Periodic Reporting for period 2 - OROARAB (The Orosius Arabicus and the Arab Vision of the Graeco-Roman World: Researches on theMediterranean Responsiveness)
Reporting period: 2020-09-01 to 2021-08-31
The very important topic of the transmission of the Greco-Roman knowledge to the medieval Islamic world has an interesting appendix concerning historiography. If the Arabic translations of the Greek philosophical and scientific texts are often aimed at the applied and theoretical science, the historical summaries taken from Greek and Syriac sources are placed immediately in the service of the Islamic historiography, which incorporates them within it, making redundant the existence of autonomous translations of historical texts.
It is evident that this translation and synthesis activities could involve only the Greek and Syriac works which were easily accessible and, above all, in line with the Islamic vision of the history. However, there is an exceptional case that deserve special attention: the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, that is the Arabic translation of the so-called Historiae adversus paganos by the Latin historian Paulus Orosius (IV/V century C.E.). It is a work of extraordinary importance, translated in al-Andalus in 10th century C.E. which left a deep mark on Western Islamic historiography, coming to constitute for many Arab intellectuals a unique and fundamental access door to the Graeco-Roman world. Like its Latin source, the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš is divided into seven books, but it is important to undernote that the work is not a mere translation of the Historiae adversus paganos, rather a mix of translation, abridgment and reworking of the original text. There are also large portions of the Orosius’ text that do not appear in the Arabic. It is hard to explain these omissions as part of a coherent editorial or ideological scheme: one wonders whether the translators consulted a corrupted source or omitted the passages on purpose. Besides the omissions, the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš includes a number of passages that do not appear in the Latin text. The added material came mostly from a group of late-antique and early-medieval Latin sources. We do not know if these interpolations existed in the Latin source before the translation into Arabic. We can see a similar occurrence in a Latin manuscript of the Historiae adversus paganos from Madrid, which was written in Spain in the tenth century: in fact, in this manuscript several copyists present additional texts meant to supplement Orosius, whose narration ended in 417/18. As a conclusion of the present project, we provide the public with a fundamental tool: the complete translation of the Arabic text of the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš and a rich historical-philological commentary that can constitute the starting point for further studies and research in various fields of knowledge (history, philology, anthropology, history of translation, history of mentality, etc.).
It is evident that this translation and synthesis activities could involve only the Greek and Syriac works which were easily accessible and, above all, in line with the Islamic vision of the history. However, there is an exceptional case that deserve special attention: the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, that is the Arabic translation of the so-called Historiae adversus paganos by the Latin historian Paulus Orosius (IV/V century C.E.). It is a work of extraordinary importance, translated in al-Andalus in 10th century C.E. which left a deep mark on Western Islamic historiography, coming to constitute for many Arab intellectuals a unique and fundamental access door to the Graeco-Roman world. Like its Latin source, the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš is divided into seven books, but it is important to undernote that the work is not a mere translation of the Historiae adversus paganos, rather a mix of translation, abridgment and reworking of the original text. There are also large portions of the Orosius’ text that do not appear in the Arabic. It is hard to explain these omissions as part of a coherent editorial or ideological scheme: one wonders whether the translators consulted a corrupted source or omitted the passages on purpose. Besides the omissions, the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš includes a number of passages that do not appear in the Latin text. The added material came mostly from a group of late-antique and early-medieval Latin sources. We do not know if these interpolations existed in the Latin source before the translation into Arabic. We can see a similar occurrence in a Latin manuscript of the Historiae adversus paganos from Madrid, which was written in Spain in the tenth century: in fact, in this manuscript several copyists present additional texts meant to supplement Orosius, whose narration ended in 417/18. As a conclusion of the present project, we provide the public with a fundamental tool: the complete translation of the Arabic text of the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš and a rich historical-philological commentary that can constitute the starting point for further studies and research in various fields of knowledge (history, philology, anthropology, history of translation, history of mentality, etc.).
The past three years have been very important for my career: thanks to obtaining the Marie Curie fellowship, I had the opportunity to be recruited at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” for a tenure track that will allow me to become professor (professore associato) two years after the end of the project. In addition, the international experience gained during the MSCA project, combined with my experience as a team member of the ERC Advanced Grant 249431, will be a fundamental element in order to enhancing my potential and future career prospects, in particular to try to obtain an ERC grant focused on the theme of the Arab vision of the Greco-Roman world and to get faster the role of full professor.
