[Andalusi Studies] "Jurar a l'alquibla"? Oaths made in qibla or facing East?

[Glick, Thomas F]

Here’s a rather full description in a court case from Sumacàrcer in the Ribera Alta del Júcar in 1433: el testimoni qui jura a deu girada la cara alquibla segons çuna e xara de moros…” Arxiu del Regne de València, Governació, Plets, 2249, 7th hand, fol. 40r (18 July 1433). One would expect “a l’alquibla” but the scribe has elided the article.  The sense is witness swears having turned his face to the East.

TG

On Mar 17, 2017, at 1:49 AM, David Wacks <wacks at uoregon.edu<mailto:wacks at uoregon.edu>> wrote:

Dear colleagues:

In Joanot Martorell's Tirant lo Blanc, Muslim characters are asked to jurar a l'alquibla (as if they were swearing on the Bible) more than once. Does this reflect any historical practice or reference to making an oath of particular force while standing in the qibla, or perhaps while facing East, or is it just a fanciful construction of the author?

Thanks very much for any light you can shed on this question.

Best regards,
David

------------------------------------
David Wacks
Professor of Spanish
UO Dept of Romance Languages
agenda<http://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/agenda> / blog<http://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/> / cv<http://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/cv/> / twitter<https://twitter.com/davidwacks> / hcommons.org<http://hcommons.org/>
_______________________________________________
Andalusi_Studies mailing list
Andalusi_Studies at lists.uoregon.edu<mailto:Andalusi_Studies at lists.uoregon.edu>
https://lists.uoregon.edu/mailman/listinfo/andalusi_studies

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uoregon.edu/pipermail/andalusi_studies/attachments/20170317/f05ff5f6/attachment.html>