ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 1 An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an: Ignazio Lomellini’s Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum Paul Shore Abstract The manuscript Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum is an almost entirely unknown translation of the Qur’an into baroque Latin completed by the Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini in 1622, of which only one copy exists. It is accompanied by extensive commentaries and includes a complete text of the Qur’an in Arabic and numerous marginalia. It is, therefore, one of the earliest complete translations of the Qur’an into a western European language and a crucial document of the encounter between western Christianity and Islam in the early modern period. This essay examines Lomellini’s understanding of Arabic and, specifically, of the cultural and religious underpinnings of Qur’anic Arabic. Special attention is given to his lexical choices. This essay also deals with the document’s intended audience, the resources upon which he drew (including the library of his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Orsini), and the manuscript’s relationship to the Jesuits’ broader literary and missionary efforts. Finally, it asks why scholars, particularly those who study the history of the Jesuits, have ignored this manuscript and its author. Paul Shore has held teaching and research posts at Saint Louis University, Harvard Divinity School, Oxford University, the University of Wrocław, the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, and Charles University Prague. His publications include The Eagle and the Cross: Jesuits in Late Baroque Prague (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2002) and Narratives of Adversity: Jesuits on the Eastern Peripheries of the Habsburg Realms (16401773) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2012). He would like to extend his sincere thanks to the International Institute of Islamic Thought for its support of this research and to acknowledge the kind assistance of the staff of the Biblioteca Universitaria, Genova. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 2 2 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 Introduction Among the early translations of the Qur’an into western European languages, the one identified with the Italian Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini is at once both the least known and arguably the best executed, at least until that of Luigi Marracci, published in 1698.1 It is also the first early translation into a western European language to include a complete text of the Qur’an in the original Arabic.2 This essay will examine the origins of this document and explore some of its features, both as a translation and as a commentary on the Qur’an. In doing so, the few known facts regarding its author will be reviewed, after which this essay will take up some of the lexical and syntactic issues with which Lomellini, as translator and commentator, engaged. Finally, while this essay represents a report on only the first phase of the study of this document, the author will offer some more general observations on the issues raised by Lomellini’s engagement with the Qur’an. Lomellini appears to have been born to the distinguished Lomellini albergo, one of the twenty-eight extended clans that dominated the Republic of Genoa for centuries and was raised to ducal status in 1538. The Lomellinis were among the noble albergi that armed war galleys at their own expense during the action against the Turks during the 1570s.3 Ignazio is probably identical with “Ignazio Lomellini priest,” son of Carlo Lomellini and Maddelena Brignole, also of a noble Genovese family.4 He appears to have had at least two sisters who were nuns.5 “Nicolò” (as he was known before becoming a Jesuit) arrived in Rome on 5 April 1588 to enter the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), being already past twenty-seven years old, a somewhat advanced age for a man beginning the path to priesthood in this religious order. Among his possessions were “un annello doro co’ diama[n]te piano… tre libri scritti a mano… la vita di Santi, doi thomi d[el]le prediche del Bitonte,6 li discorsi del…Martyrlogio Rom[ano] La Vita d[e]l p[adr]e Ignazio,7 Vita dei[?] padri col Prato S[pirit]uale8; Meditationi d[e]l p[adr]e Vinc[enz]o Bruno9 … Vanita d[e]l mundo,10 novi parti delle opere de Granata11 … privilegii del doctorato… 12 These objects mark him as a literate, quite possibly devout, and privileged individual, not unlike many others who joined the Society at this time. Lomellini died in Rome on 20 May 1645, aged about 84 or 85. During his years as a Jesuit he was the censor (i.e., official reviewer for the Church’s approval) of a Syriac grammar by Abramus Ecchellensis13 and of a text by Filippo Guadagnoli, Considerationes ad Mahometanos (1633), an anti-Islamic apologia.14 But remarkably, he does not appear in the standard biographies of noted Jesuits; nor is he known to have published anything. He is ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 3 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 3 credited in one seventeenth-century source as having contributed to an Arabic-language Bible,15 although there is no corroborating evidence for this claim. Lomellini’s relationship, if any, with the Maronite College in Rome is not known. The most important is by Levi della Vida, who is generally credited with identifying or “rediscovering” the Lomellini manuscript.16 A page on the website of Islamolatina, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona prepared by Dr. Oscár de la Cruz Palma, provides a short description of the document.17 Several other scholars have made brief mention of it, without implying that they have examined it.18 Beyond the acknowledgement of its existence by Giorgio della Vida, made in 1949, nothing more is known of its “rediscovery.” This manuscript, entitled Animadversiones... in Alcoranum, is 323 twosided folios long. It is housed in the library of the University of Genoa, Ms A-IV-4, bearing the date 1622. It was previously owned by the renowned orientalist Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838), and has been in the university library since at least 1846.19 The author was kindly provided with digital images of a microfilm copy by Dr. Oscár de la Cruz Palma, of the University of Barcelona, and has also had the opportunity to inspect the original. It has never been edited, the Latin has not been translated, and it is mentioned in only a few footnotes in the secondary literature. The microfilm copy is in poor condition, with its legibility impaired by significant bleed through on many folios; however, the entire text is legible in the original. The volume’s binding appears to date from a later period. There is minor bleed through on a handful of folios and several large stains; otherwise the manuscript is legible overall. Each verse is presented in Arabic, followed by a Latin translation. The numerous struck-out words and phrases suggest that this surviving exemplar was not a fair copy. Yet the series of struck-out Latin words and phrases provide insights into the translator’s thought process and even into his progress as a translator. The majority of the written text is made up by the Latin commentaries that follow the Latin translation of the Arabic. These commentaries take the point of view of a devout seventeenth-century Catholic and are filled with citations from Patristic Christian writers and the Vulgate edition of the Bible, and, in a few cases, with quotations from pagan classical poets. Marginalia, several of which will be described in more detail below, seem to have been written for Lomellini’s own use. Both the commentary and the marginalia contain extensive cross references to other passages of the Qur’an, intended to help assemble Lomellini’s arguments. The term azoara (abbreviated azo.) is used throughout to indicate a sūrah. