Leo Africanus: A traveler between the Orient and the Occident

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Leo Africanus: A Traveler Between Orient and Occident is the German title of a micro-historical study by Natalie Zemon Davis . The book was published in the original English edition in 2006 under the title Trickster Travels. A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds . In it, Davis examines the life of Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan al-Fasi - according to the study, born between 1486 and 1489 in Granada , possibly died after 1540 in Tunis - better known as Leo Africanus or by his Latin baptismal name Johannes Leo ( Italian Giovanni Leone , Arabic Yuhanna al-Asad ).

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overview

The book describes the life and work of the legal scholar and diplomat Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan al-Fasi , or al-Hasan al-Wazzan for short , from Fez , who was commissioned in 1518 by Don Pedro de Cabrera y Bobadilla , a Christian pirate Origin, captured at sea and brought to Rome . There he was baptized by Pope Leo X and became known as the author of numerous writings. Possibly he returned to the Maghreb in 1527 after the Sacco di Roma .

Life in Africa

Al-Hasan al-Wazzan was born according to Davis between 1486 and 1489 in Granada, then part of al-Andalus . In the course of the Reconquista , Al-Hasan al-Wazzan fled with his family to Fez in the Maghreb around 1490 to his uncle, who served as a diplomat for Sultan Muhammad al-Shaykh , the founder of the Wattasid dynasty , in Fez . There he went to school, apparently learned the Koran by heart and trained as a legal scholar at the University of al-Qarawīyīn . He accompanied his uncle on his diplomatic trips on behalf of the new Sultan Muhammad al-Burtughali in the Anti-Atlas to the Berbers as well as to Timbuktu and Cairo . He later became the Sultan's envoy himself and made numerous trips; among others to the court of the Mamluk sultan Qansuh al-Ghawari in Cairo and later to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I in Istanbul and Cairo.

Living in Italy

On his way back from a diplomatic meeting with Selim I, Al-Hasan al-Wazzan was captured in June 1518 by Don Pedro de Cabrera y Bobadilla, brother of the Bishop of Salamanca , Francisco Bobadilla, and brought to Rome in Castel Sant'Angelo . There he was baptized two years later, on the Feast of Epiphany on January 6, 1520, by Pope Leo X in St. Peter's Basilica in the name of Johannes Leo de Medici . As a result, Al-Hasan al-Wazzan became a Christian and has since called himself either 'Johannes Leo' or 'Giovanni Leone' (German John the Lion ). Davis often refers to him in the book with the Arabic version of the same name: Yuhanna al-Asad . His three influential godparents were all chosen by the Pope because of their strict stance in the fight against Islam . According to Davis, this act underlines the instrumentalization of Giovanni Leone's conversion and baptism for political , anti-Ottoman purposes. The three godparents were Bernardino López de Carvajal , Lorenzo Pucci and Egidio da Viterbo . After the baptism, Giovanni Leone was released from Castel Sant'Angelo. He probably first worked as an Arabic translator and advisor for the Arabic section of the Vatican Library . Later he started to write his own books; Among other things, the book La descrittione dell'Africa , which significantly influenced the idea of ​​Africa in Europe at the time. The book made Leo Africanus very well known within Europe. He also wrote lesser-known books, including the lives of famous men among the Arabs and the lives of famous men among the Jews . He also translated Paul's letters into Arabic and worked with Jacob Mantino on an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin dictionary. He also took part in a translation of the Koran into Latin , which he commented on. His works have often been revised. For example, his neutral representation of Islam has been changed into a defamatory description by editors such as Giovan Battista Ramusio . Davis also writes that she found an entry for an apartment in Rome in January 1527 in the name of John Leo ; in their opinion it should be Leo Africanus. For the period after the Sacco di Roma it is not known whether Leo Africanus or Yuhanna al-Asad continued to live in Rome. He may have returned to the Maghreb. A testimony from his godmother and patron Egidio da Viterbo to Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter from 1532 suggests that Leo Africanus was living in Tunis at the time. Widmannstetter, who wanted to learn Arabic, then tried to visit Leo, but was prevented from storms in the Mediterranean.

Scientific reflection

In addition to researching the biography of Leo Africanus, Davis tries in the study to relate the circumstances of the time to Africanus' life.

She examines the discrepancy that Africanus, as a Muslim from Africa, wrote for a European audience. In doing so, she creates a concept of the “ trickster ”, a life artist, and applies it to Africanus. The author also tries to sketch Leo's character in relation to his religiosity by comparing Christianity and Islam of the 16th century and speculating about possible solutions that could alleviate the tension in Leo Africanus' personality with regard to his religious affiliation. So she discusses mystical approaches such as that of Sufi Ibn Arabi and considers the plausibility of Africanus' approval. Leo Africanus' translation of the Koran into Latin and his help with the Koran translation as well as his numerous comments to explain certain passages are also dealt with in this regard. There is also speculation about his personal attitude towards the translation and the exegesis of the Koran , since in the course of his translation of the Koran he gets to know different editions of the Koran and has to compare these with the understanding of the Koran of his childhood and youth.

