Reception of Augustine in Medieval Arabic-Islamic Sources
Medieval Arabic-Islamic sources dating between the seventh and the i t eenth centuries either do not mention Aug. or mention him so rarely that it is easier to miss than to i nd him. Islamic philosophers of the Middle Ages seem to have ignored Aug. Important representatives such as al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna (d. 428/1037), al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), and Ibn Rushd/Averroes (d. 595/1198) concern themselves with the interpretation of the Qur’ān, Islamic law, Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, astronomy, music, medicine, and other facets of the antique sciences that were transmit ed via Greek- and Syriac-speaking translators in ninth- and tenth-century Iraq (O’Leary; Gutas). Medieval Islam produced a number of theologians, apologists, and heresiologists who dealt with aspects of Christian theology, mostly with the aim of refuting them (cf. Steinschneider). But although they are ot en quite well informed about early ecclesiastical history, the formation of Christian dogma in the various ecumenical councils, as well as important ‘heretics’ such as Arius, Nestorius, etc., Muslim scholars specialized in this i eld lack a clear notion of ‘Latin Christianity’ and do not seem to understand it as an entity in its own right (König 2010a, 32–3).
Authors who dedicated treatises or passages to the refutation of Christianity, e.g. Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq (ninth century; ar-radd ʿalā ’t-tathlīth ), Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī (d. 456/1064; kitāb al-i ṣal fī ’l-milal wa ’l-ahwā’ wa ’n-niḥal ), and ash-Shahristānī (d. 584/1153; kitāb al-milal wa ’n-niḥal ), group Christians into the categories Melkite, Jacobite, and Nestorian. h eologians such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) seem to recognize the Pope’s eminent position within the northern Christian world ( al-jawāb aṣ-ṣaḥīḥ ; trans. T. Michel 183, 190, 208; König 2010b 21–6, 40). It seems, however, that Islamic theologians, whether of Western or Eastern origin, did not think it necessary to delve into the depths of Latin-Christian history and theology. h e reason for this seems obvious: there was no need to refute or even know Aug. if the gospels, the Trinitarian dogma, the cult of saints, and so on were regarded as assailable enough.
Works of a predominantly geographical and ethnographical nature likewise ignore Aug., even if they contain information about North Africa, Western Europe, and the Roman Empire or deal with aspects of their history. Ibn Khurradadhbih ( kitāb al-masālik wa ’l-mamālik ; d. around 298/911), Ibn Rustah ( kitāb al-ʿalāq an-nafīsa ; d. at er 300/913), Ibn Faqīh al-Hamadhānī ( mukhtaṣar kitāb al-buldān ; d. at er 290/903), al-Iṣṭakhrī ( kitāb al-masālik wa ’l-mamālik ; fourth/tenth century), and Ibn Ḥawqal ( kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ ; d. at er 378/988) never seem to have heard of ancient Hippo, Milan, or Aug. h is is also valid for al-Masʿūdī ( murūj adh-dhahab wa maʿādin al-jawhar ; d. 345/956), although he writes extensively about Romans, Franks, Galicians, and Lombards, and especially for al-Muqaddasī ( aḥsan at-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm ; d. at er 380/990), who refuses to deal with the non-Islamic world altogether. Even in the famous geographical work of al-Idrīsī ( kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq ; d. around 560/1165), produced on the orders of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, Aug. leaves no trace. h e same goes for Ibn Saʿīd al-Maġribī ( kitāb al-jughrāi yya ; d. 685/1286) and, in his wake, Abū ’l-Fidā’ ( taqwīm al-buldān ; d. 732/1331), as well as for al-Qazwīnī ( āthār al-bilād ; 682/1283). Yaqūt ( muʿjam al-buldān ; d. 626/1229) and al-Ḥimyarī ( kitāb ar-rawḍ al-miʿṭār ; thirteenth–fourteenth century) dedicated lemmata to the city of Hippo (Arab. Būna ) in their geographical encyclopedias, but without referring to the town’s Roman past.
In view of this result, it is all the more surprising that the Andalusian geo- and ethnographer al-Bakrī (d. 487/1094) mentions the city of Būna on the site of ancient Hippo as ‘the city of Augustine, the scholar of the Christian religion’ ( madīnat Aqushtīn al-ʿālim bi dīn an-naṣrāniyya ) in his Book of Highways and Kingdoms (al-Bakrī, kitāb al-masālik wa ’l-mamālik 1203, 717). Unfortunately, al-Bakrī does not reveal his sources. Lacking other evidence, it seems possible that he drew on the prologue contained in the Arabic version of Orosius’ Historia adversus paganos , which reproduces Orosius’ let er to Aug. ( kitāb Hurūšiyūš 1, 17). Since the ‘Arabic Orosius’ was also used by other Arab-Islamic scholars (on the reception see Vida 260–2; kitāb Hurūšiyūš 67–81; Badawī 1982, 21–47), it seems possible that he was not the only one to have acknowledged Aug.’s existence. It should be noted, however, that even a scholar such as Ibn Khaldūn ( kitāb al-ʿibar ; 808/1406), who used the ‘Arabic Orosius’ extensively, never mentions Aug. One wonders, however, how al-Bakrī would have come to know about the connection between Aug. and the city of Hippo, which is not alluded to in the introductory let er to the Historia adversus paganos , either in the Latin or in the Arabic version.
