A Tunisian Jurist’s View of Jihad in the Fifteenth Century: al-Burzuli’s Mediterranean Perspective Tunis in the fourteenth and fifteen centuries under Hafsid rule was a hub of Mediterranean trade and a locus of Muslim interactions with Christians and Jews, both resident and transient. Abu al-Qasim ibn Ahmad al-Burzuli’s (d. 1438) compilation of fatwas is a resource for understanding how the historical, political, military, social, and economic circumstances and experiences of such interactions affected legal interpretation. The paper demonstrates how al-Burzuli’s chapter on jihad relates legal interpretation to history, making fatwas of other jurists relevant in both immediate and historical terms. The investigation of al-Burzuli’s integration of historical and legal thinking illuminates his conception of the dar al-islam as part of a Mediterranean world. This paper contributes to our understanding of how Islamic legal thought and practice, along with historical thinking and context, informed each other in the work of a specific individual writing in Tunis in the early fifteenth century. Al-Burzuli addressed Muslim relations with Christians and Jews in legal terms, but his understanding of the historical interaction of Muslim and Christian rulers, warriors, merchants, and subject populations also shaped his legal thinking. Writing as both a jurist and as a political observer, Al-Burzuli’s chapter on jihad is not simply a collection of fatwas but a commentary on his times—and, conceivably, a political instrument. The focus of the paper is on al-Burzuli’s fatwa collection and locates discussion in historical and generic context. Al-Burzuli’s approach to the fatwas he cites is distinctive, illuminated by comparison to other fatwa collections (Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani, al-Shabi, Ibn Rushd, al-Wansharisi). Like other compilers of fatwas, al-Burzuli’s work is intended to be instructive but unlike others, he creates a form of narrative, both personal and historical, that promotes a different kind of engagement with the material. Particularly in the chapter on jihad, he participates in, and is heir to, a community of politically active and aware jurists (exemplified by Ibn Khaldun and Ibn al-Khatib).