'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'

Adam Bursi, Ph.D. (2015), Cornell University, is a post-doctoral research fellow at Utrecht University in the ERC research project SENSIS: The Senses of Islam. His research studies early Islam in dialogue with other late antique religions, focusing on the ways that rituals related to relics, pilgrimage, and healing were tightly interwoven with the formation and performance of communal membership among early Muslims. He has previously held positions as a fellow at the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee and as a cataloguer of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at Saint John's University. S.J. Pearce, Ph.D. (2011), Cornell University, is associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures at New York University. She has published articles on various aspects of medieval Andalusi literature and cultural history and is the author of The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition (Bloomington, 2017), which is the recipient of the 2019 La Corónica International Book Prize. She has held research fellowships at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Hamza Zafer, Ph.D. (2013), Cornell University, is an assistant professor of Late Antique Judaism and Early Islam in the department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Washington. His work focuses on the development of narrative traditions in the Qur’ān and other early Islamic sources, as well as upon early relationships between Arabian Muslim and Jewish communities. He teaches panoramic courses on major themes in religious studies such as concepts of prophecy across cultures, and evil and the nature of the devil, as well as more focused, text-based classes for advanced students.

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Note on Transliterations and Translations

Bibliography of Ross Brann’s Publications



Introduction



1 Legislating Borders: Naturalized Genoese and Sefardi Merchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean

 Ali H. Akhtar



2 The Headings of the Psalms: A Case Study in Medieval Exegesis and Translation

 Esperanza Alfonso



3 An Iberian Braid for Ross

 Peter Cole



4 Panegyric as Pedagogy: Moses ibn Ezra’s Didactic Poem on the “Beautiful Elements of Poetry” (maḥāsin al-shiʿr) in the Context of Classical Arabic Poetics

 Jonathan Decter



5 Sefarad in Tzarfat: Sefardi and Sefardi-Style Piyyutim in MS Bernkastel-Kues 313

 Elisabeth Hollender



6 Solomon vs. Solomon: A Fabrication of a Hebrew Polemic

 Uriah Kfir



7 “His (Jewish) Nation … and His (Muslim) King”: Modern Nationalism Articulated through Medieval Andalusi Poetry

 S.J. Pearce



8 Inscribing the Good News: The Run-Up to Mark

 F.E. Peters



9 Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Literature: Some Reflections on Textual Transmission for a Modern Edition

 Arturo Prats Oliván



10 Desert and Palace: Poetics of Place in Naṣrid Poems to the Prophet

 Cynthia Robinson



11 The Story of the Crude Preacher by Jacob ben Elʿazar

 Tova Rosen



12 Ohev Nashim and Minḥat Yehudah Soneʾ ha-Nashim: New Fragments of a Debate

 Aurora Salvatierra



13 Ḥever the Pious: Some Aspects of Religion in the Taḥkemoni by Judah al-Ḥarīzī

 Raymond P. Scheindlin



14 Well-Ordered Growth: Meanings and Aesthetics of the Almohad Mosque of Seville

 Jessica Streit



15 A Translation of Q Luqmān/31

 Shawkat M. Toorawa



16 The Story of the Female Jewish Wine Merchant: An Example of Cultural Translation in Medieval Hebrew Literature

 David Torollo



Index