It may be of interest in this context that the translation of Orosius, which was produced in al-Andalus in the ninth or tenth century (see the overview in the introduction to kitāb Hurūšiyūš 27–33; Badawī 1982, 10–15) was accompanied by other translations into Arabic, such as Jerome’s Latin version of the Psalter ( Le Psautier mozarabe de Hafs le Goth ). h e ArabIslamic scholar Ibn Juljul (d. at er 284/994) from al-Andalus may have had knowledge of Jerome’s Chronicon as well as writings of Isidore of Seville ( ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā’ wa ’l-ḥukamā’ , introduction, 36, 41). In the period between 1050 and 1200 , Christians under Muslim rule annotated Latin manuscripts of Eusebius, Aug.,Gregory the Great , and Isidore in Arabic (Burman 78, 157, 175, 194–5). Consequently, it does not seem improbable that Aug.’s ideas and Aug. himself played a part in scientii c exchange and, as the example of the al-Qurṭubī’s kitāb al-iʿlām may prove, religious polemics between Muslims and Christians on the Iberian Peninsula.
Points of Contact
h e lack of important relics in North Africa can be explained by the fact that, according to *Bede , they had been transferred to Sardinia long ago ( olim ; Vössing) to save them from barbarian invaders. Only in the nineteenth century were parts of Aug.’s bodily remains, i.e. his right arm, transferred to North Africa and put to rest on the site of ancient Hippo (al-Bustānī 674). h ese relics may have come into the possession of Arab conquerors when they invaded Sardinia between 710 and 760. Bede reports that the Lombard King Liutprand (reigned 712– 44) sent messengers who purchased the relics for a high price and brought them to Pavia ( Chronica , MGH AA 13:321). Since Bede makes no reference to the identity of the persons who sold the relics, scholars are not sure whether to at ribute this act of salesmanship to the ‘Saracens’ (Eickhof 37 f .; Rot er 204 f .; Hallenbeck; Vössing). As the case may be, it is hardly possible to dei ne this commercial act as a form of ‘reception’. Christian communities under Islamic rule outside of North Africa could have played a role in transmit ing information about Aug., for example by dedicating churches or monasteries to the saint. But these are rather hard to i nd, be it in Palestine, Syria, or Egypt. h e transmission of texts by or about Aug. should be considered as well. Greek-speaking Eastern Christians mention the saint occasionally (Fürst 293–314), but only one Latin patristic author seems to have been translated via Greek into Arabic up to about the seventeenth century, i.e. John Cassian ( Graf 1944 , 299, 401; Burman 76; see or ienta l r eception of Augustine). It seems as if the conditions for a transmission of textual information about Aug. were more favourable in the West, especially in Spain and North Africa.
In addition to the Muslim scholars in al-Andalus who were mentioned above as having had access to Arabic translations of Latin texts, Muslim scholars from North Africa also seem to have made use of the Latin heritage to a certain degree. h e North African Muslim traveller and convert to Catholicism Leo Africanus asserted in 1526 that Arab historians had access to Arabic translations of North African Latin historiography dating from ‘the times of the Arrians and partly before their times’, but without naming authors or titles (Leo 1, 28 f .). The Flemish prelate and traveller Jean-Baptiste Gramaye further informs us in his historiographical work about northern Africa, writ en at er 1622 , that the Escorial library in Madrid contained a precious manuscript in Arabic that had originally been among the presents the ruler of Marrakesh Mulay Zidan (Zīdān an-Nāṣir) had sent to the sultan of Istanbul to ask for support. h is manuscript reached Spain when the ship carrying the precious load was captured. According to Gramaye, the Escorial library of his times contained other manuscripts of Aug.’s texts mauricè translati which had originally been collected at the library of the famous university al-Qarawiyyīn in Fes. Among these manuscripts were the sermons of Aug., which, he claims, had been regarded by the librarians of Fes to be models of this genre ( Gramaye 1622 , 2.4, 42; 2.7, 67; Ben Mansour 343). Muslims came into contact with details of Western Christianity as soon as Muslim territory was conquered, colonized, and Christianized.