She further examines the depiction of Africa in Leo's book La descrittione dell 'Africa and deals with the falsification of the content by the editor Giovan Battista Ramusio and by various translators. According to Davis' research, their falsification primarily affects passages which, in the opinion of these overworkers, are written too neutrally with regard to Islam. The descriptions of Islam by Leo Africanus are not viewed as 'defaming Islam' enough and accordingly the text is reworked in such a way that it defames Islam in the same places. She is able to work out these differences because she refers to several different manuscripts. In one of these manuscripts she sees an original version of Leo Africanus in Italian and compares it with the others.

As a possible motive for Africanus' long stay in Italy after his baptism and release, Davis speculates about his possible interest in the completely new culture of Italy. It also discusses the importance of sexuality in 16th century Islam and Christianity and compares them.

In the epilogue Davis compares Leo Africanus with François Rabelais , a French prose writer of the 16th century. In their writings, both found themselves walking the fine line between what was just tolerated and accepted and what was forbidden and punishable by the Inquisition (cf. Inquisition proceedings ). This similarity is particularly significant for Davis.

Research interest and approach

Davis' motivation in writing her micro-historical monograph was to research the life and person of Leo Africanus. Davis tried to portray his life in the tension between the Muslim and Christian world of the 16th century and to explain his actions on the basis of various cultural and political influences. In her study, following the decentralized presentation of her scientific working method, she not only tries to present the Africanus perspective and its influences alone, but also many other perspectives of fellow human beings, as well as relevant circumstances, such as B. to include the position of slaves in Africa or the role of sexuality in Islam and Christianity. In doing so, she decentered her study of Africanus and expanded it with both geographical and sociological aspects of the time. She also writes that her motivation to deal with Leo Africanus for her personally was above all to expand her previous area of ​​expertise in the cultural history of France and Europe in general outside of Europe. In this respect, she wrote her first partial Islamic study in this book.

In addition to the life of Leo Africanus, she was interested in intercultural and interreligious relationships and communication between Europe and the Arab world. She was particularly interested in how Islamic values ​​influenced Christian values ​​and vice versa. So to what extent interreligious communication causes mutual influence and which characteristics can be used to detect or prove such an influence. With this in mind, she turned her special attention to the role of Leo Africanus as a mediator of Islamic and Arabic cultural values ​​for the European scholarly class. As a result, she sees in him a trickster , a cheat or deceiver, who writes for 'both sides', on the one hand not to fall out of favor with his European patrons and on the other hand not to defame Islam, which he portrays in his books.

On the one hand, she was interested in the biography of Africanus, the impact of his literary work on his environment, intercultural and interreligious communication, as well as the targeted representation of social and geographical circumstances around the Mediterranean. Consequently, in her book she reconstructs the historical life of Leo Africanus, elaborates the cultural and political backgrounds of his circumstances, in particular the literary sources that Leo Africanus could have used, and presents various possible scenarios for unknown biographical data. In addition, she discusses in detail her sources and her decisions on their interpretation. It extensively depicts the larger environment of Africanus by discussing topics such as literature, sexuality, slavery in detail and placing them in the context of Africanus. In addition to this research on sociological and geographical influences and circumstances of Africanus, she often makes use of speculative writing. If no information is available due to a lack of sources, it presents various possible scenarios and weighs their plausibility. She also speculates about the character traits of Leo Africanus.

About your approach to speculation, e.g. B. which books Leo Africanus could possibly have known, she writes that she first tries to determine from which sources one can safely assume that Leo Africanus knew them. In a second step, she then goes on to determine what else he might have known. To do this, she uses speculative words such as “could”, “maybe”, “possibly” in her book to clearly indicate that she is in the speculative area.

reception

The work has been discussed in numerous reviews.

Francesca Trivellato assigned the book, which she described as an act of violence, to a typical format of microhistory . The way Davis answered the question, How do the two halves of the Mediterranean relate to one another? ' go is rather unconventional for classical microhistorians . She criticized that instead of focusing on the life of Leo in order to gain new perspectives on the Christian-Muslim relationship, Davis used contemporary texts and modern scholars to fill in the many gaps in the nebulous biography of Leo Africanus. Trivellato also accused Davis of 'comforting reading', a practice that often leads to a projected reconstruction of the past. The 'comforting reading' typically represents what one wishes for in the present and thus this type of historiography is a vehicle with which one can create present values ​​in the costume of the past.

