From Andalusia... The Moriscos and the "Trench of Paradise" fantasies
In his book The Waking Dreams of the Lonely Wanderer , Rousseau cautioned that a lie that does no harm to oneself or to another is not considered a lie. It is, according to the description of the Swiss philosopher, mere "imaginations". When "we give false money to someone who has nothing in our possession, we certainly deceive him, but we do not embezzle anything from him." History tells of great lies that are no further than being "imaginations". He promoted it, not intending to embezzle something that did not belong to him, but rather his purpose was, in most cases, to recover what he had, so he resorted to subterfuge after his strength exhausted him.
Among these stories is a story that overshadows the grief of our Arab culture: Andalusia. As for the plot of the story, it is a noble lie, representing what Jacques Derrida called "the art of lying", meaning that the lie came as a departure from shallowness. For more than four centuries, the historical lie still has a huge witness to which people make pilgrimages and celebrations are held around it.
The lie or the story dates back to the time of the Inquisition in Spain, when the Muslims had lost their Andalusia forever, only to suffer from persecution. Many resorted to hiding their faith, and they were also denied speaking their Arabic language, and their suffering extended for decades, until it was no longer necessary for the revolution (1568-1571). ) to violently suppress and expel most of the Moriscos (who remained Muslims in the country and converted to Christianity and were given Spanish names), from Granada, the city that led the revolution, to Castile.
This bleak picture at home does not reflect Spain's external situation at the time. In the sixteenth century, during the reign of King Philip II in particular, where the events of our story take place, Spain reached the peak of its glory thanks to the discovery of the new world and the bounties it brought to it.
The departure of Boabdil’s Family from the Alhambra (1492). Manuel Gómez-Moreno (1880)
Discoveries dating back to the time of Christ
Exalted by its power, the great kingdom presented itself as a protector of Catholicism, to fight several wars under the banner of its religious doctrine, so King Philip and his nobles were greatly pleased with these discoveries, the first of which was a metal box found in the wall of an old silo, and the box contained a parchment inscribed with a text in Latin, and another in the language of An old Arab, half a veil (attributed to the Virgin Mary later) and human remains.
This discovery was followed by a second: lead tablets written on it also in Arabic, in an area known as "Scromante" or "Trench of Paradise", as it was called during the days of Islamic rule.
The discoveries inflamed the enthusiasm of the Spaniards, so they continued the excavation to find other slabs, albeit smaller in size, and the state of the discoveries indicated that they belong to the era of Christ, but no one understood anything from the inscriptions written in several languages, including ancient, non-punctuated Arabic, called Sulaymaniyah. It totaled 223 boards, so the Spanish thought it was the fifth gospel that the Virgin Mary directed to Spain.
The Vatican tried to prevent any research on the archaeological treasure, and some questioned its antiquity, but the Church of Granada confirmed the validity of the discoveries, and the Archbishop, Pedro de Castro, defied the decision of the Pope of Rome to prevent the examination of the tablets, to summon the best translators in the kingdom.
There were four of them, Luis Fajardo, professor of Arabic at the University of Salamanca, Francis López Tamaride, Alonso de Castillo (Moresque physician and translator at the court of King Philip) and Miguel de Luna (Moresque physician and translator of the King's Arabic).
Translators worked hard to decipher the writing, until Miguel de Luna, with the help of De Castillo, was able to solve it, so it became clear that the remains belong to St. Stefano, and that the one who ordered the burial of the box was St. Cecil, the first to introduce Christianity to Spain, and the inscriptions on parchment told a strange story. about him.
The story says that two Arab men heard about healing miracles performed by Christ, so they went to him hoping for recovery from a disease that afflicted them. , who introduced Spain to Christianity.
The tablets also spoke of "Christian origins of Granada" dating back to the arrival of the apostle Yaqoub bin Zaydi, accompanied by his students: Esthio, Cecil, and Tsiphon to the city, and that they moved between its caves, where they wrote the tablets, so that the Spaniards found their remains in those caves.
