Economías de la convivencia: musulmanes, cristianos, judíos y el fantasma de la España medieval

Abstract

Convivencia, the coexistence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Islamic Spain, is often portrayed in public discourse as the antithesis to extremism and violence. Furthermore, scholars on Medieval and Early Modern Iberia have argued that Christian mystics and Sufis embodied the concept of convivencia because they prioritized inner belief over religious practice and law. This essay argues that the moral and political economies of the historiographic concept of convivencia, with its liberal assumptions about what constitutes religious tolerance, serves to authorize and justify the use of to sacrifice certain ways of being and living in community while it produces and maintains others.