wrote to Muslim jurists (mUFtis) to seek legal
opinions (FatWas) regarding how to preserve
Islam under Christian rule. Mudejar jurists and
preachers urged the strict application of Islamic
ritual purity and morality codes in everyday life.
Such strategies also challenged uncompromising
judges such as mUhammad ibn rUshd (d. 1122),
who condemned the Mudejars for remaining in
non-Muslim territory.
Under the patronage of Christian monarchs,
Mudejars collaborated in the translation schools
that transmitted classical and Islamic knowledge
to western Europe. Mudejar architects, artisans,
and institutions left their cultural imprint on the
Iberian Christian kingdoms. Mudejar arabesqUe
decorations and brickwork appear in churches
and palaces built in Spain and Portugal and in the
Americas from the 16th century. Following the
royal decrees of compulsory conversion to Chris-
tianity, Mudejars came to be known as Moriscos.
See also architectUre; christianity and islam.
Linda G. Jones
Further reading: John Boswell, The Royal Treasure:
Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the
Fourteenth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1977); Robert I. Burns, Islam under the
Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century
Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1973); L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250
to 1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990);
Khaled Abou el Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minor-
ities: The Juristic Discourse on Muslim Minorities
from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth
Centuries.” Islamic Law and Society 1, no. 3 (Novem-
ber 1994): 141–187.
muezzin (Arabic: muadhdhin)
The muezzin is the man who performs the daily
call to prayer (adhan). His counterpart in a church
would be a bell ringer. According to Islamic tradi-
tion the first muezzin was bilal ibn rabbah (d.
ca. 641), one of the companions oF the prophet
known for his beautiful voice. Eventually the
muezzin became part of the staff employed in a
mosqUe. In the early days he would do the call
from any high point in the mosque so that people
in the surrounding neighborhoods could hear
that prayer time had arrived. When the minaret
became a standard feature of mosque architec-
tUre, the muezzin would climb its winding stairs
to the top to do his job. Muezzins were also hired
to accompany caravans that traveled to mecca
for the haJJ. In modern times they use a public
address system without having to climb up the
minaret, and people can now also hear their calls
to prayer via radio, television, and portable elec-
tronic devices.Further reading: Barry Hoberman, “The First Muez-
zin.” Saudi Aramco World 34 (July–August 1983): 2–3;
Scott L. Marcus, Music in Egypt: Experiencing Music,
Expressing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007): 1–15.mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Muslim trained in Islamic
law, the sharia, who has the aUthority to issue
formal legal opinions called FatWas. This person’s
counterpart in Shii contexts is called a mujtahid.
The opinions given by a mufti are informed by
the qUran, the sUnna, and legal tradition. They
can be solicited by individuals or government
officials and political authorities. This function
appeared early in the Muslim community when it
determined that it must strive to apply the legal
prescriptions of the Quran and sunna to the daily
needs of the newly emerging Islamic religious and
political order in the Middle East. Unlike a judge
(qadi), a mufti’s ruling was not necessarily tied
to a court case, nor was it final. Rather, it had to
contend with advisory opinions issued by other
muftis. However, the decisions of muftis were col-
lected in books and played an instrumental role in
the development of the Islamic legal tradition. At
first muftis were paid by donations from privatemufti 487 J