1 Preliminary Observations
Before discussing the topic formulated in the title of this chapter – the circulation of information about Islam and the transmission of Islam itself in Europe – some preliminary remarks will help to explain its structure. Firstly, we must distinguish between two separate currents in this circulation, with differing addressees (and therefore purposes): the distribution of information about Islam in Christian society on the one hand, and in Muslim societies on the other. This is an obvious distinction if we consider that, geographically speaking, and since the emergence of Christianity, Europe has never been inhabited entirely by Christians, and that the second largest religious group on the continent have been Muslims since the early days of Islam. However, other facts and phenomena also overlap, where the distinctions are less obvious. These two currents can, of course, be identified with Christian writings (commenting on Islam) and Muslim writings (transmitting Islam). However, the objectives of the former and the position (in relation to the Christian milieu) of the latter were not homogenous.
In the Christian writings dedicated to Islam – in addition to their predominant polemical purpose, which was to demonstrate the falsity of the Islamic doctrine and dogmas, and at the same time to justify a political and military confrontation with Muslim states in the competition for the Mediterranean, Black Sea,1 and the Balkans – activity was motivated by reasons such as proto-Orientalist curiosity and a desire to explore biblical sources in the three branches of Western monotheism. In this current of ‘written circulation of Islam in Europe’, Muslim writings can be found alongside the works of Christian authors. They appeared in the hands of Christians in two forms: secondary (as translations of Islamic scriptures, including the Qurʾān, into European
In addition to polemical and theological activity, the learning of Oriental languages – not only for biblical studies, but also for the training of translators employed in diplomacy and trade – was another route along which knowledge about Islam circulated in Europe. Historical library collections and records of their creation can provide important insights into the channels, motives, and effects of this interest in Islam. It is worth recalling that the collections of Protestant scholars and clergy often held copies of translations of the Qurʾān. The confrontational attitude to Islam in medieval and early modern Europe tended to change – and not only in the Protestant milieu – during the Enlightenment. In this regard, the history and records of individual historical book collections reveal the context of various aspects of contact with Islam and attitudes towards it in a Christian society. There is, however, a need for more detailed study of specific palaeographic, political, historical, social, statistical, and other aspects.
Our article does not encompass the broad and still inadequately studied interdisciplinary topic of the impact of Islam on the Jewish populations residing in Christian countries in Europe. Furthermore, it does not address the role of Jewish intermediaries in the circulation of Islam within Christian Europe. A well-known area of Muslim-Jewish-Christian interaction is, of course, Iberia, although the intensity of these interactions declined following the so-called Reconquista. Conversely, this interaction increased with the development of the Ottoman Empire and the various processes of cultural and ideological exchange among its diverse populations. Hence, movements inspired by Muslim mysticism, including Sufism, reached the Jewish communities residing in Central and Eastern Europe—namely, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the territories dependent on Turkey in the Balkans. A prominent example of this is Sabbateanism, a syncretic mystical movement created in the second half of the 17th century by Sabbatai Zevi (born 1626 in Smyrna). In some cases, it even led to the advocacy of conversion to Islam (Sabbatai Zevi himself; also the Dönmeh community/movement in Turkey) or Christianity (Frankism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). The mystical ideas were often rooted in Kabbalah. Thus, we should explore the indirect influences of Islam on the culture of Christian Europe, where religious or magical literature contains several elements common to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. However, these issues require thorough source-based interdisciplinary research.
