Contradictory Conversion

This chapter examines two sixteenth-century Aljamiado documents that re-tell the story of the conversion to Islam of Kaʿab al-Aḥbar, a spiritual advisor to Muhammad and an influential member of the early Islamic community. The two accounts preserved in RAH 11/9393 and BNE 5390 seemingly reveal a Morisco literary strategy which attempted to highlight the similarities between Islam and the Christianity of the Iberian authorities while casting Judaism in a negative light. These works could be read as attempts to modify ancient stories in order to help create a theological argument for the coexistence of Islam and Christianity in the Iberian Peninsula.