In this volume, a microhistorical approach is employed to provide a transcription, translation, and case-study of the proceedings (written in Latin, Italian and Arabic) of the Roman Inquisition on Malta's 1605 trial of the 'Moorish' slave Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur, who was accused and found guilty of practising magic and teaching it to the local Christians. Through both a detailed commentary and individual case-studies, it assesses what these proceedings reflect about religion, society, and politics both on Malta and more widely across the Mediterranean in the early 17th century. In so doing, this inter- and multi-disciplinary project speaks to a wide range of subjects, including magic, Christian-Muslim relations, slavery, Maltese social history, Mediterranean history, and the Roman Inquisition. It will be of interest to both students and researchers who study any of these subjects, and will help demonstrate the richness and potential of the documents in the Maltese archives
Author(s): Alexander Mallett; Catherine Rider; Dionisius A Agius
Series: Islamic History and Civilization
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 611 (593)
City: Leiden, Boston
Introduction / Alex Mallett, Dionisius A. Agius and Catherine Rider --
The trial of Sellem bin al-Sheikh Mansur before the Roman Inquisitionon Malta,1605 : transcription and translation / Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider --
TheTrial of Sellem : a microhistorical commentary / Alex Mallett and Catherine Rider --
Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur : a Muslim magician in Catholic Malta / Joan Abela --
The Cognitive landscape of seventeenth-sentury Malta : communicating information in a cosmopolitan society / Dionisius A. Agius -The Maltese Inquisition : expectations and evidence in the Sellem Case / Jonathan Barry --
The witch and the judge : Sellem before the Roman Inquisition, 1605 / Frans Ciappara --
An anthropology of confessional practice regarding magic in early seventeenth-century Malta :Liminality, Communitas, Exclusion / Ian R. Netton --
Magic and divination lost in translation : a Cairene in a Maltese Inquisition / Liana Saif --
Geomancy, divination, and Islam / Pierre Lory --
Learned and common magic in the Trial of Sellem / Catherine Rider --
Measurement and magic : some notes on the texts on measurement in the inquisition documents against Sellem the Moor / Charles Burnett --
Magicin Ottoman North Africa,1570-1700, as seen through European eyes / Paul Auchterlonie --
Concluding remarks / Alex Mallett, Catherine Rider and Dionisius A. Agius.
