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The Medieval Arabic Geographers and the Beginnings of Modern Orientalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 April 2009
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European Orientalism of the 19th and 20th centuries has been the subject of a heated and vigorous debate ever since the publication of Edward Said's monograph. By contrast, the study of the early stages of academic and cultural Orientalism has been neglected. For the beginnings of Oriental studies in Europe one still largely relies on institutional histories and archival research, or even V. V. Barthold's 80-year-old study. The birth of academic Orientalism in the 17th century was occasioned by three major factors: a renewed interest in Islam, major advances in travel and exploration, and the emergence of modern approaches to science and education. Among important background developments were the decline of the perceived Arab threat followed by the rise of a very real Ottoman Turkish one, the geographical shift in hostilities from the European West to the East, and the realignment of European alliances and attitudes in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.
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Author's note: The work on this article was supported in part by the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities, the Newberry Library Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections Grant, and a grant from the Bernadotte E. Schmitt Fund of the American Historical Association.
1 The impassioned tone set in that 1978 study has subsided somewhat, whereas research into modern Western contacts with and perceptions of the Orient has continued to produce significant work. A recent example is Melman, Billie, Women's Orients: Englishwomen and the Middle East, 1718–1918; Sexuality, Religion and Work (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A reverse approach was first explored by Lewis, Bernard, The Oriental Discovery of Europe (New York: Norton, 1985)Google Scholar. In “The Question of Orientalism” Lewis has advanced substantive objections to Said's argument and method. This was originally published in 1982 and bears on the early development of Orientalism discussed here from a different perspective. See Lewis, Bernard, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 99–118Google Scholar.
2 See, for instance, Roman, Stephan, The Development of Islamic Library Collections in Western Europe and North America (London: Mansell, 1990)Google Scholar, reviewed by Rodgers, Jonathan in the International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, 4 (1993): 726–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Harvey, L. P., “British Arabists and al-Andalus,” al-Qantara 13, 2 (1992): 423–36Google Scholar. Another recent example is Feingold, Mordechai, “Arabic and Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Europe” (Paper presented at the conference “Science and Cultural Exchange in the Premodern World,” Norman, Okla., 25–2702 1993)Google Scholar.
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4 Joseph-Toussaint Reinaud wrote the first authoritative history of Islamic geography in preparing a new edition of the geographical compilation of Abū al-Fidāʾ (1273–1331): Reinaud, J. T., ed., Géographie dAboulféda, vol. 1, Introduction générate à la géographie des Orientaux (Paris: Imprimérie nationale, 1848)Google Scholar. The timing of this publication was not totally unconnected with the growing colonial interests of France in Algeria. Almost simultaneously with Reinaud, two other studies of medieval geography were published, which included edited maps and summaries of Arab treatises: Lelewel, Joachim, Géographie du Moyen Age, 2 vols. (Brussels: J. Pilliet, 1852–1857)Google Scholar and Santarém, Vicompte de, Essai de la cosmographie et de la cartographie pendant le Moyen-Age et sur le progrès de la géographie après les grandes découvertes du XVe siècle, 3 vols. (Paris: Maulde et Renou, 1849–1952)Google Scholar. By then, however, scientific geography was in a state of crisis; as a discipline, it had lost interest in medieval scholarship. See Godlewska, Ann, “Traditions, Crisis and New Paradigms in the Rise of the Modern French Discipline of Geography, 1760–1850,” Annual of the Association of American Geographers, 77 (1989): 192–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 This shift has been often overlooked in recent, Arab-focused, research on Orientalism. It is correctly noted in Hentsch, Thierry, Imagining the Middle East, trans, and preface Reed, Fred A. (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1992)Google Scholar.
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22 Leo also used information from the historian and geographer al-Masʿudi (d. 965) and the great Hispano-Muslim geographer al-Bakri (d. 1094). For an English translation, see Africanus, Leo, The History and Description of Africa, ed. Brown, Robert, Hakluyt Society Series, vols. 92–94 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1896)Google Scholar.
23 Linschot, Jan Huygen van, Histoire de la navigation de lean Hvgues de Linschot Hollandois aux Indes Orientates (Amsterdam, 1610; 2nd ed., 1619)Google Scholar. Linschot spent the years 1579–92 in Portuguese India.
24 The mathematician and professor of astronomy at Oxford John Greaves, a friend of Pococke's, who traveled in the Levant collecting manuscripts on Laud's commission, targeted especially Arabic translations of Greek works.
25 For general information on al-Idrisi and his work, consult Giovanni Oman, s. v., “al-Idrīsī,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960–), 3:1032–35Google Scholar and Ahmad, S. Maqbul, s.v., “al-Idrisi,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 16 vols., ed. Gillispie, Charles Coulston (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970–1980) 7:7–9Google Scholar.
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27 al-Idrisi, , Opus geographicum, sive, “Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare studeant,” 9 fascicules, ed. Cerulli, Enrico a. o. (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, and Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970–1984)Google Scholar.
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30 Curiously, the first book printed in England (in 1477), The Dictes and Sayenges of the Philosophers, was a translation from the French of an Arabic work by Mubashshir ibn Fātik (cited in Harvey, “British Arabists,” 424).
31 “The Book for one desirous [to read] descriptions of metropolises, regions, countries, islands, cities and remote areas.” The Latin version reads: Oblectatio desiderantis in descriptione civitatumprincipalium et tractum et provinciarum et insularum et urbium etplagarum mundi (Rome: Typographia Medici, 1592)Google Scholar.
32 Anon., Ceographia Nubiensis, id est accuratissima totius orbis in septem climata divisi description continens praesertim exactam universiae Asiae et Africae, rerumque in Us hactenus incognitarum explicationem (Paris: Typographia Hieronymi Blageart, 1619)Google Scholar.
