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A Judaeo-Arabic document form Sicily

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Wansbrough
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Extract

Among the Arabic documents preserved in the archives of Sicily is one relating to the affairs of the Jewish community in Siracusa at the end of thetwelfth century. Belonging by origin to the episcopal church of Cefalù, it isnow in the Archivio di Stato at Palermo (Tabulario della Chiesa Vescovile di Cefalù, Perg. no. 25), and was included in the collection published by S. Cusain 1868–82.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1967 , pp. 305 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1967

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References

1 Cusa, Salvatore, I diplomi greci ed arabi di Sicilia, pubblicati net testo originate, tradotti ed illustrate, Palermo, 1868–1882, 495–6,Google Scholar plate v, and summary p. 736. Of the projected work only the texts were published (in two parts: pp. xxii, 504, plates in 1868 (in fact 1874); pp. 505–862 and plate VI in 1882): a new edition with translations and commentary has long been a desideratum; see C. A. Nallino in his introduction to the second edition of Amari, M., Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, Catania, 1933–1939, I, xxxii; p. 898–9Google Scholar, n. 1; and Gabrieli, F., in Archivio Storico Pugliese, XII, 1959, 18, 20. This task, if it is to be undertaken, is not made easier by the fact that many of the original documents printed by Cusa are not now to be found. Indeed, there is some question as to whether Cusa himself saw the originals, a doubt not dispelled by his own introductory observations (op. cit., ‘Prefazione’, xii-xiii, xvii-xxi, especially xix-xxi regarding the Copie Tardia and Morso). If a fresh edition is to be based upon the scholarly criteria of textual analysis and diplomatic, every effort must be made to locate the original documents, a total of 201, for only seven of which Cusa included (partial) photographs in his edition. By way of preliminary aid to this search, I include here a few remarks on the present location of the Arabic documents in Cusa's collection, the fruit of several conversations with Professora Baviera and Monsignore Traselli of the Archivio di Stato in Palermo, to whom I am indebted not only for their very helpful advice but also for placing at my disposal photographs of the Arabic documents now preserved there. Of the 16 groups of documents published by Cusa, 11 contain some wholly or partly in Arabic:Google Scholar

Diplomi della Chiesa Cattedrale di Palermo (pp. 1–50, eight documents: still there)

Diplomi della Cappella Palatina, della chiesa di S. Maria dell'Ammiraglio, e del monasterodella Martorana di Palermo (pp. 51–98, seven documents: those belonging to the firstinstitution are still there; to the second, location unknown; to the third, Archivio diStato, Palermo (ASP), but the collection there does not tally with those in Cusa)

Diplomi della chiesa della Magione di Palermo (pp. 99–112, four documents: ASP)

Diplomi della chiesa di Morreale (pp. 125–286, five documents: Biblioteca Nazionale, Palermo)

Diplomi del monastero di S. Filippo di Fragalà (pp. 381–468, one document: ASP)

Diplomi della chiesa di Cefalù (pp. 469–506, seven documents: five at ASP, the other two possibly still in Archivio Capitolare, Cefalú)

Diplomi delle chiese di Patti e di Lipari (pp. 507–37, two documents: still there)

Diplomi della chiesa di Catania (pp. 539–95, three documents: Biblioteca Comunale, Catania)

Diplomi della cattedrale di Girgenti (pp. 597–605, one document: still there)

Diplomi varii (pp. 607–40, three documents: location unknown, but some possibly ASP)

Appendice (pp. 641–91, eight Arabic and one Turkish document: location unknown)

Of these 49 Arabic documents some have been the object of further study: Noël des Vergers, in JA, Sér. 4, Tom. VI, sept.-oct. 1845, 318–22, 338–9 (two of the Morreale/Monreale documents); Mantia, G. La, Il primo documento in carta (Contessa Adelaide 1109) esistente in Sicilia e rimasto sinora sconosciuto, Palermo, 1908Google Scholar (document from S. Filippo di Fragalit); L.-R. Menager, Amiratus-' : l'Emirat e les origins de l'Amirauté(XIe-XIIIe siècles), Paris, 1960, 200–2, doe. 24 (one Lipari document), 208–9, 214–20 and frontispiece, does. 29, 33 (two documents from the Cappella Palatina); Collura, P., Le più antiche carte dell'archivio capitolare di Agrigento(1092–1282), Palermo, 1961, 120–6, doe. 63 and plate with the assistance of Professore U. Rizzitano (the Girgenti/Agrigento document).Google Scholar

2 Blau, J., A grammar of mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic (in Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1961; idem, The emergence and linguistic background of Judaeo-Arabic (Scripta Judaica, v), OUP, 1965. Now in the press is his further study, A grammar of Christian Arabic, to be published (1967?) by the University of Louvain in the series Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. For similarities and differences between Jewish Arabic dialects and those of their Muslim and Christian neighbours, see Blau, Emergence, 54–5. I should like to thank Professor Blau for his advice during several conversations in the spring of 1966, and for his encouragement of my effort to formulate some satisfactory criteria for editing medieval Arabic texts.Google Scholar

3 Middle Arabic, as opposed to Judaeo-Arabic in particular, is treated in Blau, Emergence, passim but especially pp. 1–18, 114–32. The earlier study by Fück, J., 'Arabīya, Untersuchungen zur arabischen Sprach- and Stilgeschichte, Berlin, 1950Google Scholar (French translation by Denizeau, C., and revised by the author, Paris, 1955Google Scholar; references are to this edition) is a useful introduction to the vicissitudes of the classical language in the post-classical period, but never quite comes to grips with the specific problems of Middle Arabic, see op. cit., 87–96, and the reviews by Wehr, H., in ZDMG, CII, 1, 1952, 179–86Google Scholar, and Spiteler, A., in Bibliotheca Orientalis, X, 3–4, 1953, 144–50. There is, however, to be found here abundant bibliography permitting an examination of earlier studies of Middle Arabic, pp. 207–16.Google Scholar

4 While lexical and syntactical elements common in Maghribī Judaeo-Arabic, such as first person imperfect ngtl/nqtliū and the genitive particle maiā', do frequently appear in Muslim Arabic texts (e.g. BSOAS, xxv, 3, 1962, p. 450, 11. 6, 14; p. 451, 1. 18), orthographical features like the definite article l and scriptio plena generally do not, since Muslim writers of Arabic usually aimed at conformity with the rules of the classical language, especially in Classical Arabic with Middle Arabic admixture or Semi-Classical Middle Arabic (see Blau, Emergence, 24–5, and for the concomitant problems of hypo- and hyper-correction, op. cit., 27–34). References in the notes below are to Blau, Emergence, in which will be found further reference to more detailed descriptions in the same author's grammar (Digdiiq). See also Goitein, S. D., in BSOAS, XVI, 2, 1954, 254–5; and idem, in Arabic and Islamic studies in honor of Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Leiden, 1965, 270–84, for Arabic transcriptions of Judaeo-Arabic, where, however, a slightly different method of transcription has been employed.Google Scholar