DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-1117-8.06 ISSN: 2704-6362

The Acoustics of Mediterranean Diplomacy: Negotiating Islamicate Sounds in Medieval Iberia

Nikolas Jaspert
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This paper opens with general thoughts on the importance of different forms of sound – speech, music and other culturally encoded acoustic signifiers – for mediaeval diplomacy, before moving on to focus on acoustics as the very object of diplomatic exchange. Certain audible signals became the issue of negotiations between Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages, and this paper analyses the case of the Islamic call to prayer, the adhān. The call is situated within a wide spectrum of other Islamicate sounds emitted by subjugated Muslims and regulated by ruling Christian authorities. But it is particularly prominent, as it was considered an important message that transgressed space and united those who heard it into a very particular social network: voluntary or involuntary communities of listening. An analysis of over 500 documents from the Crown of Aragon drawn up between 1230 and 1500 reveals that permission to call coreligionists to prayer was not necessarily withdrawn the moment Christians conquered Muslim territories. Rather, it became an object of regular negotiation for centuries

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