Casual Remarks of an Arabist

Extract

The Arabic language has a term, “musta'rib” with a long and varied history. In the genealogical schemes of pre-Islamic antiquity, it indicated those tribes in the Peninsula (the northerners, according to the most wide-spread opinion; but there were those who instead, turning the relationship upside-down, designated southerners in this way), who, as opposed to the pure autocthomic Arabs (al-’Arab al-’âriba) were “assimilated” or “assimilating” to the Arabs, in other words “secondary Arabs” or “Arabized.” Then, in Moslem Spain, as is known, the term served to designate that part of the Iberian population which remained Christian in religion, but culturally was Arabic, that is “Mozarab.” And in modern linguistic usage, mustarib along with mustashriq indicate the Orientalist, and more precisely, the Western Arabist: he who takes as object of his studies the Arabs, and in some way tries to become closer and even assimilated to them (according to the prevailing semantic value of the prefix of the tenth verbal form ista-, to which in fact the original Arabic participle refers). Common to all the evolution of the term then is the meaning of one who is not really and originally an Arab, but who wants to become one and be considered one, whether by pretending Arab blood or by assimilating Arab culture.