-shāʿir" or "the poet said"; a fragment that the preacher claims to have read in Samarkandī's (d. 373/983) Tanbīh al-Ghāfilīn [Awakening of the Negligents] 85 ; and a fragment about the angel of death (mālik al-mawt), who is claimed to have the world in his hands in the same way that those in the audience can take whatever they want from a table that is in front of them 86 . We can only wonder whether this is a reference to a table full of delicacies placed in front of those gathered in the assembly, thus following majlis practices like those of Ibn ʿAbbās.

Illustrations and Figurative Representations in Mudejar and Morisco Works
There is a third and final element: the employment of illustrations and the use of figurative representations in Mudejar and Morisco manuscripts. The disapproving perspective of using figurative images in art, known as aniconism, is widespread in Islam. However, as Rachel Arié already noted, there is a custom to represent such images in the Eastern regions of the Mediterranean under Islam (from which there are numerous examples) and also in the Iberian Peninsula. To support this for the latter case, she quotes Ibn Khaldūn's (733/1332-809/1406) Muqaddima [Prolegomena], where he claims that the practices of Iberian Christians and Muslims could have been very similar "even in the painting (rasm) of figurative representations (tamāthīl) on the walls (judrān), the buildings (maṣāniʿ) and the houses (buyūt)." 87 Arié is interested in one particular manuscript of Maghribī hand, MS Escorial Árabe 528, that contains the Sulwān al-muṭāʿ fī udwān al-aṭbāʿ [Consolation for the Ruler during the Hostility of his Subjects] by Ibn Ẓafaral-Ṣiqillī (d. ca. 565-7/1170-2) (Figure 1) 88 . This copy of the Sulwān al-muṭāʿ is contemporary to that of MS Escorial Árabe 1668 and contains magnificent colour illustrations 89 . The originality of the illustrated miniatures is disputed by scholars like Francisco Fernández and González or Felipe Navarro, but there is consensus that the miniatures are of Spanish origin and likely authored by a Morisco-Arié suggested in this regard that he could have come from Granada 90 .
In truth, there are few Mudejar and Morisco works that employ illustrations. One example of a work in which Qurʾānic characters or figures from Islamic traditions are depicted is the Arabic-Aljamiado manuscript RESC/22 (Olim. J22), Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás, Madrid). In it, a representation of the king of the jinns Barqān is connected to magical practices among their communities (Figure 2) 91 . Barqān is represented in a totally different way than the images in the manuscript studied by Arié. Here, we see only abstract lines, simple and schematic, which gives Barqān's body a geometric and rectilinear shape, with a head that looks like a quill. In contrast, the illustrations in the Sulwān are closer to the beautiful images in manuscripts, such as the one containing the love story of Bayāḍ and Riyāḍ in a unique and earlier Maghribī manuscript from the Vatican (MS Vat. Ar. 368). 92 Whether Barqān and other figures in MS RESC/22 are represented in such a way as a result of the copyist's conscious choice is a matter of speculation. After all, these representations belong to a miscellaneous codex that largely deals with divination and talismanic uses (and, besides, here one should note that the nature of the jinn is not the same as that of human beings). It is of course also quite possible that the scribe didn't know better.
There is also some evidence that Muslims in the Christian territories adapted Arabic manuscripts containing illustrations into Aljamiado. This is the case of the Recontamiento del rey Alixandre [Narration of King Alexander], edited by Francisco Guillén Robles in 1888 and by Nykl in 1929 93 . The Aljamiado adaptation by an Aragonese Muslim   was also taken from an Arabic original, though a great number of captions from previous illustrations-in most cases representing Dhū al-Qarnayn (Alexander), alone or accompanied by other characters-were left untranslated. The illustrations are unfortunately missing 94 and the reasons for this are again unknown to us. We have, moreover, lost the trace of some Arabic manuscripts with illustrations that appear to have circulated among the Mudejars and the Moriscos. The aforementioned manuscript RESC/22 was kept between the folia of a larger volume written in Arabic, dated 851 (=1447). It belonged to the collection of Pablo Gil y Gil of the findings of Almonacid (it was numbered XXXIII), and it was sold to an antiquarian after his death. As Juan Carlos Villaverde Amieva notes, the story of "The trap, the sparrow and the hunter" had "very curious paintings," and he argues that these paintings may have likely inspired the antiquarian to buy it 95 .