For Susan Gilson Miller , Davis wrote in her book from a neutral position about the scientific debate as to whether the meaning of the Mediterranean should be understood as a border of culture or as a connecting element. She also praised the work for the extensive research, the presentation of details such as eating habits and, above all, she praised Davis as a newcomer in the field of Islamic studies . She only criticized details such as the meaning of words or misinterpretations of landscapes (Davis, for example, mistakenly depicts the Dades Valley as a mountain valley instead of a river valley ).

For Eleazar Gutwirth , the intention of the research project was questionable, as there had already been an abundance of research into the life of Leo Africanus. Gurwirth sees Davis's research and project nonetheless justified by the fact that previous writings were insufficiently complete. Through her research, she corrects deficiencies that this topic has shown in relation to sexuality , gender and religiosity . This is commendable. Gurwirth also praised her extensive review of sources and her clear use of the conditional in speculation. Gurwirth, on the other hand, criticized her portrayal of Leo Africanus as a unique trickster . According to him, there have been numerous such tricksters and his behavior is not individual, but simply an imitation of his predecessors.

Ahmet T. Karamustafa emphasized her speculative way of working. He described the way they work as a mixing of plausible ideas with historical facts. Seen in a positive light, the result is a kaleidoscope with rich extracts from the cultural life on both sides of the Mediterranean . He went on to explain that, on the other hand, this mixing would remain too hypothetical and one would get the feeling that the person Leo Africanus had escaped their access. He praised Davis research as a newcomer to Islamic studies and only mentioned minor mistakes in this area, such as B. Minor theological misrepresentations. All in all, she managed to capture the cultural spirit of Leo Africanus.

Simon Doubleday criticized Davis for having ideological motives similar to those of Maalouf , author of the novel Leo Africanus: "The Pope's Slave" . These motives are to portray Leo Africanus as an idealized world citizen. He also praised Davis' efforts to describe Africanus as an instrumentalized person of the church against the Turks.

Edmund Burke III. praised the work for being a work of enormous energy. It combines detective research and history in a wonderful way. Nobody could have written the book except Davis. It was an act of violence and nowhere near the slightest of Davis's accomplishments.

expenditure

  • English original edition: Trickster Travels. A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds . Hill and Wang, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-8090-9434-9 .
  • French translation: Léon l'Africain. Un voyageur entre deux mondes. Payot & Rivages, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-228-90175-8 .
  • German translation: Leo Africanus. A traveler between the Orient and the Occident. Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Davis, Nathalie Zemon: Leo Africanus: A traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 400 .
  2. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 19 & 256-258 .
  3. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 57-58 .
  4. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 19 .
  5. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 23 .
  6. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 23 .
  7. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 40 .
  8. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 45.-46 .
  9. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 58-60 .
  10. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 65.-67 .
  11. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 66.- 68 .
  12. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 68-70 .
  13. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 186 .
  14. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 186-187 .
  15. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 85.-87 .
  16. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 244 .
  17. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 159-165 .
  18. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 213 .
  19. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 252 .
  20. ↑ a b Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 7-17 .
  21. ↑ Davis, Nathalie Zemon: Leo Africanus: A traveler between Orient and Occident. Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 7-17. 115-130 .
  22. ^ Davis, Natalie Zemon .: Leo Africanus: a traveler between Orient and Occident . Wagenbach, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3627-5 , p. 16.-17 .
  23. ^ Trivellato, Francesca: The future of Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History? In: California Italian Studies . tape 2 , no. 1 . Yale University Press, Yale 2011, pp. 11 ( escholarship.org ).
  24. ↑ The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 38. No.2 . MIT Press, 2007, ISSN  0022-1953 , p. 261-264 , JSTOR : i20143581 .
  25. ↑ Journal of Religion, Vol. 87, No 2. The University of Chicago Press, 2007, ISSN  0022-4189 , pp. 310-312 .
  26. ↑ Journal of Modern History, Vol. 80. No.3 . The University of Chicago Press, 2008, ISSN  0022-2801 , pp. 614-616 .
  27. ↑ Doubleday, Simon: Reviewed Work (s): Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth. Century Muslim between Worlds by Nathalie Zemon Davis . In: Law and History Review . tape 25 , no. 3 . American Society for Legal History, 2007, ISSN  0738-2480 , p. 651-652 .
  28. ↑ Burke III., Edmund: Reviewed Work (s): Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim between Worlds by Natalie Zemon Davis . In: Journal of World History . tape 18 , no. 3 . University of Hawai'i Press, 2007, ISSN  1045-6007 , pp. 372.- 374 .