2 Islamic Europe
The diversity of Muslim writings in Europe was shaped by both geographical contexts—reflecting the various regions where Islam established a presence—and historical developments, encompassing the different periods during which Islamic influences manifested in the continent. Therefore, it is more appropriate to distinguish three primary regions where Islam became established, focusing on their historical, political, and cultural significance rather than purely geographical criteria. Chronologically, these are: the western Mediterranean, i.e. Iberia, then Sicily (including Malta),2 the Volga region, which stretched to the western end of the Great Steppe, i.e. northern Black Sea, Crimea, and Dobruja (in modern Romania), and lastly the Balkans in a broad, historical-political rather than geographical sense (covering the area from the Aegean islands to Hungary). In most of these areas, Islamic populations emerged as a result of conquest, with the exception of the Volga area, where first the state of Volga Bulgaria (tenth to thirteenth centuries) and then the Golden Horde (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) adopted Islam by natural conversion, without pressure from external powers (as in the case of other Turkic nomads who entered the caliphate’s territory in Central Asia in the pre-Mongol period). Manuscripts produced or used in these regions were
3 Muslims in Two Corners of Latin Europe: Seeking Common Ground for Comparison
In the remainder of this chapter we will focus on the only two corners of early modern Latin Europe, namely the Iberian Peninsula and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that witnessed the long-term presence of Muslim communities living in a Christian state, the Iberian Muslims and the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars.4 This meant a potential opportunity for direct, permanent contact and
The examples of the vernacular Balkan Muslim literature in Bosnian and Albanian Arabic script reveal that, despite the apparent similarities, their nature and socio-cultural entourage were significantly different from the writings of the Moriscos and Polish-Lithuanian Tatars. The convergence between these two cases was limited to the linguistic (and graphic) aspect, i.e. the transliteration of the European language with the Arabic alphabet, but not very different from other cases of non-Arabic-speaking Muslim peoples, starting with the Persians and the Turks. Indeed, apart from the quantitative aspect, there was no essential difference between the transliteration of Persian, Urdu (also Indo-European) or Turkish with the Arabic script and the Bosnian or Albanian languages. These vernacular Balkan Muslim literatures were also created and circulated in societies that were not religious minorities in their country. They really only differed from other Muslims living in their country in terms of language – or, more precisely, in the fact that they spoke the same language as their non-Muslim neighbours, i.e. Christians (which was not an unusual situation in other parts of the Islamic world). As for the Arabic script itself, it was already the basic writing system that shaped their everyday lives and contexts.
By contrast, the Moriscos and the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars were Muslim minorities living under non-Muslim (Christian) rule, surrounded by a dominant non-Muslim (Christian) population of different (non-Muslim) ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, including the script used, which was ‘non-Muslim’ too. They underwent both a linguistic and socio-cultural transformation (and to some extent confessional in the case of the Moriscos), making the two communities and their writings partially comparable, as this was a factor that prevented their complete transformation into non-Muslim communities.
Important here is the political and social context of both Spain and Poland, given the stark contrast in attitude towards their religious minorities. To summarize, the Iberian Muslims – known as Mudéjars (Muslims who remained after the Christian reconquest) and Moriscos (former Muslims forced to convert to Christianity)5 – were obliged to receive baptism and abandon their identity markers, while the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars became part of the privileged
The historical origins of their respective Muslim communities determined how the minorities were perceived in the following centuries. In general terms, the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars practised Islam without any serious obstacles,6 indeed even with the support of monarchs and local nobles who, especially in the nineteenth century, gave financial support to the construction of mosques for their Tatar neighbours. At that time, local Muslim Tatars were already referred to as ‘ancient Polish nobility’ and participated in public life on an equal footing with Christians. While the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars were granted religious freedom and relatively high social and legal status, Moriscos were nominal Christians heavily persecuted for any signs of adherence to Islam (see the chapter “Polemics in Theology and Conversion” by Luis F. Bernabé Pons, Kate Randazzo, and Asim Zubčević).
Despite the substantial differences between these two communities, operating as enclaves in Christian societies, they both developed similar strategies to preserve their religious knowledge and appeared to be keen exploiters of biblical themes with reference to the Qurʾān. The first apparent similarity in strategies is the adaptation of the Arabic alphabet by both Moriscos and Polish-Lithuanian Tatars to their vehicular languages, Romance and Slavic respectively. This adaptation enabled them to maintain the sacred aspect of their writings and enabled them to translate the Qurʾān and other religious scriptures into a language they fully understood. Both groups left behind considerable corpora of manuscripts in their respective Arabic transliterations (although Moriscos also wrote in the Latin alphabet). Some of their writings attest to the permeability and porosity of the borders between Christianity and Islam.
4
Morisco manuscripts, sometimes referred to as aljamiado, follow a consistent system adapted for the transliteration of Iberian Romance vernaculars in Arabic script. From the oldest copies preserved (fifteenth century) until the last ones produced at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a standardized graphic and orthographic system was employed in producing these peculiar Spanish texts.7 Morisco literature poses numerous challenges for researchers, including its script, predominantly Islamic subject matter, Arabic-influenced lexicon, and above all its transcultural nature. Nevertheless, considerable research initiatives have now been dedicated to studying the extant corpora of these texts in greater detail,8 and our knowledge of how aljamiado texts often crossed religious borders has greatly improved.
