North African Conferences on Islamic Themes

Abstract

This past spring has seen two important conferences on Islamic topics which merit observation. In mid March CEROMDI, or the Study and Research Centre on Ottoman and Morisco Documentation and Information (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Ottomanes, Morisques, de Documentation et d'Information) held the Fourth International Symposium on Morisco Studies in Zaghwan, approximately 80 km south of Tunis, and in the capital of Tunis itself, in the Hotel du Lac. This meeting lasted from March 15-19, 1989. The conference was made possible largely due to the enthusiasm of Professor Abdeljalil Temimi, of Morisco descent himself, and was inaugurated in the CEROMDI library which Prof. Temimi has built with his own funds in the Morisco city of Zaghwan. The ceremony was attended by members of the government and diplomatic corps as well as professors from all over the Western Mediterranean area. The topics of the symposium covered the art and handicrafts of the Moriscos who were exiled from Spain in 1610, their religious life and the rich legacy they have left in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as in several libraries in Spain itself and elsewhere, such as Paris and Cambridge. Participants came from France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Unjted States and Puerto Rico. Their papers covered many fields, such as interpretation of their documents and description of their heritage. The Spanish delegation was led by the dean of Morisco studies in that country, Professor Alvaro Oalmes de Fuentes, formerly of the University of Oviedo in Asturias and now from the Central University in Madrid: and Mikel de Epalza from Alicante. Others were Professor Consuelo LopezMorillas from Indiana University, and Maria Teresa Narvaez from the University of Puerto Rico in Ro Piedras. The latter spoke on Mancebo de Arevalo, an important yet somewhat mysterious intellectual leader of the persecuted Muslims of Castile in central Spain in the 1520s and 1530s, almost the same time as the picaro Lazarillo de Tonnes. Communications were in French, Arabic, English and Spanish ...