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The Muslim Discovery of Europe1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
I suppose that most textbooks of European history or of world history—which in European textbooks is much the same thing—contain a chapter called ‘The Age of the Discoveries’, or something of the kind, which deals with the period from the fifteenth century onwards when Western Europe set about discovering the rest of the world. My subject to-day is another and earlier discovery, in which the West European was not the explorer going forth to discover the barbarian, but the barbarian discovered by the explorer—the Muslim explorer. My purpose is to outline, very briefly, the sources, nature, and stages of growth of Muslim knowledge concerning Western Europe, first in the obscure centuries before the Crusades, then during that great offensive of Western Christendom against Islam, of which the expeditions to Palestine were the easternmost expression.
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- Articles
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 409 - 416
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957
Footnotes
This paper contains the modified text of a communication read to the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Rome, September 1955. A more detailed treatment of the same subject is in preparation.
References
page 409 note 2 Sā'id al-Andalusi, Kitāb fabaqāt al-Umam, part I. The Arabic text was edited by Father L. Cheikho in in 1911. A French translation by R. Blachére appeared in Paris in 1935.
page 410 note 1 This adaptation formed the subject of an important study by C. A. Nallino,‘Al-Khuwārizmi e il suo rifacimento della Geografia di Tolomeo’, Mem. R.Ac, dei Lincei, Cl. Sci. mor., Ser. v, Vol. II, part la. Reprinted in Nallino, C.A., Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti, v, Roma, 1944,458–532.Google Scholar
page 410 note 2 de Goeje, M.J. (ed.), Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum, Leiden, VI, 1889, 155.Google Scholar
page 410 note 3 ibid., VII, 1892, 85.
page 410 note 4 Murūj , Les prairies d'or, Paris, 1861 ff., III, 66–7,Google Scholar 69–72
page 411 note 1 Levi della Vida, G., ‘La traduzione araba delle storie di Orosio’, Andalus, XIX, 1954, 257–93.Google Scholar
page 412 note 1 Lévi-Provençal, E., ‘Un échange d'ambassades entre Cordoue et Byzance au IXe siécle’, Byzantion, XII, 1937, 15–16 Google Scholar( Islam d'Occident, Paris, 1948, 95–8Google Scholar).
page 412 note 2 cf. Majīd, , , Baghdad, 1939.Google Scholar
page 412 note 3 Hamidullah, M., ‘Embassy of Queen Bertha to Caliph al-Muktafi billah in Baghdad 293/906’, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, I, 1953, 272–300;Google Scholar Levi della Vida, G., ‘ La corrispondenza di Berta di Toscana col Califfo Muktafi’, Rivista Storica Italiana, LXVI, 1954, 21–38.Google Scholar
page 412 note 4 Bibl. geog. ar., VII, 1892, 127–30.Google Scholar This passage was discussed and translated by Marquart, J., Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzūge, Leipzig, 1903,Google Scholar 260 ff.
page 412 note 5 Yāqūt, Mu'jam al-buldān, s.v. Rūmiya. Yāqūt's text was studied and translated by Guidi, Ignazio,‘La descrizione di Roma nei geografi arabi’, Archivio della Societā romana di Storia patria, I, 1877, 173–218.Google Scholar
page 412 note 6 Kowalski, T., Relacja Ibrahima b. Ja'kūba z podrózy do krajów slowiańskich w prekazic al-Bekriego, Cracow, 1946.Google Scholar My thanks are due to my colleague Mr. B. W. Andrzejewski, who very generously translated several chapters of this book to me.
page 413 note 1 cf. Southern, R.W., The making of the Middle Ages, London, 1953,Google Scholar 36 ff.
page 413 note 2 For an example of Idrīsī's geography see Beeston, A.F.L., ‘Idrisi's account of the British Isles’, BSOAS, XIII, 2, 1950, 265–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 414 note 1 Jahn, K.,‘ Les légendes de l'Occident chez Raşīd al-Din’, Mélanges Fuad Köprülü, Istanbul, 1953, 255–7;Google Scholar id., Histoire universelle de Raşīd al-Din … I. Histoire des Francs, Leiden, 1951.Google Scholar
page 414 note 2 Muqaddima (ed. Quatremére), III, 93 (translation, De Slane, III, 129).
page 415 note 1 Colin, G.S., ‘Un petit glossaire hispanique arabo-allemand du début du XVIe siécle‘, Andedus, XI, 1946, 275–81.Google Scholar
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