We have seen that the story of "The trap, the sparrow and the hunter" is also found in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 (ff. 59r-61v), which was taken from an Arabic manuscript with illustrations like the now lost manuscript from Almonacid. The story from the Kalīla wa Dimna of "The sad king who gives good advice to others but not to himself" (ff. 78r-79v), and that of "The boy and the garden of al-Jawharī with the female jinn and what happened to him with her" on f. 46v may have also contained illustrations. In all cases, they include only the captions 96 , so the evidence in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 does not shed any light on the issue at hand. What is more, it raises a number of questions, for example, whether a similar story in Thousand Nights and One Night is in any way connected to its homonymous version in Gil y Gil's manuscript that was sold. There are nonetheless two aspects to comment upon. One is that some images could have been figurative, both in the story of "The sad king" and in the one by al-Jawharī which abruptly stops after the caption of an illumination in which the young boy meets with a female slave in a majlis. The other is that the copyist left blank spaces after the captions and that, therefore, we can safely assume that he had planned to include them. Why this did not happen is unknown to us, but his way of proceeding suggests that the transmission of illustrations in the texts could have depended on the ways and perhaps also on the division of labour of copyists: here, he clearly decides to copy all the texts first (not only those with illustrations). We can only guess at the reason. Maybe this was because it was more comfortable to work with one type of material (pen, ink, etc.) and later to change to another more adequate for the drawings. Perhaps he did not have the means or access to these materials in 1522 when, regardless of where the text had been copied, the restrictions on Muslims (and thus the hardships on their communities) began to increase in the whole of the territories. Or possibly the copyist hoped that the more expert hand of one of his coreligionists would later take care of the illustrations. In any case, the blank spaces in these three narratives complicate any possible claim about the transmission of illuminated manuscripts; it reminds us that artistic skills are only one of the factors we have to bear in mind. This particularly applies to Aljamiado adaptations like the story of King Alexander mentioned above, which might have been adapted from an unfinished Arabic Vorlage, as was MS Escorial Árabe 1668. In the absence of greater evidence, however, these are only suggestions on a subject that, as far as I know, has not been studied in this case.

Concluding Remarks
I would like to make a few final remarks about MS Escorial Árabe 1668. Perhaps the most straightforward is the observation that while previous scholarship had already emphasized the importance of some of the narratives in this miscellaneous codex, the detailed, comprehensive analysis of its materials truly reveals it to be an exceptional source of major importance to the study of the culture of Muslims from the Christian territories and the circulation of Arabic writings on the Iberian Peninsula. Evidence indicates that the origin of a number of these materials is likely located east of the Mediterranean. We are probably not mistaken in assuming that a number of them (maybe all of them) first made a stop in the Muslim territories of al-Andalus before entering the Mudejar and Morisco communities. This possibility is reinforced by the presence of works such as the so far unidentified copy of al-Taʾrīkh [The History] by the Andalusī ͑ Abd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (d.238/853). Regardless of the trajectories of these materials, there is no question that MS Escorial Árabe 1668 gives us insight into how Muslims under Christian rule stringed together the legacies of the Muslim East, Northern Africa, and al-Andalus in their literature and used these materials to educate their fellow believers in Islam and to entertain them.
Emphasis has indeed been placed on the double nature of the texts (narrative-normative) noted by Epalza, and that confers upon MS Escorial Árabe 1668 a sense of unity that comes along with the pervasive presence of certain elements, such as the references to gatherings, or majlis. Narratives bring exuberant images that stimulate the readers' and listeners' senses and pursue the aim of making Muslims aware of the punishments and rewards in the hereafter. The envisaging of places that in many aspects are beyond ordinary experience could have been regarded as effective in predisposing the believers who attended such meetings to the internalization of a message on piety and faith in Islam and raising awareness about the inescapability of death and the need to repent. In spite of the imposed Christian restrictions, which made the celebration of public gatherings increasingly difficult, various sources (that include historical and archival materials, inquisitorial reports, and Muslim writings) attest that Mudejars and Moriscos gathered on a regular basis, in public and in secret, to pray together, to discuss religious matters, and to organize the internal affairs of their communities, among other purposes, well into their expulsions in the early seventeenth-century. The members of their communities travelled to Muslim lands in search for knowledge and were active in convening and setting the agenda of meeting sessions.
The original Arabic narratives in MS Escorial Árabe 1668, their later adaptation into Aljamiado and circulation, as well as the Aljamiado-Arabic text, show how the diversification of knowledge was a central element in the religious education of the Mudejars and the Moriscos. That is to say, the texts point to an active mobilization of different resources and techniques by their leaders (which, as we have seen, included the teaching of moral lessons through enjoyment) to make Islam accessible to the greatest number of people. The foregoing analysis and the presence in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 of such important works as Ibn Ḥabīb's al-Taʾrīkh not only situates miscellaneous manuscripts in a new light but emphasizes their importance. Mudejar and Morisco works of miscellanea have often been considered as being of secondary importance to our understanding of the transmission of knowledge among their communities, precisely because of their lack of an explicit common subject. It is my understanding that this is a powerful reason why there has been so little interest in MS Escorial Árabe 1668 to date.