Introduction to “Spanish Mysticism”

As the Guest Editor for the special volume on “Spanish Mysticism”, my experience working with experts in this field has been excellent and very rewarding, especially in these current times, where we are dealing with COVID-19. I am very grateful to have served as the Guest Editor and to have contributed with an article on St. John of the Cross. It has been a great privilege to exchange ideas with scholars from all over the world.

Until just recently, scholars in theology or religious studies often only associated Spanish mysticism with the great Christian mystics from St. Ignatius of Loyola to St. Teresa of Avila to St. John of the Cross. In the pluralistic and global world in which we live today, we must try our best to expand our knowledge and make the connections that existed in medieval and modern times among the three major mystical traditions in the West. The long history of conflicts, tensions, wars and, yes, religious coexistence is an integral part in the study of Spanish mysticism that has to be reckoned with.

Spanish mysticism has become a field of study in itself due to the rich history of kabbalistic, Christian, and Sufi mystics born in the Iberian Peninsula—from Moses de Leon to Abraham Abulafia, Ignatius of Loyola to Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and Ibn ‘Abbad of Ronda to Ibn al-’Arabi. The three monotheistic religions in the West left us a major cultural, spiritual, and religious legacy in the so-called period of convivencia or coexistence in medieval and modern Spain.

In total, nine articles were published electronically in this special volume of Religions. The authors were scholars from the United States (Dombrowski, Serrán-Pagán, Carrión), Spain (López-Anguita, Alonso, Beneito), Puerto Rico (López-Baralt), Israel (Bar-Asher), and Germany (Dal Bo). I am very proud of the quality of their research and their major contributions to this volume. I believe this field of Spanish mysticism will open up even more avenues and opportunities after people read these articles covering Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mysticism in the context of the Iberian Peninsula.

The primary scope of the articles collected here in this special volume serves the purpose of contextualizing Spanish mystical writings in their historical times and to examine how their legacy in the Iberian soil continues to evolve over time. The purpose of this volume is to bring together the different fields of knowledge from religious studies, theology, philosophy, history, comparative literature, philology, psychology, sociology, and the arts to address the main question: Do Spanish mystics borrow symbols and narratives from the mystical traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?

This special topic on Spanish mysticism has attracted scholars from different disciplines to study the great Spanish mystics. The overall focus of this issue is to trace the mutual influences found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mystics and to examine their spiritual legacies in greater depth.

The aim of this volume is to expand on the existing, currently available literature and to bring together the disjoint pieces of the puzzle so we can better and more holistically understand the rich legacy of the Spanish mystics and the extent to which their mystical thoughts are intertwined in the long history of Spanish mystical literature.

To those of you interested in Jewish mysticism in the context of past interactions with either Muslims or Christians, I cordially invite you to read the articles found in this collection by Dombrowski, Bar-Asher, Alonso, and Dal Bo. In their articles, they cover a range of topics, from the monopolar concept of God in the Abrahamic religions in Spain to the question of paradise in Kabbalah in the context of al-Andalus to the divine feminine in the Zohar, and in the Sufi of Murcia to the philosophical poems of Giqatilla. To those readers interested in Christian mysticism, I recommend that you check out the articles by Dombrowski, Serrán-Pagán, and López-Baralt on St. John of the Cross, and Carrión on St. Teresa of Avila. Finally, to those of you more interested in Sufi or Islamic mysticism in al-Andalus, I refer you to the articles written by Carrión, López-Anguita, Alonso, and Beneito on Ibn al-‘Arabi.

Nonetheless, each article makes comparisons to other mystical traditions found in the Spanish soil. The cultural, religious, and mystical ferment found among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts is undeniable. In this collection of articles, the reader will find a clear trend of comparative and interdisciplinary studies proving, once and for all, the innumerable interconnections and mutual influences exhibited by the great mystics in their classic writings. Moreover, this is just the next stage in the comparative study of Spanish mysticism that started with scholars like Asín Palacios and have flourished over the last few decades. I owe a great deal to the expertise of each contributor to this volume, and to many other scholars such as McGuinn, Perrin, Matt, Girón-Negrón, Jaoudi, Sancho Fermín, Vidal Castro, Gonzalez Costa, Gómez Aranda, Fenton, Wolfson, Idel, Garb, Dauber, Benarroech, Satz, Cócera, Feldmeir, Poveda, Beltrán Llavador, Velasco, de Pascual, and del Valle Rodríguez, among many others who were unable to submit an article to this volume but are contributing to this field of Spanish mysticism with their research and comparative studies.

I am very thankful for this opportunity to have collaborated with scholars from different continents and with staff from Asia and Europe. I again want to express my deepest and sincere gratitude to each one of the authors who contributed with an article to this special volume. Their articles are invaluable in contextualizing the important roles played by each mystic in their cultural and religious milieu and in raising critical questions and opening new possibilities to go further in their research while, at the same time, urging those who are interested in this comparative field of mysticism to bring new perspectives from their respective fields of knowledge, be it in political science, economics, architecture, or any other field of expertise that can enrich us through our fuller understanding of the Spanish mystics.

In closing, it is my personal hope that this collection of scholarly articles will continue the trend of conversation that currently exists among scholars coming from different religious traditions, cultures, and countries in order for the public reader to better understand the deep spiritual level that was attained by the great mystics in the historical context of the Iberian Peninsula. This alone could serve as a model for more in-depth comparative studies and for greater interfaith dialogues to be held among scholars across the different academic disciplines.