The Role of Emotions in al-Andalus Poor Relie

[EN] This paper aims to analyse how the poor in al-Andalus were viewed by the rest of the Muslim community in the chronological framework from the 8th to the 12th centuries, as revealed by what a selection of Andalusi sources -especially of a historical and biographical nature- have to say regarding the marginalization and the integration of this sector of the population. These texts refer mainly to the urban environment, since they are laconic in everything that concerns the rural area. In general, these types of sources do not provide detailed information on this topic. These limitations also extend to the approach that these texts project in relation to poverty: although they do not reflect the point of view of the poor on their state of deprivation, we do have the vision that their coreligionists had of them, so we can know how they were perceived by the rest of society. One must first ask what kind of people made up this social stratum and what events might disrupt the social equilibrium in such a way that poverty was the result. Next, the position occupied by the poor in society is reviewed in terms of the degree of acceptance or rejection they aroused in the general population. This allows us to visualise the dynamic implicit in the organisation of social relations, that is, how the interaction between the individual and society was articulated. In this context, one must consider the functional and emotional aspects of charity, showing it to be a key factor for the understanding of the interface between social equilibrium and inequality in al-Andalus.