Souls in Spain were kindled with enthusiasm, so they appointed St. Cecil as the protector of the city of Granada, and the king ordered the construction of a huge church in the place of the discoveries, called the Church of the Monastery of Scromante, in which to deposit the remains and sacred tablets, and after that it became a shrine to which people make pilgrimages.
As for the content of the tablets that were discovered successively (1595-1595), it preached a belief closer to the conception of Islam than Christianity. Christ is not the Son of God, but rather a spirit from God. Their tongue, so the Fifth Gospel is written with it, and that God chose them for a prophet of the end times to come from them.
This invitation prompted some to question the credibility of the discoveries, but de Castro, Archbishop of Granada, defended it vigorously, especially since what was mentioned in the tablets agreed with what the bishop was promoting before their appearance, that the Lady Mary conceived with Christ without defilement, a belief that was rejected by Rome. permanence.
The entire Christian world was eagerly hearing the news about these discoveries, but no one at that time saw what a Moroccan traveler, diplomat, and translator of Morisco origin mentioned in his book “The Shooting Star’s Journey to Meeting the Loved Ones . ” Heaven is dangerous and revealing information.
Ahmed bin Qasim Al-Hijri, in the course of his talk about a trip he made to Spain, told the story of the discoveries, and he said: When they searched in the cave, they found some stones knotted, so they broke them, and found in the heart of each stone a book and a lead sheet written in Arabic, so the Andalusian priest ordered the two mentioned: Al-Akihel and Al-Faqih Al-Jibs May God have mercy on them, and others with the translation of books.
Returning to the four names that were commissioned to translate, we find two of the Moriscos, namely: Alonso de Castillo and Miguel de Luna, and thus one of them is Al-Akihel and the other is Al-Faqih Al-Jibs. This means that the two remained secretly converted to Islam after converting to Christianity
Al-Akihal and the gypsum jurisprudence! The Spanish sources do not mention any Arabic names among the translators assigned to translate, so who is the al-Akihal and who is the gypsum jurist?! A second surprise, reported by Al-Hajri, is that while he was in Granada, he participated in translating parchment inscriptions at the request of the city's archbishop, de Castro.
Returning to the four names that were commissioned to translate, we find two of the Moriscos, namely: Alonso de Castillo and Miguel de Luna, and thus one of them is Al-Akihel and the other is Al-Faqih Al-Jibs. This means that the two remained secretly converted to Islam after converting to Christianity.
If we single out all the threads of the story here, we will come across two saints who introduced Spain to Christianity, and the slaves announced that they were Arabs, and tablets preaching a doctrine close to what was established in Islam about Christ and the Virgin Mary, so that the inscriptions praise the Arab nation and recommend them, and Moriscan translators who conceal their Islam, and they are the only ones who succeeded In translating what was stated in the Tablets, Muslims, in general, suffer greatly from the Inquisition.
As if the Granada treasure was intended to convey a message that the religion that caused all this hostility and divergence is in its first springs calling for harmony and rapprochement, and that a language that was forbidden to learn and speak in was honored by the early Christians, so they wrote their sacred tablets with it.
Expulsion of the Moriscos at the port of Dénia. Vincente Mostre (1613)
It was a noble lie fabricated from beginning to end by the Moriscos, specifically names about which suspicions hovered, such as: Alonso de Castillo and Miguel de Luna, or al-Akihel, the jurist, the plasterer, and others, although the lie did not reach the Moriscos as they aspired to live and embrace whatever beliefs they wanted, safe for themselves and their families. Where King Philip III issued a decree expelling them from the country (1609).
But the Spaniards kept the Sacramento Church, and accepted the gift of the Moriscos, "the remains of the saint and the martyrs", to be celebrated and presented to this day in popular religious festivals, and on the first Sunday of February of each year, the believers go to the church of the Sacramonte Monastery, where the remains of Saint Cecil lie to be blessed with them, Blessings with "fantasies" of the trench of paradise.
Source: websites