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621: Isidore of Seville on the Origins of the Term “Saracens”: Difference between revisions
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621: Isidore of Seville on the Origins of the Term “Saracens” (view source)
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The quoted excerpt is important in so far as—in a period preceding the emergence of Islam—it classifies Arab groups as part of a biblical genealogy, which accords them the status of barbaric desert dwellers in turn. The reference text is Genesis 16, which deals with Abraham’s descendants from his legitimate wife Sara and his maid Hagar: tension arises between the two women, when Hagar conceives before the much older Sara. After harsh treatment from Sara, Hagar flees, but is stopped by an angel, who instructs her to call her son Ishmael, i.e. “God has hearkened”, and to return to Sara. In regard to Ishmael, the angel makes the following prophecy (Genesis 16,12): “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” When Isaac is born, Sara demands that Abraham send Ishmael and his mother Hagar away, the latter defined as an Egyptian in this context, asserting that “the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son” (Genesis 21,10). Abraham’s reluctant expulsion of mother and son is approved by God himself, who, however, reassures Abraham, “for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also, of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. (Genesis 21,12-13).“ | The quoted excerpt is important in so far as—in a period preceding the emergence of Islam—it classifies Arab groups as part of a biblical genealogy, which accords them the status of barbaric desert dwellers in turn. The reference text is Genesis 16, which deals with Abraham’s descendants from his legitimate wife Sara and his maid Hagar: tension arises between the two women, when Hagar conceives before the much older Sara. After harsh treatment from Sara, Hagar flees, but is stopped by an angel, who instructs her to call her son Ishmael, i.e. “God has hearkened”, and to return to Sara. In regard to Ishmael, the angel makes the following prophecy (Genesis 16,12): “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” When Isaac is born, Sara demands that Abraham send Ishmael and his mother Hagar away, the latter defined as an Egyptian in this context, asserting that “the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son” (Genesis 21,10). Abraham’s reluctant expulsion of mother and son is approved by God himself, who, however, reassures Abraham, “for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also, of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. (Genesis 21,12-13).“ | ||
Unlike Syriac texts of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which often employ a name derived from the Arab tribe of the ''Ṭayyiʾ'' and thus refer to the pre-Islamic Arabs and early Muslims as ''Ṭayyāyē ''or (west Syriac) ''Ṭayōyē'',<ref name="ftn5">Shahîd, Ṭayyiʾ, pp. 402-403.</ref> late antique and medieval Greek and Latin texts written by Christians often use the terms Ισμαηλίται / ''Ismaelitae'' or Αγαρηνοί / ''[H]Agareni'' both for the pre-Islamic Arabs and for the Muslims''. ''Deriving'' ''from the names Ishmael and Hagar respectively, these ethnonyms are obviously biblically inspired. Although it is already documented as an adjective in Dioscurides’ ''Materia medica'' in the middle of the first century, the proper ethnonym Σαρακηνοί only made its first appearance around the middle of the second century in Ptolemy’s ''Geographia'',<ref name="ftn6">Retsö, ''Arabs'', pp. 505-506, on the basis of Claudius Ptolemaeus, ''Geographia'', ed. Karl Friedrich August Nobbe, Leipzig: Carl Tauchnitz, 1845, vol. 2, lib. 6, cap. 7.21, p. 102.</ref> only to be used around 200 CE in its Syriac form ''Sarqāyē'' by the Syriac author Bardaiṣān.<ref name="ftn7">Bardaiṣan, ''The Book of the Laws of Countries'', ed./trans. H.J. W. Drijvers, Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965, p. 50, l. 11.</ref> Ammianus Marcellinus (d. ''c''. 400) as well as Jerome (d. ''c''. 420) introduced the Latin variant ''Saraceni'' as a new term for ''Scenitas Arabas''<ref name="ftn8">Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae, lib. XXII, cap. 15,2: “Scenitas praetenditur Arabas, quos Sarracenos nunc appellamus“; lib. XXIII, cap. 6,13: | Unlike Syriac texts of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which often employ a name derived from the Arab tribe of the ''Ṭayyiʾ'' and thus refer to the pre-Islamic Arabs and early Muslims as ''Ṭayyāyē ''or (west Syriac) ''Ṭayōyē'',<ref name="ftn5">Shahîd, Ṭayyiʾ, pp. 402-403.