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 4 4 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 The Qur’an in Latin Translation Translations of the Qur’an did not appear in western Europe until over half a millennium after the reception of the text. Mark of Toledo, a Spanish cleric and physician, completed a Latin translation around the year 1200. Ulisse Cecini’s observations about Mark’s approach are worth quoting here: Mark’s translation of the Qur’an is immediately distinguished by its closeness to the Arabic original. This applies to word order, sentence order, syntax and vocabulary. It is important to point out two aspects: the first is that Mark generally not only translates words consistently, i.e. using the same translations (I say “generally” because there are sometimes translation variants too), but he also tries to translate words that derive from the same Arabic root with root-related Latin words, especially when the words are located close to one another in a sentence.20 Mark’s translation was the most accurate one available for several centuries, but never gained much popularity.21 Instead, the translation undertaken by the twelfth-century cleric Robert of Ketton (Robertus Kettensis) (as revised by Theodor Bibliander)22 was, despite its flaws, widely influential. An important recent contribution to the study of these early translations of the Qur’an into Latin is Reinhold F. Glei and Roberto Tottoli’s Ludovico Marracci at Work: The Evolution of Marracci’s Latin Translation of the Qur’ān in the Light of His Newly Discovered Manuscripts. With an Edition and a Comparative Linguistic Analysis of Sura 18 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016). Glei and Tottoli, working from these recently discovered manuscripts of Marracci, propose a new way of looking at translations such as Marracci’s, one in which the process unfolds in three phases. In the decoding phase, semantical and syntactical analysis extracts meaning. In the recording phase, this meaning is verbalized in scholarly Neo-Latin, which Glei elsewhere has called a “meta-language.” The “transcoding” phase concludes the process with a “source-language oriented, ‘documentary’ translation that provides the reader with the full-scale linguistic code of the source text.”23 Jesuits and the Qur’an The engagement of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order founded in 1540 and commonly known as “the Jesuits,” with the Arabic language began early. One of the first Jesuits to demonstrate skill in Arabic was Giovanni-Battista Eliano (1530-89). Born a Jew in Alexandria, he joined the Society in 1551, served as professor of Hebrew and Arabic at the Collegium ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 5 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 5 Romanum, and translated a catechism into Arabic in about 1580.24 Lomellini might have met him, as the former arrived in Rome eleven months before Eliano’s death. The rhetorical and homiletic possibilities of Arabic were recognized by a few other early Jesuits. Two Spanish Jesuit contemporaries of Lomellini, Jerónimo Mur (1525-1602) and Juan de Albotodo (1527-78), preached in Arabic.25 Both of them were Moriscos and presumably had knowledge of Arabic before entering the Society, making the accomplishments of Lomellini, who, as far as can be determined, lacked such a background, all the more remarkable.26 Two of his Hungarian Jesuit contemporaries, Stephanus Arator (Szántó István) (1541-1612) and Peter Pázmány (1570-1637), relied on Turkish language sources and the translations of Joannes Andreas (Juan Andrés) and Robert of Ketton in their anti-Qur’anic writings.27 Neither appears to have known any Arabic; this is especially true for Arator, who transcribes Juan Andrés’s transliteration of Qur’anic passages with no apparent understanding of syntax. Arator also relied on hadiths for some of his interpretations of the Qur’an, something that Lomellini does not appear to have done. The ignorance of the actual text of the Qur’an displayed by Arator and Pázmány is characteristic of the level of knowledge regarding Islam possessed not merely by seventeenth-century Jesuits, but also by the overwhelming majority of their learned Christian colleagues. This is in part because theological arguments initiated by Christians who quoted the Qur’an were frequently intended to engage other Christians, rather than Muslims conversant in Arabic. These facts must be kept in mind when considering the possible audiences for Lomellini’s work. Lomellini’s work, even if he himself was never a missionary, must also be placed in the context of Christian and, in particular, Catholic missionary activities among Muslims, which expanded rapidly after 1500.28 The Lomellini manuscript differs from the translation of the Qur’an attributed to Cyril Loukaris (1572-1633)29 as well as from Bibliander’s 1543 printing of a truncated version of Robert of Ketton’s translation, in that it contains the entire Arabic text.30 The presentation of a non-European language is a characteristic expression of the seventeenth-century Society of Jesus, which prided itself on its command of such languages.31 This Arabic text, which can tell us about the quality of Lomellini’s informants, can also be compared against manuscripts of the Qur’an then circulating in western Europe. Lomellini’s document also provides a glimpse of a Jesuit at work on a translation at a completely different stage of production than, for example, Jesuit records of the Huron language as they now appear in the near-contemporaneous Relations from ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 6 6 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 North America,32 or the efforts of Athanasius Kircher (1602-80) to decode Egyptian hieroglyphics.33 Here we not only see Lomellini’s successive revisions and “notes to himself” in the marginalia, but we also gain insight into the relationship between text and commentary that is likely to have influenced Jesuit proselytizing efforts among Muslims. Lomellini’s understanding of the Christian and Jewish texts upon which he draws is also made explicit, whereas the reader must often infer how Kircher or the writers of the Relations understood the texts that shaped their thinking. Writing about the translation of the Qur’an into French, Omar Sheikh AlShabab observes: translation is an act of interpretation. As such, translation is bound to produce difference. The accumulative potential of producing difference, i.e., all the possible characteristics of translation corpora, has been designated a theoretical status under the umbrella term the language of translation. The creative and existential potential of a translated text is assumed to be open to empirical investigation through the recognition and practice of analytical – verifiable – procedures.34 He goes on to assert that any translation has the inherent property of being “inadequate.” Taking a perhaps more positive view of the process of translation, George Steiner observes that the transfer between a source language and a receptor language presumes a “penetration” of a “complex aggregate of knowledge, familiarity, and creative intuition.”35 Evidence for each of these elements – knowledge, familiarity, and creative intuition – can be found in Lomellini’s translation. Clues regarding the first two will help place his work within both Jesuit institutional culture and the specific conditions obtaining during the years that he lived and worked in Rome. The third point, intuition, relates both to visualization and the more broadly understood aspects of intuition within educational settings, including Jesuit ones.36 Simultaneously, the prejudices and cultural limitations within which he worked exerted a great influence over his act of translation. Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes… is dedicated to Alexander Cardinal Orsini (1592-1626), a scion of one of the most distinguished Roman families who had close ties to the Jesuits and was a patron of Galileo.37 Orsini served as the godparent for several Muslim children resident in Italy who were baptized as Catholics,38 not a very unusual role for a high-ranking cleric, but perhaps indicative of his contacts among Italy’s Muslim and ex-Muslim populations. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 7 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 7 Word Choice In his lexical choice, we catch a glimpse of Lomelleni’s worldview and the scope (as well as the limits) of his literary imagination. The following examples shed light both on his (or his collaborator’s) command of Arabic and on the conceptual and linguistic tools he could bring to the task. At times he appears to be quite well informed about subtle shades of meaning; at other times he is groping toward a translation of a word or phrase while working with a text that can pose challenges even to those steeped in Qur’anic and Hadithic traditions. On this latter point, Andrew Rippin points out that there are some cases where “contextual usage of the text of the Qurān does not provide sufficient data to determine the meaning beyond something extremely general.”39 A selection of Lomellini’s lexical choices, when compared with those made by other early translators, sheds light on the Jesuits’ approach to the text of the Qur’an. In Q. 17:1,40 either through ignorance or unwillingness to accord the titles to Allah, Lomellini renders al-samī‘ (nominative singular masculine, definite), which most frequently appears in modern translations “all-hearing,” merely in its literal meaning. Likewise, al-baṣīr (nominative singular masculine, definite) is translated simply as “seeing.” Marracci also chooses not to amplify the meanings of these verbs; he prefers to translate al-baṣīr as “inspector.”41 Lomellini, wavering between illud and illum, was apparently unsure at first whether ḥawlahu referred to what he had called the locum orationis. The final dhammah indicates a masculine antecedent, thereby implying that the antecedent is al-Aqsa. If Lomellini worked with an informant who was fluent in Arabic, this informant does not seem to have provided much practical help in the puzzle of the al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭ‘ah. Nor is it clear how much importance Lomellini attached to these letters. Marracci includes them in his transcriptions and represents them in the translation as “H. M” etc. without further comment, as does Germanus de Silesia. Bibliander does not include them, which suggests that some manuscripts circulating at the time of the original Ketenensis translation likewise may not have included them. Lomellini has a firm command of the Arabic jussive when used with the prefixed imperative particle lām. At Q. 106:3,42 he translates falaya‘budū (third person masculine plural imperfect, jussive) as colant (tend or serve), where Marracci has serviant (serve).43 Lomellini has also struck out dein (then) immediately preceding, which is an accurate translation of the prefixed conjunction fa. At Q. 94:1, the jussive nashraḥ follows a negative particle prefixed with an interrogative alif; Lomellini translates the phrase as Nonne aperirimus [sic] (did we not open [?]).44 the egyptian who helps me with the transliteration sayd that this is correct spelling. i don’t see this word in the surah. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 8 8 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 The noun shir‘ata (accusative singular) appears only once, at Q. 5:48 (incorrectly numbered by Lomellini as 5:54). Lomellini translates it as leg[em],” (law) having struck out vel traditionem (tradition) immediately following.45 There are only four additional instances of the triliteral root ‘-r-sh in the Qur’an, making interpretation difficult, although a fundamental meaning is “to make laws.”46 Marracci (who numbers this Q. 5:56) also opts for legem.47 Qur’an 104 is entitled “Humazah”; this word and its cognates appear only three times in the Qur’an. This, plus the sūrah’s brevity, present familiar challenges to a translator. Among its proposed translations are “the gossip monger,” “he who reviles and disgraces,” and “the traducer.” Some commentators perceive a reference to mockery as well. Lane offers the rather specific “the vain suggestions of devils which they inspire into the mind of a man.”48 Lomellini proposes two possible translations: Detractoris aut Allicientis.49 Allicientis, which he retains as an alternative title but strikes out in the translation of the text, can be translated as “he who calls attention to himself.” Marracci also has “Detractor” for the title, and in the first verse he uses omni detractori, diffamatori (every detractor, defamer).50 Germanus de Silesia has De Obstrectoribus,51 while Bibliander’s abbreviated version of the sūrah (which he numbers “Azoara CXIII”) begins Rerum vilificator & obstrectator.52 Lomellini’s translation of Q. 2:120 (recte 2:116)53 grapples with ittakhadha, which he renders as assumpsit aut fecit (took up, made). Marracci has suscepit prolem (took an offspring).”54 In Q. 2:273 (recte 275), al-Shayṭānu (nominative definite) is rendered by Lomellini as Diabolus Satanas (the Devil, Satan).55 This phrase does not occur in Bibliander, and Marracci has simply Satanas.56 In Q. 10:2, qadama ṣidqin (accusative masculine noun; genitive masculine noun) is translated as Vestigia veritatis, [a Domino eor’] (traces or footprints of the Truth [from their Lord]),57 a phrase that occurs in Bede, but one that has no apparent Christian theological significance in the seventeenth century. The literal meaning of qadama is “feet”; Marracci has præitio veritatis (through the reward [?] of truth).58 In Q. 3:58, wa al-dhikri (genitive singular masculine) is translated et memoria (and memory). Although the trilateral root dh-k-r has a basic meaning of memory, wa al-dhikri refers not to a human faculty, but rather to the devotional acts that promote remembrance. Marracci has commemoratione (by a calling to mind).59 Derivatives of the triliteral root k-f-r appear 289 times in the Qur’an. At Q. 70:2 al-kāfirīn is translated as abnega’tibus, with the crossed out words aut rebellantibus following immediately.60 The association of this root with rebellare, with its connotation of a conscious choice not to accept the revelation of Muhammad, suggests a specifically Muslim point of view at odds with ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 9 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 9 the majority of sources cited by Lomellini, as well as with his presumably unsympathetic view of Islam’s claims.61 This translation also draws a conclusion not immediately apparent from an analysis of the root itself, whose meaning is simply “not to believe.” Rebellare, a term more common in Late than in the classical Latin in which Lomellini would have been schooled, thus raises once again the question of an Arabic-speaking informant who may have converted from Islam to Catholicism. Research so far has found no conclusive evidence of Lomellini’s use of classical commentaries. At Q. 52:4, wa al-bayt al-ma‘mūr expresses the oath “by the house which is frequented (or venerated),” which Lomellini translates domas habitatis [?] seu templum Mechae.”62 The “house” can refer to the Ka‘bah, which, strictly speaking, is not regarded as a temple by Muslims. Lomellini