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The Study of Arabic Historians in Seventeenth Century England: The Background and the Work of Edward Pococke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P.M. Holt
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Extract

Arab historical writing was not a specialized study in the seventeenth century. Organized work in Arabic and Islamic studies was still a recent development in western Europe generally. The first modern English Arabist, William Bedwell (1562–1632), was during most of his life an isolated figure: the principal result of his studies was an Arabic lexicon which was never printed, although he bequeathed the MS to Cambridge with a fount of Arabic type for that purpose. In the third decade of the century, however, some younger scholars began to interest themselves in Arabic.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1957 , pp. 444 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957

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References

page 444 note 1 A general account of Arabic studies in Europe is given by Fück, J., Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1955.Google Scholar

page 444 note 2 Accounts of Bedwell and other leading British orientalists of the seventeenth century are given in the Dictionary of national biography. The detailed biography of Pococke is that by Twells, L., prefixed to his edition of The theological works of the learned Dr. Pocock, London, 1740.Google Scholar Twells had access to Pococke's papers, now in a very fragmentary state.

page 444 note 3 The type had previously belonged to the press set up by Franciscus Raphelengius (1539–97), a learned printer of Leiden (letter of Greaves to Turner, PRO, S.P. 16 381, No. 75). It was modelled on the fount of the Medicean press, set up in Rome in 1580 by Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici.

page 444 note 4 32 letters from Adams to Wheelocke, dated from 1631 O.S. to 1640 O.S. are in the Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 3.12, ff. IV (l)–(32). These throw light on the circumstances in which the chair of Arabic was founded and on the relations between Wheelocke and his patron.

page 444 note 5 The letter of thanks from the University to Adams is given in Arberry, A.J., The Cambridge School of Arabic, Cambridge, 1948, 7–8.Google Scholar

page 445 note 1 Hyde's most celebrated work was Historia religionis veterum Persarum eorumque Magorum, Oxford, 1700.Google Scholar

page 445 note 2 Nallino, C.A.,‘Le fonti arabe manoscritte di Ludovico Marracci sul Corano (1932), reprinted in Raccolta di scritli, II, Roma, 1940, 90–134.Google Scholar Nallino shows that the Arabic authors quoted by Marracci at second-hand are mainly from Pococke's Specimen historiae Arabum.

page 445 note 3 Ross, E. Denison,‘Ludovico Marracci’, BSOS, II, 1, 1921, 117–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also his introduction to the edition of Sale's translation of the Koran published by Warne in 1921.

page 446 note 1 Bedwell, W., D. Iohannis Apostoli et Evangelistae Epistolae Catholicae omnes, Leiden, 1612.Google Scholar The ‘Praefatio’ is the relevant portion.

page 446 note 2 Pasor, M., Oratio pro linguae arabicae professions, Oxford, 1627.Google Scholar The lecture was delivered on 25 October 1626.

page 446 note 3 Pococke, E., Carmen Tograi cum versione latina et notis, Oxford, 1661.Google Scholar Pococke's introduction is probably the first of his series of lectures on this text. The volume also contains a short excerpt, all that has survived, of Pococke's inaugural lecture of 1636.

page 446 note 4 Castell, E., Oratio … cum praelectiones suas in secundum Canonis Avicennae librum auspicaretur, London, 1667.Google Scholar

page 446 note 5 Hyde, T., Oratio de linguae arabicae antiquitate, praestantia et utilitale, printed in Syntagma dissertationum, ed. Sharpe, Gregory, II, Oxford, 1767, 449–59.Google Scholar

page 446 note 6 Ockley, S. (Adams professor of Arabic at Cambridge, 1711–20), Introductio ad linguas orientales, Cambridge, 1706.Google Scholar

page 446 note 7 Hunt, T. (Laudian professor of Arabic at Oxford, 1738–74), De usu dialectorum orientalium, ac praecipue arabicae, in hebraico codice interpretando, Oxford, 1748.Google Scholar

page 447 note 1 Isaacson, H., The Life and death of Lancelot Andrewes, D.D.… edited and arranged … by the Rev. Stephen Isaacson, London, 1829, 49.Google Scholar

page 447 note 2 Thomas Greaves acted as Pococke's deputy at Oxford, while the latter was making his second journey in the East (1637–41). His inaugural lecture was published as De linguae arabicae utilitate et praestantia, Oxford, 1639.Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 Davies to Ussher from Aleppo, 29 August 1624. Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.3.12, fol. I (1).

page 448 note 2 Beeston, A.F.L., The oriental manuscript collections of the Bodleian Library, 1; reprinted from Bodleian Library Record, V, 2, 1954.Google Scholar

page 448 note 3 Bodleian Library, MS Poc. 392, Meidanii proverbia.

page 449 note 1 The proposal for Greaves's and Pooocke's journey is contained in the very interesting letter from Greaves to Turner cited above, p. 444, n. 3.

page 449 note 2 Bodleian Library, MS Poc. 432, ff. 5–9.

page 449 note 3 Peter Golius, known in religion as Celestino di Santa Lidvina.

page 449 note 4 Browne, E.G., A catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the Library of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1896,Google Scholar introduction. Also ‘Description of an old Persian commentary on the Qur'an’, JBAS, 1894, 417–22.

page 450 note 1 Beeston, op. cit., 1–2. Further details concerning the various fonds of manuscripts may be found in the Summary catalogue of Western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 7 vols., Oxford, 1895–1953.Google Scholar

page 451 note 1 Schnurrer, C.F., Bibliotheca arabica, Halae, 1811, 113–17,Google Scholar 133–46.