According to Luis F. Bernabé Pons, it is difficult to divide the corpus of Morisco literature into religious and secular texts, especially because the intentions behind the adoption and use of the aljamiado writing system may mean that any writing or annotation, however profane it may seem, may in fact have been a Muslim believer’s conscious decision to preserve the elements of their religious and cultural identity. With these caveats, and given the miscellaneous nature of many aljamiado manuscripts, which bring together materials on different themes, Bernabé Pons suggests the following division of aljamiado literature:
Qurʾānic material such as the original text in Arabic, translation, and its commentaries;
Collections of hadith-related material;
Grammar and lexicography;
Sermons;
Polemical texts;
Legal texts, including doctrinal legal texts, compendia, notary and contract forms, and testimonies of resolved issues; Pious literature concerning ascetic-moral norms, rituals, prayers, Islamic calendar, and rites of passage. Other branches of this group are prophecies, spiritual speeches, lives of Muhammad and the Prophets, religious poetry, and moral and eschatological stories;
Magic and divination;
Medical and hygienic prescriptions;
Itineraries and travelogues;
Papers for private use;
Profane literature.9
5 Iberian Qurʾāns
As far as Muslim religious literature is concerned, the most relevant group of texts are Spanish translations of the Qurʾān.10 Here we consider the translations that circulated among both Morisco and Christian readers, highlighting their transmission from the marginalized and persecuted group to the European intellectual elite.
The extant copies of Morisco Spanish translations of the Qurʾān can be dated back to the mid-fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries; these translations were produced and copied for circulation among and within Muslim communities no longer proficient in Qurʾānic Arabic. After 1502 in Castile and 1526 in Aragon, the Mudéjar Muslims were no longer allowed to practise Islam, and were forced to convert to Christianity. In this period, they came to be collectively referred to as ‘Moriscos’, many of whom were still secret practitioners of Islam. Understandably, their clandestine condition contributed to the scarcity of teachers and schools, and any attempt to possess or attend readings of
There are some 28 extant Spanish translations of the Qurʾān from the Mudéjar-Morisco period, all of them in manuscript form, except a single printed edition. To date, only one complete version has come to light, while the remaining copies are either abridged or fragmentary. Some of the translations are monolingual and others bilingual Arabic/Romance, where the translation appears next to the Arabic text of the original. Furthermore, while some of the translations are written in the Latin alphabet, others are in aljamiado. Although aljamiado is an Aragonese phenomenon, the translations written in Latin characters might feature the Castilian dialect from central Spain.11 Of the 28 identified Morisco translations of the Qurʾān, 24 are in aljamiado, while only two are in Latin characters: BNF Arabe 447 and Castilla-La Mancha BP 235. Let us focus here on these last two cases of the Morisco Qurʾāns: firstly, the Qurʾān of Thessaloniki (El Corán de Salónica, BNF Arabe 447, 1569) and secondly, the Qurʾān of Toledo (El Corán de Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha BP 235, 1606).
Many Morisco manuscripts were found inside the walls of the houses they were forced to leave behind, but the Moriscos continued their literary production during their exile in the places that welcomed them, such as Thessaloniki, Tunisia, or Morocco. Written in Spanish, such texts reveal their nostalgia and attachment to the old country. The forced conversions occurred in different Christian kingdoms in the first third of the sixteenth century, and the situation of the Moriscos only worsened, especially after the War of Granada in 1568. They found themselves deprived of the right to wear their distinctive clothes or maintain their customs. Due to these persecutions, some Moriscos decided to leave the Iberian Peninsula and look for a new homeland even before the expulsion. Testimonies of these journeys have come down to us in the form of travel itineraries. Several route descriptions recommended that Moriscos travel first to Venice and, once there, ask for the Sephardic Jews, i.e., Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late fifteenth century, to get instructions on how to reach Thessaloniki, their final destination being North Africa or Türkiye.12
The Qurʾān of Toledo, named after the library in which it is held, was produced in 1606 by an anonymous Morisco in Aragon. Its importance lies in the fact that it is the only complete translation of the Qurʾān from Arabic into Spanish that has come down to us from the Mudéjar and Morisco periods (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries). Although this solitary status can be easily explained, as all manuscript corpora suffered great losses – even more so the Islamic ones, which were victims of inquisitorial persecution and exile – it is a fact that no other complete Qurʾānic version survives, be it in Spanish or in aljamiado. Indeed, the remaining incomplete copies were all originally intended as abridged Qurʾāns and were not merely complete Qurʾāns that became truncated by, say, the loss of leaves at the beginning or end of the volume. All the other translated Mudéjar and Morisco Qurʾāns contain only a selection from the sacred book: sometimes as an abbreviated compendium, sometimes one or two quarters of the total text, sometimes single verses. The mere fact that the Toledo translation covers the Qurʾān from beginning to end therefore makes it truly unique.