translated the key phrase ahl al-kitāb (people of the book) as domestici scripturæ, drawing on one of the root meanings of ahl, namely, household or family. No other early translator whom this writer has yet been able to consult uses domestici scripturae. Hottinger uses populus libri (people of the book),63 and Michel Nau (1633-83), a Jesuit missionary active in the Levant, translates it as possessores Alcorani.64 Yet despite his understanding of etymology, Lomellini does not grasp this term’s implications for nonMuslims.65 Elsewhere, he renders it as scriptura, and umm al-kitāb as mater scripturæ (mother of the writing) (Q. 3:7; incorrectly cited as Q 3:4; folio 67r). Its equivalent, in various languages, is used occasionally by Muslim writers; however, it is quite rare among Christian writers of this period. Dominicus Germanus de Silesia, who completed a Latin translation of the Qur’an in the midseventeenth century, renders this word as quae compatiuntur declarationem (those who share in the burdens of the declaration).66 Ummu (nominative singular) can be rendered as “mother” or “foundation,” and is etymologically related to ummah (nation).67 At Q. 2:57, lisalwā (in strict grammatical terms, accusative plural; however, this is a collective noun and not really a plural – like tuffāḥ, which is not really the plural of tuffāḥah) is translated as coturnices (i.e., quail).68 This is the word that appears (in the singular) in the Latin Vulgate Bible in the feeding of the Israelites in the wilderness.69 Lomellini’s (or his collaborator’s) familiarity with the Vulgate version of this and other events from the Bible is another factor potentially influencing his translation, although Bibliander also uses coturnices in the same context.70 The translation of Q. 16:1 presents some notable features. Accelarerare is written in error instead of accelare (to speed up), and Lomellini has negotiated tasta‘jiluh (second person plural) as ne velitis accelare[rare] (that you might not wish to speed up) (subjunctive), and has also retained the perfect aspect of ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 10 10 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 atā (“has come”). The choice of negotium (matter, affair) for amr (often translated as “command,” although it can also be translated as “affair”) is unusual in this context, since its cognate amīr would have been familiar to Lomellini. The word al-akhdūd appears only twice in the Qu’ran (Q. 85:3). Lomellini leaves it untranslated, rendering it ochdudi.71 Possible translations include “chuckhole,” “furrow,” “groove,” or “aperture,” although these are not universally accepted. The referent is disputed, in the commentaries (tafāsīr), English translations, and the secondary literature. At Q. 31:18, the meaning appears to be “cheek” (in reference to turning it when confronted with hostility). A possible connection between these meanings is the idea that tears run down grooves or courses on one’s cheeks. Such instances suggest the limitations of Lomellini’s (or his informant/s’) command of Arabic. The Qur’an has long been recognized as a document that can be experienced sonically.72 Yā ayyuhā includes a vocative particle that can be translated in English as “O,” followed by a singular vocative noun at both Q. 89:27 and 5:1. Lomellini renders this particle as eia,73 a Latin word that does not occur in the Vulgate but was used by some Latin poets, including Horace.74 Commentaries Commentaries on individual verses take up more than two thirds of Lomellini’s manuscript and shed a great deal of light on his own understanding of the Qur’an, as well as on the unconsciously held attitudes that played a role in his vocabulary selection and creation. For example, in a commentary on Q. 1:5 he employs the word Alcoranista,75 which exists in modern Castilian, Portuguese, and Catalan and means “one who expounds on the Qur’an.” The English Catholic Biblical scholar William Rainolds (1544-94), writing in Latin, uses alcoranista in the same sense as Lomellini, namely, the composer (or receiver) of the Qur’an.76 This word does not appear in DuCange or in other major Late Latin lexicons. An unexpected authority is cited in the commentary on Q. 2:190 [recte 2:189]: “De hac materia Cornelius Tacitus in Historica narravit: Drusi versantis in exercitu Pannonico in 1° Annalium Libro.” (Concerning this material Cornelius Tacitus relates in his History: regarding the Pannonic army of Drusus when he turned back, in the First Book of the Annales).77 The reference is to a lunar eclipse that prompted those soldiers who had mutinied to beat their shields fearfully and to sound trumpets.78 Lomellini equates the traditional Arab superstitions regarding the moon (which do not seem to be endorsed in this verse79) with the ignorance and fear of Tacitus’s mutineers. He continues: Ridicula sane periodus; indigna novo evangelista [sic] novoque ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 11 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 11 Apostolo…. (This period [verse] is ridiculous, unworthy of a new “evangelista” and new apostle).80 While critics of Muhammad have long denounced his claims to being an apostle, as rasūl is frequently translated, evangelista has a much narrower and more specifically Christian denotation: that of preaching the Good News of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to all people. Lomellini’s use of this word can be understood in three ways. First, he may simply not have grasped Muhammad’s role as recipient of the Qur’an, as understood by devout Muslims, and is applying a familiar category and terminology from the New Testament. Second, the charge that Muhammad presents himself as an evangelista may be a straw man introduced to diminish further the Prophet’s credibility. Third, Lomellini’s argument may reflect the view that Islam is a secta diverging from, yet in some ways resembling, orthodox Christianity, and thus as a secta that possesses some of the same categories as Christianity.81 This possible influence could be present together with either of the other two possibilities and is, in this writer’s view, the single most likely option. Along with challenges to Muhammad’s claim to be a prophet, Lomellini has introduced criticism of his character in the commentaries, although these are frequently indirect. For example, the commentary to Q. 33:53 reads, in part: Tetricus autor…. a crapula depraehendi.82 This is one of the most difficult passages yet identified among the commentaries. Tetricus was a sixth-century Gaulish king who, according to Gregory of Tours (538-93), appeared in a dream to King Guntram, executing God’s judgment.83 With his infamously poor Latin, Gregory never figured in the reading lists of Jesuit schools. Although Tetricus is very clear and legible in the manuscript, it may be a misspelling of some as yet unidentified word. Another possible explanation is that it is an adjective meaning “gloomy.”84 Lomellini seems here to be indicting Muhammad’s alleged intemperance. The passage discusses the deportment of guests in his house: overindulgence in alcohol: alcohol (A crapula praehendi means “overcome with excessive drinking”) is alluded to, and the Qur’an reports that his guests’ conduct “troubled” Muhammad (nocuit propheta in Lomellini’s translation). The prohibition against marrying Muhammed’s wives and the requirement that guests speak to them through an intervening screen after his death may suggest some sexual subtext to the passage, a point not lost on Lomellini. Marginalia In addition to its text, translation, and commentary, Lomellini’s manuscript is distinguished by its marginalia, which appear to be in the same hand as that of ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 12 12 