Zaira

Who they were

Very little, almost nothing, is known about Saint Zaira; she is not named in the Church's official texts, though perhaps she was in some earlier edition of the Roman Martyrology, which has had various revisions since it was first drawn up in the sixteenth century. A present-day calendar of name-days lists her as martyred in Spain during the Moorish occupation and commemorated on 21 October; nothing else is known of her, though it can be inferred that she must at least have existed.

Her name comes from the Arabic Zahirah, meaning 'the rose', and appears often in Eastern literature, also as Zara. During the long Moorish occupation of Spain, many Christians were martyred for resisting attempts to impose Islam, and in that period some converted Arabs took a Christian name in place of their own — as with the siblings Bernardo, Maria and Grazia of Alzira, converts who became monks and then martyrs at the hands of their Muslim relatives. Since the similar Arabic names Zaida and Zoraide appear among such converts, it is possible that the martyr remembered as Zaira is also known under another, unmatched Christian name.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

A Christian martyr of Moorish-occupied Spain, remembered only by name; the source cannot confirm more than that she probably existed.