4(%,%'!,34!

453/&)-- 3).4(%)3,!-)#7%34
3%#/.$%)'(4( .).4(&)&4%%.4(#%.452)%3 
!.).42/$5#4)/.
Maribel FIERRO
##(3 #3)#-ADRID
The starting point for this collaborative volume was John Tolans suggestion made in October 2010 to organize together in Madrid a conference on the
topic of the legal status of the IMM S - i.e., the protected Jewish and Christian
communities in Islamic lands - who lived in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain and
0ORTUGAL 
Before the suggestion was made, John Tolan had kindly invited me to join
THESCIENTICCOMMITTEEOFHISPROJECT2%,-).4HELEGALSTATUSOFRELIGIOUS
MINORITIESINTHE%URO -EDITERRANEANSPACEFTH FTEENTHCENTURIES FUNDEDBYTHE
%UROPEAN2ESEARCH#OUNCIL%2# WITHAN!DVANCED2ESEARCH'RANT!2' 
for the period 2010-2015.1)ATTENDEDTHEKICK OCONFERENCETHATTOOKPLACE
in the University of Nantes in October 2010 and became enthusiastic about
both the aims of the project, and the team of young and energetic researchers
involved in it. Moreover, I saw in the collaboration with John Tolan and his
project a way to enrich my own research project KOHEPOCU (Knowledge, he
RESYANDPOLITICALCULTUREINTHE)SLAMIC7ESTEIGHTH FTEENTHCENTURIES FUNDED
ALSOBYTHE%2#WITHAN!2'FORTHEPERIOD 2 The study of the status
of religious minorities in the Islamic West - including al-Andalus, Sicily and
North Africa with the exception of Egypt - is in fact a crucial issue for a better
understanding of the ways in which Islamic legal and theological doctrines
and norms intersect with legal and social practices, and of the changing political backgrounds for the application, deviation or abandonment of such
norms.
Around the time John Tolan suggested to devote a conference to this topic,
I had been working on the abolition of the IMMA status that took place during the early Almohad period, when the Islamic West had been politically
UNITEDFORTHERSTTIME3 What I had found was a fascinating case for histo-

4HEMULTI LINGUALISMPREDOMINANTINTHE2%,-).PROJECTISREECTEDINTHISVOLUMEBYTHE
inclusion of contributions in Spanish, French and English.
2
-EMBERSOFTHISPROJECTHAVEHELPEDINTHEEDITIONOFTHISBOOK!DDAY(ERNNDEZ%STRELLA
3AMBA$IEGO3OLS*ESS4LLEZANDMOSTESPECIALLY!MINA.ACIRIASWELLAS-ERCEDES-ELCHOR
3
4WO PUBLICATIONS RESULTED FROM THAT RESEARCH &IERRO ! -USLIM LAND WITHOUT *EWS OR
Christians: Almohad policies regarding the protected people, and Conversion, ancestry and
universal religion: the case of the Almohads in the Islamic West.

THE LEGAL STATUS OF )-- 3 IN THE ISLAMIC WEST, Maribel FIERRO and John TOLAN
Turnhout, 2013, (Relmin 1) pp. 9-18
FHG
DOI 10.1484/M.RELMIN-EB.1.101810