For what concerns the exploitation and the dissemination of the action results, the most important element will be the publication of the new edition with English translation and commentary of the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, but it could be useful also the publication of an editio minor of the text in Italian for a widely distributed publisher. Also the dialogue with the scholars of the Greek and Roman world will be very important (not only specialists of Orosius), in order to discuss analogies and differences in the vision of the ancient history of Greece and Rome between the Arab translators and the Latin historiographers. In this regard, from September 2020 to August 2021 I held courses in Byzantine history and Islamic history, with particular attention to the issues of cultural relations between the Islamic and the Byzantine world and to the history of the so-called “translation movement”. Between March and June I then held a series of monographic lessons concerning the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš and dedicated to the students of my courses. Furthermore, I will participate to the international conference “Orosius through the Ages”, to be held in London from May 25 to May 27 2022 (https://orosiusconference.wordpress.com(opens in new window)). Moreover, I plan the publication of a widely accessing book on the Islamic vision of Roman history, in order to raise public awareness on the issue of cultural transfert between East and West. Moreover, for the purpose of communicating the action activities to different target audiences, after the publication of the results of my research, I would like to organize some conferences in Italian schools on the theme of the different visions of classical antiquity and the transfer of knowledge between the Greco-Roman and Byzantine world and the Arab-Islamic world, starting from the case of Kitab Hurūšiyūš and then considering the general phenomenon of the translation movement.
For what concerns the exploitation and the dissemination of the action results, the most important element will be the publication of the new edition with English translation and commentary of the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, but it could be useful also the publication of an editio minor of the text in Italian for a widely distributed publisher. Also the dialogue with the scholars of the Greek and Roman world will be very important (not only specialists of Orosius), in order to discuss analogies and differences in the vision of the ancient history of Greece and Rome between the Arab translators and the Latin historiographers. In this regard, from September 2020 to August 2021 I held courses in Byzantine history and Islamic history, with particular attention to the issues of cultural relations between the Islamic and the Byzantine world and to the history of the so-called “translation movement”. Between March and June I then held a series of monographic lessons concerning the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš and dedicated to the students of my courses. Furthermore, I will participate to the international conference “Orosius through the Ages”, to be held in London from May 25 to May 27 2022 (https://orosiusconference.wordpress.com(opens in new window)). Moreover, I plan the publication of a widely accessing book on the Islamic vision of Roman history, in order to raise public awareness on the issue of cultural transfert between East and West. Moreover, for the purpose of communicating the action activities to different target audiences, after the publication of the results of my research, I would like to organize some conferences in Italian schools on the theme of the different visions of classical antiquity and the transfer of knowledge between the Greco-Roman and Byzantine world and the Arab-Islamic world, starting from the case of Kitab Hurūšiyūš and then considering the general phenomenon of the translation movement.
The complete translation and commentary on the text of the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš represents a fundamental tool for the knowledge of this work, but also, more broadly, for understanding the attitude of Muslims towards the pre-Islamic past. In the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš Greek and Roman history, which in the past had been the subject of strenuous research by the Arab mediaeval historians, stands out powerfully at the center of the scene. The story of the translation of the Historiae adversus paganos, on which Christians and Muslims worked side by side, would not have been conceivable in a place other than Umayyad Andalusia. Only such a context could in fact allow a reconstruction of the past shared by the two main religious communities of Spain: a history seen in an Islamo-Christian perspective. The translation and commentary of the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš represent the basis for achieving four specific objectives of the project: 1) to open a scientific discussion on the Kitāb Hurūšiyūš as a crucial source to rethink the relationships among different religious views in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages; 2) to insert the so-called Kitāb Hurūšiyūš in a wide range of sources in Arabic, Latin, and Greek languages, in order to improve the cross-knowledge of relationships and religious representations in a crucial historical period; 3) to reflect on the responsiveness between the shores of the Mediterranean in view of further research projects; 4) to pave the way for new studies on the concept of translation in the medieval Islamic world.
In order to achieve these goals, the publication of the work is fundamental. In this regard, I negotiated a contract with the publishing house of the Università degli Studi di Pisa (Pisa University Press: https://www.pisauniversitypress.it/libri-genere-greco-arabo-latino-le-vie-del-sapere-1092.html(opens in new window)) in the series “Le Vie del Sapere” directed by Professor Cristina D’Ancona, winner of the ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2009-AdG): GREEK INTO ARABIC - Philosophical Concepts and Linguistic Bridges: the book will be published during 2022.
In order to achieve these goals, the publication of the work is fundamental. In this regard, I negotiated a contract with the publishing house of the Università degli Studi di Pisa (Pisa University Press: https://www.pisauniversitypress.it/libri-genere-greco-arabo-latino-le-vie-del-sapere-1092.html(opens in new window)) in the series “Le Vie del Sapere” directed by Professor Cristina D’Ancona, winner of the ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2009-AdG): GREEK INTO ARABIC - Philosophical Concepts and Linguistic Bridges: the book will be published during 2022.