Persecuted minority groups reinterpret sacred texts to read their own fate into them

Evidence

In translation, the special resonance for the Muslims of Spain at this period of certain words cannot always be heard. We may take as an example garib (plural guraba). This word is rendered by him, according to context, as ´etrange and ´etranger, words with negative connotations (“strange,” “stranger”). As has been explained in discussing the Oran fatwa, there was an interpretation of the word garib that was positive, and this interpretation certainly was current among Moriscos. In an eschatology from which they obviously drew much comfort, when the Prophet referred to the role of the garib at the end of days, they saw a promise of an ultimate favorable outcome for themselves. In this way, the ancient literature of hadith, which, so we would assume, could have nothing to communicate to crypto-Muslims about the daily tribulations of life in Spain in the sixteenth century, was felt by them to refer directly to their particular condition. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 700

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Oran fatwa discussion earlier in the book, and to how subjugated groups re-read canonical texts — echoes the broader theme of how religious texts get recontextualized to fit a community’s situation.
• DEEPTHINKING: Rich meditation on how a single word’s positive resonances sustain an entire persecuted community’s eschatological hope — the mechanism by which sacred literature becomes ‘felt to refer directly’ to a people’s condition is subtle and generalizable.