Medieval Iberia was one of the most important places of cultural interaction and transcultural encounters within the Mediterranean space, where an extensive translation movement from Arabic into Latin and from Arabic into the emerging vernacular languages took place. Considering translation as a form of cultural interaction, this paper will investigate the cultural and philological relationships between two historical works, namely an earlier Arabic work of history, Akhbār Mulūk al-Andalus by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsa al-Rāzī (887-955 ad) and its 14th century Portuguese translation, Cronica do Mouro Razis. The aim is to highlight some of the problems of historiographical writing and try to understand both the limitations and interventions of the translators when dealing with an historical text pertaining to another linguistic and cultural tradition.
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al-Ḥimyarī Ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim ‘Abbas Iḥsān Kitāb al-Rawḍ al-miʿṭār fi khabar al-aqṭār 1974 Beirut Libraire du Liban
al-Maqqarī Shihāb al-dīn b. Yaḥyā al-Tilimsānī ʿAbbās Iḥsān Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ghuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb wa-dhikr wazīrihā Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb 1968 Beirut Dār Ṣādir 8. vols. reprinted 2004
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Ibn al-Khaṭīb Lisān al-Dīn al-ʿAbbādī A.M. Nufāḍat al-jarāb fī ʿulālat al-ightirāb 1968 al-Qāhirah Dār al-Kātib al-ʿArabī lil-Ṭibāʿah wa-al-Nashr
Ibn Bassām al-Shantarīnī Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ʿAbbas Iḥsān Dhakhīra fī maḥāsin ahl al-Jazīra 1979 Beirut Dar Sader 4. vols.
Ibn Ḥayyān Abū Marwān Ḥayyān b. Khalaf b. Ḥusayn Makki ʿAli Cronica de los emires Alḥakam I y ʿAbdarraḥamān ii entre los años 796 y 847 [Almuqtabis ii-1] 2001 Zaragoza La Aljafería
Catalán Diego & Andrés María Soledad Edición crítica del texto español de la Crónica de 1344, que ordenó el Conde de Barcelos don Pedro Alfonso 1970 Madrid Gredos-Seminario Menéndez Pidal
Catalán Diego & Andrés María Soledad Crónica del moro Rasis, versión del ajbār mulūk al-andalus de Aḥmad ibnmuhammad ibn mūsà al-rāzī, 889-955; romanzada para el rey don dionís de portugal hacia 1300 por mahomad alarife, y gil pérez, clérigo de don perianes porçel 1975 Madrid Seminario Menéndez Pidal
Lindley Cintra Luis Filipe Crónica Geral de Espanha de 1344 1951-1990 Lisboa INCM 4 volumes
Nascimento Aires A. A conquista de Lisboa aos Mouros: relato de um cruzado 2001 Lisboa Vega
Resende André de Vicentius levita et martyr. Lisboa: apud Lodovicum Rhotorigium typographum, 1545 Accessed March 14, 2015 Online available at http://purl.pt/15168/3/#/0
Resende André de Historia da antiguidade da cidade de Euora fecta per meestre Andree de Reesende. E agora nesta segunda impressam emendada pelo mesmo autor 1576 Accessed March 15, 2015 Euora Andre de Burgos Online available at: http://purl.pt/23306/3/#/0
Anawati C.G. Bearman P.J., Bianquis Th., Bosworth C.E., van Donzel E. & Heinrichs W.P. “ ʿĪsa” Encyclopaedia of Islam Accessed February 5, 2015 Second Edition Brill Online, 2012. Online available at http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/isa-com_0378
Baquero Moreno Humberto As relações de fronteira no século de Alcañices (1250-1350): o trarado de Alcañices” Revista da Faculdade de Letras, Historia 1998 15 no. 1 641 654 Online available at http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/4026.pdf.
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Khalidi Tarif The Muslim Jesus 2004 Boston HUP
Leanman Oliver The Qur’an: An Encyclopaedia 2006 London Routledge
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Ventura Leontina D. Afonso iii 2006 Lisboa Círculo de Leitores
Venuti Lawrence The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation 1994 London Routledge
Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett, Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation (London: Routledge, 1998).
Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility (London: Routledge, 1994), 18.
Andre Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (London: Routledge, 1992), ix-xi. I believe this perspective to be essential within the field of medieval literatures. It highlights the proper literary environment where borrowing, adapting and translating are often intertwined and intricate aspects of the same goal.
Diego Catalán, ed., Crónica del moro Rasis, versión del ajbār mulūk al-andalus de Aḥmad ibnmuhammad ibn mūsà al-rāzī, 889-955; romanzada para el rey don dionís de portugal hacia 1300 por mahomad alarife, y gil pérez, clérigo de don perianes porçel (Madrid: Seminario Menéndez Pidal, 1975), xc. Diego Catalán also believed that al-Rāzī had been a direct source for the first Latin history on the Arabs, the Historia Arabum, written by Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada around 1230. But a recent and exhaustive study by Mathias Maser rejects this hypothesis (see Matthias Maser, Die “Historia Arabum” des Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada: Arabische Traditionen und die Identität der Hispania im 13. Jahrhundert [Münster: Lit. Verlag, 2006]).
António Rei, Memória de Espaços e Espaços de Memória: De Al-Razi a D. Pedro de Barcelos (Lisboa: Colibri, 2008).
Rei, “A tradução,” 162-163. Rei believes the Aboim-Portel family to be the promoters of the translation of Akhbār mulūk al-Andalus and he relates this initiative to the territorial dispute over the kingdom of Algarve that opposed king Dinis of Portugal and the king of Castile. However, a 17th-century manuscript preserved in the Danish National Library connects the translation to King Dinis himself. Since the Aboim-Portels were mandated as mediators and negotiators by the king himself to help solving the dispute over Algarve, one should accept that the translation of this Arabic work was, in the first place, a royal endeavour.
Luis Molina, “Técnicas de amplificatio en el Muqtabis de Ibn Hayyan,” Talia Dixit 1 (2006): 55-79.
C.G. Anawati, “ ʿĪsā,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Brill Online, 2012). Jesus is mentioned 93 times in the Qur’an and in 15 different sūras. ʿIsā Ibn Maryam is the most frequent designation, occurring 33 times (16 in the form ʿIsā Ibn Maryam and 17 Ibn Maryam).
Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2004), 14.
Oliver Leanman, The Qur’an: An Encyclopaedia (Boston: Routledge, 2006), 305.
See Stefano Maria Cingolani, “Traducció literària I traducció cultural,” in Essays on medieval translation in the Iberian peninsula, Tomas Romero and Roxana Recio, eds., (Castellò: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaime I, 2001), 129-153.
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Medieval Iberia was one of the most important places of cultural interaction and transcultural encounters within the Mediterranean space, where an extensive translation movement from Arabic into Latin and from Arabic into the emerging vernacular languages took place. Considering translation as a form of cultural interaction, this paper will investigate the cultural and philological relationships between two historical works, namely an earlier Arabic work of history, Akhbār Mulūk al-Andalus by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsa al-Rāzī (887-955 ad) and its 14th century Portuguese translation, Cronica do Mouro Razis. The aim is to highlight some of the problems of historiographical writing and try to understand both the limitations and interventions of the translators when dealing with an historical text pertaining to another linguistic and cultural tradition.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 445 | 50 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 219 | 1 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 40 | 2 | 0 |