Crypto-Muslim communities held collective prayer with elected lay imams after conversion

Evidence

We performed the evening (asar) prayer as an assembly, and were led in our prayers by Don Manrique de Segovia, who was at that time in Saragossa with certain merchandise. As everybody wanted to do him honor, they set him at the front [i.e., made him imam] with the agreement and assent of everyone. I pronounced the homily (khutba) as the servant and least of those there. Since [the time for] my pilgrimage was drawing near, we were simply waiting for the company that was already assembled in ´Avila la Real, and since Don Manrique knew about the difficulties of my travel plans, he provided for part of what I lacked, and gave me 10 Moorish doblas [ presumably North African coins], and all the other scholars who were there made a contribution in my favor. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 850

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider theme in this book of crypto-Muslim religious practice persisting under Christian rule — a functioning congregation with a merchant (not cleric) as imam.
• CANDY: The image of a community electing a traveling merchant — there for ‘certain merchandise’ — to lead their forbidden evening prayer is a vivid, tellable anecdote about clandestine religious life.