Latin Transcriptions of Islamic Formulas in Medieval Iberian Texts on Muḥammad

Abstract

This paper examines an oft-neglected linguistic feature of Christian polemic on Muḥammad in medieval Iberia: the transcription of Islamic formulas from Arabic into Latin. Having outlined a framework for assessing these expressions within the broader mul-tilingual context of al-Andalus, it considers two Latin polemics from the region that contain substantial transcriptions of similar formulas. First, this paper considers the rendering of the Islamic declaration of faith in the 13th-century Liber scale Mahometi, and identifies a pattern of vernacularisation and distortion in the text’s presentation of Arabic phrases. Second, it analyses a transcription in the 9th-10th-century Tultusceptru, deemed corrupt by prior scholars: evaluating the phrase’s phonological data, this paper argues for a novel reading, which, in turn, indicates a greater awareness of, and sensitivity towards, Islamic thought on the part of the polemicist than previously hypothesised. Finally, these readings are corroborated by comparing the texts’ renderings of the takbīr.