Magic in Malta: Sellem bin al-Sheikh Mansur and the Roman Inquisition, 1605

Alex Mallett is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Research and Education and a member of the team of the Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies at Waseda University, Tokyo. He researches Christian-Muslim relations in the pre-modern Mediterranean, and particularly interactions between subaltern Muslims and Christians of Western Europe and narratives of encounters between Muslims and Christians.Catherine Rider is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the history of magic, medicine, and the Church in the medieval period. She is the author of Magic and Religion in Medieval England and Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages.Dionisius A. Agius is Emeritus Al-Qasimi Professor of Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture at the University of Exeter, and an Affiliate Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. He is an Arabist and ethnographer with expertise in the maritime landscapes and author of many books on the Mediterranean and Western Indian Ocean. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

• AcknowledgementsList of Illustrations and FiguresAbbreviationsArabic Transliteration SystemNotes on ContributorsIntroductionAlex Mallett, Dionisius A. Agius and Catherine RiderPart 1 1 The Trial of Sellem bin al-Sheikh Mansur before the Roman Inquisition on Malta, 1605: Transcription and TranslationAlex Mallett and Catherine RiderPart 2 2 The Trial of Sellem: A Microhistorical CommentaryAlex Mallett and Catherine RiderPart 3 3 Sellem Bin al-Sheikh Mansur: A Muslim Magician in Catholic MaltaJoan Abela4 The Cognitive Landscape of Seventeenth-Century Malta: Communicating Information in a Cosmopolitan SocietyDionisius A. Agius5 The Maltese Inquisition: Expectations and Evidence in the Sellem CaseJonathan Barry6 The Witch and the Judge: Sellem before the Roman Inquisition, 1605Frans Ciappara7 An Anthropology of Confessional Practice Regarding Magic in Early Seventeenth-Century Malta: Liminality, Communitas, ExclusionIan R. NettonPart 4 8 Magic and Divination Lost in Translation: A Cairene in a Maltese InquisitionLiana Saif9 Geomancy, Divination, and IslamPierre Lory10 Learned and Common Magic in the Trial of SellemCatherine Rider11 Measurement and Magic: Some Notes on the Texts on Measurement in the Inquisition Documents against Sellem the MoorCharles Burnett12 Magic in Ottoman North Africa, 1570–1700, as seen through European EyesPaul AuchterloniePart 5 13 Concluding RemarksAlex Mallett, Catherine Rider and Dionisius A. AgiusAppendix 1: Evidence Presented to the Inquisition by Vittorio Cassar: Instructions for Mathematics and the Practise of GeomancyAlex Mallett and Catherine RiderAppendix 2: Tabula SybillumAlex Mallett and Catherine RiderIndex