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 the translations and commentaries. A few examples will illustrate the significance of these writings. The marginalia adjacent to commentary on Q. 2 reads: His est liber de quo auspicio seu dubium non est (This is a book concerning whose divine inspiration there is no doubt. It is a guide for those who fear [God]). Directio est timentibus. Alphacqui c. ii.85 Alfacqui (al-faqīh, literally, “the jurist”) was the pen name of Juan Andrés (active 1487-1515), a Spanish Muslim convert to Catholicism who subsequently became a harsh critic of Islam.86 The work referenced is Confusion de la secta mahomatica y del alcoran87 that, in Lomellini’s time, had been translated into Latin and Italian. Andrés filled his work with translated quotations from the Qur’an, of which this citation is one, taken directly from Q. 2:1. Again in the marginalia (perhaps added after the commentary was written) adjacent to the commentary on Q. 2:12 [recte 13]: Ipsi su’t fatui attamen non agnoscu’t. Alphacqui c. 12. In the marginalia opposite the commentary on Q. 17, Lomellini writes of a morbo caduco or “falling sickness” from which the Prophet allegedly suffered.88 This allegation can be traced back at least as far as Abulfeda, a thirteenth-century Kurdish prince and historian, although it may also be attributed to an inaccurate translation of his work. In Christian Europe, epilepsy was long believed to be spread by the sufferer’s “evil” breath and was widely regarded as a sign of demonic possession.89 At least some of the numerous reported instances of seventeenth-century Jesuits expelling daemones (demons or evil spirits) were probably instances of this sickness.90 Here, Muhammad’s credibility is under attack not on the grounds of his social standing, knowledge, or moral inadequacy, but through an accusation regarding his sanity. Accusations that Martin Luther was either mad or possessed by demons were commonplace among Tridentine Catholics.91 Here, Muhammed seems to have been cast as just one more demonic yet human opponent of the theology articulated by the Jesuits, for such opponents were needed to construct the narrative of a Society triumphing over its rivals and adversaries. Among the unidentified works cited multiple times by Lomellini in the marginalia is a “Tract. Orationis Arabicus in 4,” which may have been part of Cardinal Orsini’s library.92 Less ambiguous is the notation “…constat ex libello prophetat[is?] Mauritanico charactero formaqu’ longior’ altera parte p. 6. Ill’mi D. Alexandri Cardin’ Ursini” (This is in agreement with the book of the Prophet(?) written in Maghrebi script and form, from the second part, p. 6, owned by the most eminent Cardinal Alessandro Orsini.”).93 No catalogue for Orsini’s library has yet been located; these books may have traveled from the Iberian Peninsula to Italy after the use of Arabic in Spain was made illegal in 1567. These references raise the intriguing question of what other Arabic ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 13 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 13 texts Lomellini might have had access to through the connections of his powerful patron. Among the Medieval Christian secondary sources cited by Lomellini in the marginalia are In Mohammedis Haeresim and Mohammedis Confessio, both by Denys the Carthusian, a fifteenth-century mystic, and which appear in a marginal note referring to carmina… sparsa (scattered… verses).94 The former work was perhaps instigated by the German humanist Nicolas of Cusa (1401-64),95 and its name is highly suggestive, pointing to the tension between the categorization of Islam as heresy or paganism that continued in Lomellini’s day.96 A work of Raimond Llull (1232-1315) is also cited: “Homerus (illegible) Saracenus” (Omar the Saracen)97 in a marginal note to Q. 112.98 Here Muhammad is called an apostata99 which places Islam in the category of heresy, but does not contradict the assertion that the origins of the Qur’an were “satanic.” Fra Ricoldo da Monte Croce is also cited prominently.100 Here, Lomellini is using Ricoldus’ own vocabulary, for one of the Dominican’s dialogues is entitled De Sarracenorum lege destruenda et sententiarum suarum stultitia confutanda (Concerning the necessary destruction of the law of the Saracens [i.e., the Qur’an] and the confounding of their foolishness). Conclusion The Lomellini manuscript raises several important questions. First, why was it never published? The quality of the translation overall appears to be, in this ongoing study, very good (something to which Levi della Vida attests) and is arguably better than any other translation into the European languages of its day. Lomellini was not a known author, but he was very well connected, both politically and socially, and a member of a religious order that cared about aristocratic birth. He did not die prematurely, thereby leaving an incomplete work. At the time of his manuscript’s completion, the Society entertained high hopes for converting Muslims. The inclusion of the (very well copied) Arabic text suggests that this manuscript was intended to be used by missionaries who were interacting with literate Muslims. Emanuele Colombo suggests that the Qur’an’s prescribed status may have prevented the wider dissemination of this document.101 Declining interest among the Jesuit leadership in converting Muslims from the mid-seventeenth century onward may be another factor. Like all Jesuits of his day, Lomellini was steeped in the literary culture of the Ratio Studiorum of 1599102 as well as in the experience of the Spiritual Exercises, which call upon the exercitant to visualize scenes and people at great removes from his physical location, and to engage in the examination ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 14 14 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 of one’s conscience and prayer. Further analysis of both the translation and especially the commentary can shed light on how Latin grammar and rhetoric embedded in both of these documents, as well as the Jesuit practice of visualization,103 contributed to Lomellini’s understanding of the Qur’an. For example, might the sensual aspects of visualization have led him to detect sexual imagery (as in Q. 100) where none was present in the original?104 The question of the intended audience relates to this point. The copious references to Christian apologists and the negative comments about the Qur’an indicate that the primary intended audience was probably fellow Jesuits, with these sources to be employed in the debates common to the Society’s schools. The painstakingly copied Arabic text might be for Jesuit study as well. In his role as pedagogue, Lomellini may have composed his work for classroom use or have drawn upon arguments he had assembled during his own interactions with Muslims (cf. the “dialogues” of Tirso Gonzalez de Santalla). Yet because the document is dedicated to Cardinal Orsini, it is likely that either its surviving copy or a planned fair copy was intended for the Cardinal’s consideration as well. Peter Burke speculates about the motives of those Jesuits who translated Italian literary classics into the Italian dialect Bergamesk – was this done out of “playfulness or to show off the ingenuity of the translators”?105 Lomellini seems to have sought to impress his patron Orsini with his linguistic skill; however, the sole copy of this translation to survive, with its numerous struckout words as well as awkward and incomplete passages, does not seem likely to impress. Nor it is even clear whether the manuscript was ever in Orsini’s possession. Possibly a revised version was planned but never carried out, or perhaps lies languishing undiscovered in some Italian archive. Yet more likely is the possibility that this