Religious pluralism in the Islamic tradition in late al-Andalus and in contemporary Islamic transnationalism: A conceptual approach

Abstract

This chapter explores Islamic tradition to see how religious diversity was experienced in the past and is evoked in the present. The main object of this study are some key concepts that are used in relation to religious pluralism in legal and political documents such as fatwas, court testimonies, pacts, treaties, capitulations and Islamic initiatives in favour of peace and tolerance. A diachronic analysis of these documentary sources shows us that the concept of religious tolerance had a different meaning within Islamic tradition than it has today. The documents we will be analyzing date from two different periods in history. The first period covers the final era of al-Andalus, with the decline of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and its surrender to the Catholic monarchs, while the second refers to the post–9/11 era, which was characterized by Islamophobia and a global war on terrorism. Both crises, the collapse of al-Andalus in the fifteenth century and the securitization of Islam in the twenty-first century, triggered significant reconceptualizations of religious pluralism.