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34 Ibid., 154.
35 Encyclopaedia Britannica, (1910) 17: 243Google Scholar.
36 Published as Viate Mathematicorum (Amsterdam, 1649) and Cronica dei matematici (Urbino, 1707)Google Scholar. The General Biographical Dictionary, rev. ed., ed. Chalmers, Alexander (London, 1812), 3:258–95Google Scholar.
37 “L'Artiglieria” and “La Nautica,” or “L'invenzione del bossola la navigare” (1578). Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1811), 3:270Google Scholar; Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1963), 5:461Google Scholar.
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40 The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3:1033Google Scholar.
41 It is mentioned by Vernet, La cultura hispanoárabe, 46Google Scholar. I am grateful to an anonymous reader for this reference.
42 As a result of these numerous defects, most subsequent research involving al-Idrisi focused on providing new and better, though usually fragmented, translations well into the 19th century. Until the appearance of the first French translation (Jaubert, P. A., Géographie d'Edrisi, 2 vols. [Paris, 1836–1840])Google Scholar most of them were made into Latin; regrettably, no reliable translation exists to date.
42 As a result of these numerous defects, most subsequent research involving al-Idrisi focused on providing new and better, though usually fragmented, translations well into the 19th century. Until the appearance of the first French translation (Jaubert, P. A., Géographie d'Edrisi, 2 vols. [Paris, 1836–1940])Google Scholar most of them were made into Latin; regrettably, no reliable translation exists to date.
43 The long-lived “Nubian puzzle” was not completely set aside until the appearance of the first critical edition of the Idrisi text in 1866: Description de I'Afrique et de I'Espagne par Edrisi, ed. and trans. Dozy, Raymond and Goeje, Jan Michael de (Leiden, 1866), vi., n. 1Google Scholar. In the late 18th century, when the identity of the author had already been established, Condé, Josef Antonio still titled his book Descripción de España de Xerif Aledris, conocido por el Nubiense (Madrid, 1799)Google Scholar.
44 V.Matveev, V. andKubbel, L. E., ed. and trans., Arabskiie istochniki X-XU vekov po etnografii I slorii narodov Afriki iuzhnee Sakhary (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1965), 229Google Scholar.
45 A detailed discussion of al-Idrisi's map and Bertius's interpretation of it is offered in Marina Tolmacheva, “Bertius and al-Idrisi: An Experiment in Orientalist Cartography” (forthcoming in Terrae Incognitae).
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48 Libri septem, in quibus tabulae omnes gradibus distinctae descriptiones accuratae, coetera suprà priores editiones politiora auctioraque ad christianissimum Galliae et Navarrae regem Ludovicum XIII (Amsterdam, 1616)Google Scholar.
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52 Dictionnaire de bibliographie francaise (Paris: Letouzey, 1954), 6:253Google Scholar.
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57 Dapper's, OlfertDescription de I'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686)Google Scholar is a prominent example. Instances of cartographic borrowing are discussed in Marina Tolmacheva, “Arab Geography in Seventeenth-Century European Maps of Africa” (Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries, Vancouver, Wash., October 1993).
58 Mandrou, Robert, Introduction to Modern France 1500–1640: An Essay in Historical Psychology, trans. Hallmark, R. E. (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976); 175–176Google Scholar.
59 Dictionnaire des lettres françaises, XVII siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1960), 2:878–79Google Scholar. On the range of Renaudot's activities see Solomon, Howard M., Public Welfare, Science, and Propaganda in Seventeenth Century France: The Innovations ofThéophraste Renaudot (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972)Google Scholar. The writer also benefited from the discussion of Wellmans', Cathleen paper “Science and Social Issues in the Discursi of the Virtuosi of France” (Paper presented at the University of Oklahoma, 1 04 1993)Google Scholar.
60 Thévet served in this capacity for four Valois kings, beginning with Henry II (1547–1959); Bertius and Renaudot served Louis XIII.
61 Thévet, Portraits, 5Google Scholar.
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67 See, for example, La Découverte de la France au XVIIe siècle (Paris: éditions du Centre Nationale de la recherche Scientiflque, 1980)Google Scholar.
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72 Publications were reflecting this fashion as well. See, for example, Happel, Eberhard Werner, Thesaurus exoticorum (Hamburg, 1688)Google Scholar. For a brief survey of Orientalist linguistic attitudes see Amayreh, Isinael, “The Orientalists and the History of Their Relationship With the Arabic Language,” International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, 8, 2 (1991): 29–54Google Scholar (in Arabic with an English abstract).
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74 Ibid., 156–57.
75 Barthold, , Découverte de I'Asie, 129–30Google Scholar. The first chair of Arabic at Cambridge was established in 1632.
76 Molainville, Barthélemy d'Herbelot de, Bibliothèque orientate, ou Dictionnaire universel contenant tout ce qui regarde les connoissances des peuples de 1'Orient, 6 vols. (Paris, 1697)Google Scholar.
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83 Gronovius, Jacobus, De geographiae origine progressu ac dulcedine (Leiden, 1703)Google Scholar, cited in Krachkovskii, , Arabskaia geograficheskaia literatura, 25Google Scholar.
84 Antoine Galland, who introduced this romance to Europe in French translation (1704), was also a traveler to the East and a younger associate of d'HerbelotGoogle Scholar.
85 Krachkovskii, , Arabskaia geograficheskaia literatura, 392Google Scholar. The history of these translations, made into Latin and some never published, is detailed by Reinaud in the introduction to his own critical edition of Taqwīm al-buldān. See Reinaud, , Géographie d'Aboulféda, 1: CDLVGoogle Scholar.
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