Arabist
This is an article about the scholars known as Arabists, not the political movement Pan-Arabism.An
Arabist is a person, especially one not raised in the
Arabic-speaking world, who is expert in
Arabic language and
Arabic literature. This meaning of the term is the primary focus of this article.
Arabism began in
medieval Muslim Spain, which sat on the cusp between the
Muslim and
Christian worlds. At various times, either a Christian or a Muslim kingdom might be the most hospitable toward scholars. Although some translation of Arabic texts into
Latin (mostly of works on
mathematics and
astronomy) began as early as the
10th century, major work dates from the
School of Toledo, which began during the reign of
Alfonso VII of Castile, (
1105–
1157), when
Jews literate in Arabic were driven north from
al-Andalus (now
Andalusia) by the religious rigidity of the
Almohad dynasty.
Translations were made into the
Vulgar Latin or early
Spanish that was the
vernacular language of that time and place, as well as into the
Church Latin that was then Europe's
lingua franca. Early translations included works by
Avicenna,
Al-Ghazali,
Avicebron, etc.; books on astronomy,
astrology, and
medicine; and the works of some of the
Ancient Greek philosophers, especially
Aristotle, who unlike
Plato had been unknown or at least largely ignored in medieval
Christendom. The latter were accompanied by the commentaries of Al-Ghazali, Avicenna, and
Averroes, to the point of there being an identifiable
Averroist school of philosophy in Christian Europe.
Spain was so much the center of medieval Arabism as to draw scholars from throughout Christian Europe, notably
Gerard of Cremona,
Herman of Carinthia,
Michael Scotus, and
Robert of Ketton. In
1143, Robert of Ketton made the first Latin translation of the
Qur'an, at the request of
Peter the Venerable, abbot of
Cluny.
Marcos de Toledo produced another translation of the Qur'an in the
13th century under a mandate from archbishop
Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, who later edited the landmark
Historia Arabum ("history of the Arabs"), drawing on the work of
al-Razi for the knowledge of al-Andalus prior to the
Almoravid conquest.
Beginning in the
13th century, with the
Reconquista well under way, Arabist efforts in Spain were tied closely to the goal of the possibility of proselytizing
Christianity in the Arab world. In this wave of activity,
Raymundus Martini, author of
Pugio fidei adversos mauros et iudaeos (
The Fight of Faith Against Moors and Jews) wrote an Arabic vocabulary book and
Ramon Llull, in
1275, established in
Majorca a school to teach Arabic to preachers.
Pope Honorius IV granted permission to Martini and Llull to found a center for "
oriental studies" in
Rome.
While Llull may have been motivated in large measure by the desire to proseletise, his relationship to the Arab world was not so simple. According to Julián Ribera, Llull wrote his
Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men in Arabic, then translated it into
Catalan as the
Llibre del gentil e dels tres savis.
This wave of Arabism gained its greatest impulse from
Alfonso X of Castile, who commissioned translations of major works into the
Latin and into the Castilian Spanish of the time. This led to the first Spanish translation of the
Qur'an, and of such influential works as
Kalilah and Dimnah,
Libro de los Engannos e Asayamientos de las Mugeres (
Book of the Deceits and Lies of Women), the
Escala de Mahoma (
The Ascent of Muhammed?) and
Los fuegos del ajedrez (
The Fires of Chess). Alfonso's own works in history and astronomy drew on numerous elements of Muslim knowledge; the
Tales of Count Lucanor, by Juan Manuel and
El Libro de buen amor (
The Book of Good Love) by
Arcipreste de Hita from this period both show an interpenetration and symbiosis of Oriental and Spanish cultures.
This trend continued in the
15th century, with Juan de Segovia's trilingual Qur'an (Arabic, Spanish, and Latin), now lost, and Cardinal Cisneros's multilingual Bible. In the
16th century, Pedro de Alcalá undertook several books intended to allow Spanish-speakers to learn Arabic; also, there are several 16th century histories of the
Kingdom of Granada, of its conquest and the Moorish uprisings, including the
Guerra de Granada (
War of Granada) by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and the
Historia de la rebelión y castigo de los moriscos (
History of the Rebellion and Punishment of the Moors) by Mármol Carvajal.
The eclipse of Spanish Arabism
By this, time, however, Spanish Arabism was succumbing to the repressive atmosphere created by the
Spanish Inquisition.
Moriscos hesitated to show even the most minimal knowledge of their mother tongue (Cabanelas,
El morisco granadino Alonso del Castillo, Granada, 1965) and Arabic books were burned; any effort to understand Arabic language or culture became a cause for suspicion. It would be the mid-1700s until the power of the Inquisition began to wane and a new Arabism arose in Spain.
The Adams Professorship in the Arabic language was established at Cambridge University in England in 1632.
Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton entered
Trinity College, Oxford in autumn 1840, after his family had travelled through Europe much (he spoke English, French and Italian). There he took up his studies including Falconry and Arabic.
Burton's time in the
Sindh prepared him well for his
Hajj (pilgrimage to
Mecca and, in this case,
Medina) and his seven years in India gave Burton a familiarity with the customs and behaviour of Muslims. This 1853 journey made Burton famous. He had planned it whilst travelling disguised among the Muslims of Sindh, and had laboriously prepared for the ordeal by study and practice (including being
circumcised to further lower the risk of being discovered).
Although Burton was not the first non-Muslim European to make the Hajj (that honor belonging to
Ludovico di Barthema in 1503), his pilgrimage is the most famous and the best documented of the time. He adopted various disguises, including that of a
Pathan, to account for any oddities in speech, but he still had to master intricate Islamic ritual, and the minutiae of Eastern manners and etiquette. Burton's trek to Mecca was quite dangerous and his caravan was attacked by bandits (a common experience at the time). As he put it, although "...neither Koran or Sultan enjoin the death of Jew or Christian intruding within the columns that note the sanctuary limits, nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever." The pilgrimage entitled him to the title of
Hajji and to wear a green turban. Burton's own account of his journey is given in
The Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah (1855).
Hans Wehr
Hans Wehr (1909â€"1981) was a German Arabist, professor at the
University of Münster from 1957â€"1974. Wehr published the
Arabisches Wörterbuch (1952), which was later published in an English edition as
A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, edited by J. Milton Cowan. As part of this dictionary, Wehr created a transliteration scheme to represent the Arabic alphabet.
*
Alfonso X, el Sabio Escuela de Traductores [1252-1277] (in English despite page name), on the site of Suzanne H. Petersen, University of Washington