</ref> late antique and medieval Greek and Latin texts written by Christians often use the terms Ισμαηλίται / ''Ismaelitae'' or Αγαρηνοί / ''[H]Agareni'' both for the pre-Islamic Arabs and for the Muslims''. ''Deriving'' ''from the names Ishmael and Hagar respectively, these ethnonyms are obviously biblically inspired. Although it is already documented as an adjective in Dioscurides’ ''Materia medica'' in the middle of the first century, the proper ethnonym Σαρακηνοί only made its first appearance around the middle of the second century in Ptolemy’s ''Geographia'',<ref name="ftn6">Retsö, ''Arabs'', pp. 505-506, on the basis of Claudius Ptolemaeus, ''Geographia'', ed. Karl Friedrich August Nobbe, Leipzig: Carl Tauchnitz, 1845, vol. 2, lib. 6, cap. 7.21, p. 102.</ref> only to be used around 200 CE in its Syriac form ''Sarqāyē'' by the Syriac author Bardaiṣān.<ref name="ftn7">Bardaiṣan, ''The Book of the Laws of Countries'', ed./trans. H.J. W. Drijvers, Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965, p. 50, l. 11.</ref> Ammianus Marcellinus (d. ''c''. 400) as well as Jerome (d. ''c''. 420) introduced the Latin variant ''Saraceni'' as a new term for ''Scenitas Arabas''<ref name="ftn8">Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae, lib. XXII, cap. 15,2: “Scenitas praetenditur Arabas, quos Sarracenos nunc appellamus“; lib. XXIII, cap. 6,13: "Scenitas Arabas, quos Saracenos posteritas appellavit."</ref> or ''Arabes et Agarenos''<ref name="ftn9">Hieronymus, ep. 129,4, ed. Isidorus Hilberg (CSEL 56), Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1918, pp. 169-170: “Arabes et Agarenos, quos nunc Sarracenos vocant, in vicinia urbis Jerusalem.”</ref> respectively. Most likely, Jerome came across this new term in the works of Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339-340).<ref name="ftn10">Tolan, A Wild Man, p. 515.</ref> The Christian Jerome already identified the Arabs or Saracens with the descendants of Ishmael that are branded as savage desert tribes in the Old Testament.<ref name="ftn11">Hieronymus, ''Liber quaestionum hebraicarum in Genesim'', ed. Paul de Lagarde (CCL 72), Turnhout: Brepols, 1959, cap. 16, p. 26.</ref> The etymology of the term “Saracens”, which leads this ethnonym back to an act of usurpation that serves to appropriate a form of legitimate descendance from Abraham’s wife Sara, can also be found both in the writings of Jerome<ref name="ftn12">Hieronymus, ''Commentarii in Ezechielem'', ed. François Glorie (CCL 75), Turnhout: Brepols, 1964, lib. 8, cap. 25,1-7, p. 335: “Madianaeos, ismaelitas et agarenos, qui nunc saraceni appellantur, assumentes sibi falso nomen sarae quo scilicet de ingenua et domina uideantur esse generati.”</ref> and the Greek church historian Sozomen (d. ''c.'' 450),<ref name="ftn13">Sozomenos, ''Kirchengeschichte / Historia ecclesiastica'', ed./trans. Günther Christian Hansen (Fontes Christiani 73/3), Turnhout: Brepols, 2004, vol. 3, lib. VI, cap. 38,10-16, pp. 826-830. Also see Esders, Herakleios, p. 274.</ref> but may well have originated in a lost work by Eusebius.<ref name="ftn14">Shahîd, ''Rome and the Arabs'', p. 105, FN 63. Citing Shahīd, Tolan, A Wild Man, p. 518, purports that Jerome may have invented the etymology himself. This would not explain, however, why it was also documented by the church historian Sozomen, who would have copied the etymology from Eusebius rather than from Jerome.</ref> <span style="color:#000000;">The biblical explanation for the origin of the Saracens was then adopted in the Latin West, not only by Isidore,</span><span style="color:#000000;"><ref name="ftn15">On Isidore’s extensive use of Jerome, see Isidore of Seville, ''Etymologies'', trans. Barney et al., pp. 9-16.</ref></span><span style="color:#000000;"> but also by the Anglo-Saxon monk </span>Bede the Venerable (d. 735) among others. In the latter’s case, however, the etymology was inserted into a description and evaluation of the Arabic-Islamic expansion to the West: for Bede, the prophecy, that Ishmael’s “hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him” (Genesis 16,12), seemed to have fulfilled itself.<ref name="ftn16">Beda Venerabilis, ''In principium Genesis usque ad natiuitatem Isaac'', ed. C.W. Jones (CCL 118A), Turnhout: Brepols, 1967, lib. IV,16, p. 201; Bede, ''On Genesis'', transl. Calvin B. Kendall, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008, p. 279; Beckett, ''Anglo-Saxon Perceptions'', p. 128-129; Tolan, A Wild Man, pp. 513-530.</ref> The Latin Middle Ages then continued to adopt this explanation.<ref name="ftn17">Tolan, ''Saracens'', pp. 127-128; Daniel, ''Islam and the West'', p. 100.</ref> | ||
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<sup>e</sup>rāq'' (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> | 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<sup>e</sup>rāq'' (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> | ||