unfinished work is the only surviving evidence of Lomellini’s undertaking. Lomellini’s work suggests the tension inherent in any Jesuit engagement with Islam during the early modern period. The geopolitical importance and literary quality of the Qur’anic text commanded the attention of Jesuit scholars, while the points of seeming similarity between Christianity and Islam made its refutation an especially urgent matter. Curiosity and revulsion were combined with the challenge of understanding Arabic and connecting this knowledge to what the Jesuits already believed they understood concerning their own faith. The connection of Arabic to the other languages they had studied (e. g., Maltese) was undoubtedly another motivation for scholars like Lomellini. Ellen Van Wolde argues that the reader (i.e., the “subject of signification”) is the “central factor in determining the meaning of a text.”106 While this may be an idea that was not clearly articulated until the twentieth century, baroque ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 15 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 15 Jesuits appear to have grasped its essence when they turned to exercises employing visualization. Lomellini had, to use modern parlance, an agenda when composing his translation and commentaries. And yet he seems very aware of the possible meanings that his Christian audience(s) might construct from the vocabulary he chose and the rhetoric he deployed. A harder question to answer is what knowledge he had of potential Muslim readers and their possible constructions of meaning, as well as how his reading of the Arabic text involves its own construction of meaning. The “othering” of Muslims by Europeans (including Jesuits) may have made the visualization of a Muslim audience difficult for Lomellini. Yet at the same time Muslims were never “invisible” to any Jesuit laboring in the Mediterranean region, and the Society still regarded their conversion as a high priority. Lomellini lived and worked during a time of intense inter-confessional conflict within Christianity itself. Religious intolerance was regarded as a virtue by Jesuits and their opponents alike. A key point of Jesuit engagement with any religious tradition other than their own was to win an argument, not to find points of commonality or pathways toward mutual acceptance. Yet ironically, their Catholic contemporaries often considered the Jesuits’ engagement with non-Christian faith traditions to be far too willing to find common spiritual points of reference.107 Any assessment of Lomellini’s work must therefore recognize the tension between the outward characteristics of this environment and the more private (and even clandestine) act of translation undertaken over a period of time and with the potential to influence others in unexpected ways. Ultimately a question that should be raised is “Was Lomellini’s view of Islam ‘serious’?” That is, did he understand the Qur’an and the religion to which it gave birth as meriting careful, if frequently hostile, examination in the way that his colleague Nau did? Research conducted thus far points toward an affirmative answer, since his translations and commentaries, while often inaccurate or wrongheaded, nonetheless reflect a great concentration on the text and considerable sensitivity to its language. Looming in the background of these efforts was the widespread view among Christians that the Muslim Turks were in fact an instrument of God’s scourge,108 punishing Christians for their faithlessness, thus making the Qur’an in some oblique fashion an instrument of God as well. Lomellini’s choice of deus to translate the possible references to the Divine in the al-haruf al-muqatta’at109 hints at his own struggle to locate the distance between his own faith and Islam. Future scholarship regarding this unique document may be able to determine this distance with greater precision and, in this process, situate it within the context of significant Christian-Muslim encounters during the seventeenth century. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 16 16 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 Endnotes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. [Luigi Marracci], Alcorani textus universus (Patavii: Ex typographia Seminarii, 1698). This text may have been prepared by Lomellini himself, or by an anonymous collaborator. Gino Benvenuti, Storia della Repubblica di Genova (Milano: Mursia, 1977), 132. “Libro d’Oro della Nobility di Mediterranean,” http://www.maltagenealogy. com/Libro%20d%27Oro%20della%20Mediterranean/Lomellini.html, retrieved 20 June 2015. Natale Batalana, Genealogie delle famiglie nobili di Genova, 3 vols. (Genova: Pagano, 1825-33), 204. Probably F. Cornelio Musso, O. F. M. (1511-74), bishop of Bitonte, whose sermons were frequently reprinted during the sixteenth century. A likely candidate is Pedro de Ribadeneira’s Vita, translated into Italian and published in Venice in 1587. By John Moschos, a seventh-century Byzantine monk. Probably the Meditationes in Septem Praecipua Festa B. Virginis of Vincenzo Bruno, SJ (1532-94). This may be a work by the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Diego (Didacus) de Estella, Libro de la vanidad del mundo. An Italian translation, Il dispreggio delle vanita del mondo, appeared in Naples in 1577. Luis de Granada, Dominican preacher (1504-88). For de Granada’s relationship to Iberian converso culture, see Luce López Baralt, Islam in Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, tr. Andrew Hurley (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 165. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rom. 171a, folio 112v. For the significance of doctoral privilegia in Italy, see Jonathan Usher, “Petrarch’s Diploma of Crowning: The Privilegium laureationis,” in Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300-1600, ed. Carlo Caruso and Edward Laird (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 161-92; at 187. Abrahami Ecchellensis Collegij Maronitarum alumni Linguæ Syriacæ, sivè Chaldaicæ : perbrevis institutio ad eiusdem nationis studiosos adolescentes (Romae: Typis Sac. Cong. de Prop. Fide, 1628). Giorgio Levi della Vida, Aneddoti e Svaghi Arabi e Non Arabi (Milano/Napoli: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1959), 205, footnote 35. Augustino Oldoino, Athenavum Ligvsticvm seu Syllabus Scriptorvm Ligurvm (Perusiæ: Ex Typographia Episcopali, MDCXXX.), 278-79. Both Filippo Guadagnoli and Athanasius Kircher were on the committee that oversaw the production of this work, which was intended for Maronite Christians. Mercedes García-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, The Orient in Spain: Converted Muslims, the Forged Gospels of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 300. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 17 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 17 16. Giorgio Levi della Vida, “Il Padre Ludovico Marracci e le opere sue negli studi islamici,” Atti dell’ Accademia Lucchese di Scienze Lettere ed Arti n. s. 37 (1947): 105-25; at 124, note 33. 17. http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/islamolatina/content/alcoranus-latinus-1622, retrieved 26 December 2016. 18. One Turkish-language reference to Lomellini’s manuscript appears online: “Ignazo [sic] Lomellini, XVII. yüzyılın ilk yarısında yapılmıştır; bu eseri Levi della Vida, Aneddoti et svaghi arabi et non arabi ad¬lı kitabında anmaktadır (s. 205, no: 35). www.ummetevi.com/2013/06/avrupa-dillerindeki-kuran-cevirilerinin. html, retrieved 3 March 2016. See also Pier Mattia Tommasino, “Lire et traduire le Coran dans la Grande-duché de Toscane,” Haud Morvan trans., Dix-huitième siècle 268 (2015/3): 459-80; at 463, and Noel Malcolm, “The Study of Islam in Early Modern Europe: Obstacles and Missed Opportunities,” in Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800, ed. Peter N. Miller and Francois Louis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012), 265-89; at 284, n. 39. 