621: Isidore of Seville on the Origins of the Term “Saracens”: Difference between revisions

Obviously, scholarship does not have recourse to the explanation that the origins of the term “Saracens” have to be sought in the late antique Arabs’ deficiency of legitimacy and a resulting act of “onomastic usurpation.” However, the origins of the term are still discussed controversially. In principle, it is possible to conceive geographic, ethnic, and linguistic explanations. The geographical explanations attribute the Greek variant of the term “Saracens” to toponyms that are located on the Sinai or in the northern periphery of the Arabian Peninsula and have already been recorded in parts by ancient authors such as the geographer Ptolemy. The ethnic explanations assume that an Arab tribe carrying the ethnonym “Saracens” existed, and claim that the latter was then increasingly applied to other Arab groups during the repeated emergence and collapse of pre-Islamic tribal confederations. Linguistic explanations link the term “Saracens” with Arabic and Aramaic terms. In this vein, Σαρακηνοί / ''Saraceni'' is either derived from ''sāriq / sāriqīn'' (Arabic: “stealing” / “thieves”), from ''šarqī'' / ''šarqīyyūn'' (Arabic: “Eastern”/ “Orientals”), from ''s^erāq'' (Aramaic: “emptiness” / “wasteland”), and finally from ''šarika(t)'' (Arabic: “association,” here in the sense of “confederation”).<ref name="ftn18">Compare the arguments (always with further literature) in Shahîd, Bosworth, Saracens, p. 27; Shahîd, ''Rome and the Arabs'', pp. 123-141; Graf, Saracens, pp. 14–15; Hoyland, ''Arabia'', p. 235; Retsö, ''Arabs'', pp. 505-520.</ref>