5 Sacred History, Sacred Languages: The Question of Arabic in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

Early Modern Europe was witness to an unprecedented interest in learning the Arabic language.This philological interest was connected to the evidence of Arabic similarity with Hebrew and the usefulness of Arabic grammars and dictionaries for studying the Holy Tongue.A field of knowledge was gradually created in which Arabic detached itself from its use as an instrument of proselytizing or diplomacy.This shift occurred through the translation and citation of Arabic sources, the purchase and cataloguing of Arabic manuscripts in the main libraries of Europe and an attempt to institutionalize the teaching of Arabic at universities.The exhaustive study of the Bible and its various textual traditions, the need to coordinate these with newly acquired knowledge of other languages, including Arabic, and the refinement of historiographic and philological tools which were the accompanying processes all contributed to dismantling the walls between sacred and profane history.This package of new knowledge can be labelled 'Orientalism' .As applied by scholars to this period, the term refers to a crucial moment in the creation of Oriental studies in Europe characterised by the foundational activities of figures like Erpenius, Raimondi or Bedwell.This refers to both their works and their search for new texts with which to learn Oriental languages.Such 'Oriental scholarship' or early 'Orientalism' proved itself capable of creating basic critical, historical and philological tools which were problematic for extant textual and religious authority.The religious dimension was ever-present in a world dominated by polemics with the Europe of the Reformation and by the process of confessionalization.Ever since James Monroe published his well-known book on Arabic studies in Spain, scholars have argued that Spain played no part in the development of * The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ ERC Grant Agreement number 323316, project CORPI, 'Conversion, Overlapping Religiosities, Polemics, Interaction.Early Modern Iberia and Beyond.' Martin Beagles translated this piece into English.

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