19. Giuseppe Banchero, Genova e le due riviere (Genova: Luigi Pellas, 1846), 456. 20. Ulisse Cecini, “Main Features of Mark of Toledo’s Latin Qurʾān Translation,” AlMasāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 25, no. 3 (2003): 331-44; at 331. 21. Thomas E Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140-1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 122. 22. [Theodorus Bibliander], Machumetis Sarracanorum Principis vita ac doctrina omnis, quae & Ismahelitarum lex, & Alcoranum dicitur ([Basel]: [Joannes Oporinus], [1543]). This translation may also be the one that the Jesuits carried to the court of Akbar in the late sixteenth century to assist them in their disputations. 23. Glei and Tottoli, Marracci at Work, 136. 24. Charles A Frazee, Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 138. 25. Grace Magnier, Pedro de Valencia and the Catholic Apologists of the Expulsion of the Moriscos: Visions of Christianity and Kingship (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1415. 26. Both Moriscos and men of Jewish ancestry were excluded from the Society of Jesus by the General Congregation of 1593. Patrick J. O’Banion, The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 161. 27. Szantó(Arator) István S.J. Confutatio alcorani (1610), István Dávid Lázár ed. (Szeged: Készült a római Instituto Storico della Compagnia di Gesú, a szegedi József Attila Tudományegyetem Központi Könyvtára és I sz. Magyar Irodalomtörténeti Tanszéke gyüttműködésie keretében, 1990); Az Mostan Tamat Vy Tvdomaniok Hamissaganak… Iratot Pazmani Petertvl (Græcii Styriæ: Per Georgium Widmanstadium, Anno M.DC.V). 28. David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.) Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 7: Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America (1500-1600) (Leiden: Brill, 2015). ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 18 18 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 29. This translation may have been produced at Loukaris’ command, perhaps by a Maronite Christian. 30. A translation of the Qur’an into Latin, completed by Juan Gabriel and commissioned by Egidio of Viterbo, included at least part of the Arabic text with a transliteration into the Roman alphabet. The original of this MS is now lost, but two copies (one partial) survive. Katarzyna Krystyna Starczewska, “Juan Gabriel of Teurel,” in Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History: Volume 6: Western Europe 1500-1600), ed. David Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 41519; at 417. Juan of Segovia prepared an Arabic text of the Qur’an with a Castilian translation that he then translated into Latin; unfortunately, only a somewhat doubtful early seventeenth-century copy of the Castilian version survives. Ulli Roth, “Juan of Segovia’s translation of the Qur’an,” Al-Qantara 35, no. 2 (2014): 555-78; at 559-60. 31. Cf. the list of words for “God” in 32 languages in Imago primi saeculi Societatis Iesu: a prouincia Flandro-Belgica eiusdem Societatis repraesentata (Antuerpiae: ex Officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1640), 106. 32. Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed. and trans. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vols. 8-30 (Cleveland: Burrows Bros., 1901). 33. Daniel Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013). 34. Omar Sheikh Al-Shabab, “The Evolution of Translation Culture: Translating the Holy Quran into French,” Journal of King Saud University, Vol. 15: Language and Translation (1423 AH/2003 CE), 21-48; at 22. 35. Quoted in Ines G. Županov, Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India (16th-17th Centuries) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 7. 36. Nel Noddings and Paul J. Shore, Awakening the Inner Eye: Intuition in Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1984). See also the discussion of the concrete applications of Jesuit visualization in Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2011), 85. 37. Jerome J. Langford, Galileo, Science, and the Church (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 87. 38. Rudt De Collenberg Wipertus, “Le baptême des musulmans esclaves à Rome aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. I. Le XVIIe siècle,” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée 101, no. 1 (1989): 1-181; at 60. 39. Andrew Rippin, “Studies in Qurānic Vocabulary: The problem of the Dictionary,” in Gabriel Said Reynolds (ed.), New Perspectives on the Qurān: The Qurān in Historical Context (London: Routledge, 2011), 38-46. 40. Folio 213v. 41. Marracci, Textus, 407. 42. Folio 322r. 43. Marracci, Textus, 824. 44. Folio 320v. Note the (coincidental?) use of this very rare form in Mark of Toledo’s The Book of Denuding or Exposing or the Discloser, which is repro- ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 19 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 19 duced in Michelina di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad (New York and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 375. Folio 129r. Oxford Arabic Dictionary, Tressy Arts chief ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 409. See also Matthias M. Tischler, “‘Lex Mahometi.’ The Authority of a Pattern of Religious Polemics,” Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 2, no. 1 (2015): 3-62. https://doi.org/10.1515/jtms-2015-0002, retrieved 27 Dec. 2016. Marracci, Textus, 226. Edward William Lane and Stanley Lane Poole, An Arabic-English Lexicon Derived from the Best and the Most Copious Eastern Sources, 8 vols. (Edinburgh and London: Williams and Norgate, 1863-93), 1:2901. Folio 332r. Marracci, Textus, 821. Interpretatio, 511. (full citation at footnote 45). Machumetis Sarracenorum, 187. Folio 35v. Marracci, Textus, 51. Folio 65r. Marracci, Textus, 99. Folio 185v. Marracci, Textus, 407. Ibid., 111. Folio 311v. See for instance A. Kevin Reinhart, “‘Like the Difference between Heaven and Earth’: Ḥanafī and Shāfi‘ī Discussions of ‘Wājib’ and “Farḍ in Theology and Uṣūl,” in Bernard G. Weiss (ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 205-34; at 215. Folio 296r. Johann Heinrich Hottinger, Historia Orientalis variis orientalium monumentis collecta (Tiguri [Zürich]: Typis Joh. Jacobi Bodmeri, M. DC LX), 3. Michel Nau, Religio christiana contra Alcoranum pacifice defensa et probate… (Lutetiae Parisiorum: apud G. Martinum, 1680). 19. On page 4, Nau identifies Christians as People of the Book. On page 6, he writes: “A vos quorum est divinus codex (sic Alcoranum dicimus).” The expression ahl al-kitāb refers to Christians, Jews, and Sabeans. In his Historia Orientalis (1651), the Protestant orientalist Johann Heinrich Hottinger erroneously included the Muslims, and was corrected by the Catholic orientalist Abraham Ecchellensis in his De Origine nominis papae (1661). See Bernard Heyberger, “Polemic Dialogues between Christians and Muslims in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, nos. 2-3 (2012): 495-516; at 507. Thanks to Mercedes Garcia-Arenal for calling attention to this fact. Interpretatio alcorani litteralis. Parte I. La traducción latina, introducción y edición critica (=Nueva Roma, 32), ed. Antonio García Masegosa (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas 2009), 165. i had to abbreviate here so the text would break correctly. is it okay with you? did you mean this one? you said “third line from the bottom.” ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 20 20 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 67. Edward J. Lifton, “A Clinical Psychology Perspective on Radial Islamic Youth,” in Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Perspective, ed. Tahir Abbas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 25-41; at 30. 68. Folio 23v. Western scholars had noted the relation between the Arabic and Hebrew cognates as early as 1604. Valentinus Schindler, Lexicon pentaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Talmudico-Rabbinicum … (Francfurtii ad Moenvm: Typis Joannis Jacobi Hennëi, 1612), col. 1867. 69. Exodus 16:13. 70. Machumetis, 58. 71. Folio 318r. 72. Mahmud Haggag, “German Koran Translations and their Reception in North Africa,” in European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa, ed. Frieder Ludwig and Afe Adogame (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 57-64; at 59; Kristina Nelson, The Art of Recitation of the Qur’an (Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2001); Navid Kermani, “God is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Qur’an,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33, 1 (2016): 95-98. 73. Folio 319r. 74. For example, Lib. I, Sat. I, line 19. 75. Folio 9r. But at Folio 213v, “multitudinem Alcoranistor’” seems to refer to the commentators on the Qur’an. 76. Calvino-Turcismus: id est, Calvinisticae perfidiae, cum mahumetana collatio …authore Gvielmo Reginaldo… (Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Antonium Hierat, sub Monocerote, Anno MDC.III.), 817. 77. Folio 50r. 78. For the symbolism in this account, see Ellen O’Gorman, Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31. 79. A widely accepted English translation reads “People question you concerning the phases of the moon. Say: ‘They are signs to determine time for the sake of people and for the Pilgrimage.’” 80. Lomellini pointedly refers throughout his translation to Muhammad as the “author” of the Qur’an. 81. Peter the Venerable (1092-1156) had described Islam as a “maledicta secta mahometana.” John S. Geary, “Arredondo’s Castilla expugnable de la fee: AntiIslamic Propaganda in the Age of Charles V,” in Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays, ed. John Victor Tolan (New York: Garland, 1996), 291-311; at 291. 82. Folio 264r. For crapula cf. crapulari in the commentary on Q. 15:5. The accusation of overindulgence in alcohol attacks Muhammad on two counts: first, that he is morally undisciplined, and secondly, that his pronouncements are clouded by this overindulgence. Accusations of the Muslims’ misuse of alcohol are found in other Jesuit writings of the period. 83. Martin Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the Sixth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 17. ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 21 Shore: An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an 21 84. Thanks to Martin Korenjak for pointing out this fact. 85. Folio 9v. 86. Katarzyna K. Starczewska, “No es esto sino hystorios de los antiguos: Between Medieval and Early Modern Narrations,” Medievalia 18, no. 1 (2015): 217-27; at 218. 87. Libro nueuamente imprimido que se llama confusion dela secta mahomatica y d’l alcorā. G.L (Juan Joffre: Valencia, 1515). 88. Folio 215r. 89. Emmanouil Magiorkinis, Kalliopi Sidiropoulou, and Aristidis Diamantis, “Hallmarks in the History of Epilepsy: From Antiquity till the Twentieth Century,” in Novel Aspects on Epilepsy. Rijeka, ed. H. Foyaca-Sibat ([Croatia?]: INTECH, 2005), 131-56; at 135. 90. Paul Shore, Narratives of Adversity: Jesuits on the Eastern Peripheries of the Habsburg Realms (1640-1773) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2012), 111-24. 91. One Catholic polemicist even claimed that a demon was Luther’s father! David Steinmetz, Taking the Long View: Christian Theology in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 55. 92. For example, folio 264r, Q. 33. 93. Folio 222r, Q. 18:84. The work mentioned here has not been identified. See also marginal notes to Q. 3:158 (folio 116r) and Q. 7:36 (folio 158v). “Mauritanico charactero” refers to the Maghribi script used in both North Africa and Spain from the tenth century onward. 94. Folio 23r. 95. Dennis D. Martin, “Catholics as Public Intellectuals: Cloistered Religious as Advisors to Lay Elites on the Eve of the Protestant Reformation,” in Reassessing Reform: A Historical Investigation into Church Renewal, ed. Christopher M. Bellitto and David Zachariah Flanagin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 232-53; at 247. 96. Emanuele Colombo, “Jesuits and Islam in Seventeenth-Century Europe: War, Preaching and Conversions,” in L’Islam visto da Occidente: cultura e religione del Seicento europeo di fronte all’Islam, ed. Bernard Heyberger, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Emanuele Colombo, and Paola Vismara (Genoa-Milano: Marrieti 1820, 2009), 315-40; at 337. 97. Raymundus Llullus, “Disputatio Raymundi christiani et Homeri [‘Umar] saraceni,” in Michelina Di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin: A Repertory (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 437-45. Unlike Denys, Llull had spent many years studying Arabic. 98. Folio 323r. 99. Folio 323v; also folio 268r. 100. Folio 264v, marginal note to Q. 33. The Dominican Fra Ricoldo da Monte Croce (1243-1320) traveled widely through the Middle East, composing an Itinerarium and an Improbatio Alcorani to which Lomellini probably refers here. Kenneth Meyer Setton, “Western Hostility to Islam and Prophecies of Turkish Doom,” ajiss34-1_ajiss 1/17/2017 7:41 PM Page 22 22 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34:1 Memoires of the American Philosophical Society 201 (1992), 13. “Baldachus” is Baghdad. Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor: Burchardus de Monte Sion, Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, Odoricus de Foro Julii, Wilbrandus de Oldenborg, ed. J. C. M. Laurent (Lipsiae: Hinrichs, 1864), 127. The Arabic language “Tract [atus] Mor[tis], cited repeatedly by Lomellini, has not been identified. 101. Personal communication, May 2, 2015. 102. The Ratio Studiorum: The Official Plan for Jesuit Education, tr. Claude Pavur (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005). 103. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, ed. Elder Mullen (New York: Cosimo, 2007). 104. Lomellini translated (wa al-‘aṣri; Q. 103:1) as “per vespertin’ a meridie usque ad occasu’” (from midday through evening to the setting of the sun). The meaning of this passage is somewhat obscure. Possible translations of wa al-‘aṣri range from “compression” to “afternoon” to “era or age.” Bibliander translates the phrase “Per diluculum usque ad crepusculum.” Lomellini adds, “Invocatio facæta, nisi juramenta, ut in Az. 100 fuit obscæna,” and then quotes from Psalm 29 to show that evening is a time of weeping. This argument seems more than a little forced. 105. Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 37. 106. Cited in Jack Miles, God: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1995), 430. 107. The Chinese Rites Controversy spurred the most significant of these criticisms. D. E. Mungello, “Whose Antiquarianism? Europe versus China in the 1701 Conflict between Bishop Maigrot and Qiu Sheng,” in Antiquarianism and Intellectual life in Europe and China, 1500-1800, ed. Peter M. Miller and François Louis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2011), 368-80. 108. Katarzyna K. Starczewska, “Anti-Muslim Preaching in 16th Century Spain and Egidio da Viberbo’s Research on Islam,” ed. Andrea Celli and Davide Scotto, Esperienza e Rappresentatizione dell’Islam nell’ Europa Mediterranea (secoli XVI-XVII) = Revista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 51, no. 3 (2015): 413-30; at 417. 109. For example, at the beginning of Q. 10 (folio 185v).