The Latin translation of the Qurʾān manuscripts is much earlier, as they date back to medieval times. They are considered in this chapter for two reasons: firstly, they provide clues about how Islamic scholars collaborated with Christian translators; secondly, they attest to Christian ambivalence about the Muslim religion, about which, although it was passionately despised in Iberia, reliable information was constantly sought. The first translation produced in the Iberian Peninsula is the very epitome of both this ambivalence and concealed collaboration. Produced by Robert of Ketton (1142–43), and already mentioned in the opening of this chapter, it came to light thanks to the initiative of the abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable (1092/94–1156), who took an opportunity to compile first-hand material that would allow him to refute Islam when travelling to the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Somewhere in the Ebro Valley, not far from Tarazona (in the modern-day province of Zaragoza), he encountered a knowledgeable group of translators, among them Hermann of Carinthia and Robert of Ketton, who had been previously engaged in translating scientific works, but had subsequently shifted to religious books.16 Robert was an English monk who was particularly interested in Arabic treatises on astronomy and geometry, whereas Hermann, who was connected to the bishop of Tarazona, took an interest in translating texts on mathematics and astronomy. The two translators were assisted by: Peter of Toledo, whose knowledge of Arabic may indicate that he was either of Mozarab origin or a convert from Islam or Judaism; Peter of Poitiers, the secretary of Peter the Venerable;17 and a Muslim called Mohamet. In spite of this impressive team of specialists who worked together on the group of texts on the life of the Prophet
Despite the extensive circulation of Robert’s translation, the second translator of the Qurʾān, Mark of Toledo, who produced his work half a century later in about 1210, almost certainly had no knowledge of it.21 Mark’s translation was, as far as we know, the work of a single author, commissioned by Don Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo between 1209 and 1247, and Don Mauricio, archdeacon of Toledo and later bishop of Burgos. Just like Robert of Ketton and Hermann of Carinthia, Mark had previously worked on scientific translations, specifically in the field of medicine, from Arabic into Latin. He also served as canon in the Toledan church from 1193 to 1216.22 Mark’s translation has been regarded as prosaic and literal, in contrast to Robert’s version, which relied heavily on paraphrase. Mark’s respect for the Islamic format of the holy book also made it possible for readers to consult it side by side with the Arabic original. It seems that Mark was more preoccupied with providing a literal translation of the Qurʾān than with consulting the Arabic tradition, but in general, he seems to have been familiar with the standard interpretations of difficult words and passages.23
Outside Iberia, in the Apennine Peninsula and in Sicily, Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada (ca. 1445–89?), alias Flavius Mithridates, attempted a translation of the Qurʾān at least twice, as attested in two extant manuscripts. He was born to a family of Sicilian Jews and was most probably well educated and bilingual in Arabic and Romance. He seems to have converted to Christianity early in life and adopted Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada as his new name. His knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic gained him access to the influential circles of central and northern Italy. He was particularly active at the court of Urbino (around 1480–82), at the papal court, and in the entourage of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (around 1485–88), whom he served as a language teacher under the sobriquet of Moncates or Flavius Mithridates.31 Translations of Qurʾānic verses authored by Mithridates are preserved in two artefacts. The first is a luxury manuscript (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS urb. lat. 1384, likely completed around 1482) dedicated to the duke of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro (1422–82), which contains suwar 21 and 22.32 The second is MS Vat. Ebr. 357, probably prepared in Sicily in the early fifteenth century, which exhibits a fragmentary translation of the whole Qurʾān. We are currently investigating potential links between this partial, interlinear translation and the Iberian textual traditions.33
Although it was not the final Latin translation of the Qurʾān produced in Iberia, the last one we will mention here is the 1518 Latin translation of the Qurʾān commissioned by the Italian cardinal Egidio da Viterbo (1469–1532). Egidio is primarily known as a church scholar, Christian kabbalist, philologist, and reformer of the Augustine order. His great interest in Oriental languages led him to acquire manuscripts not only in Hebrew but also in Syriac, Aramaic, and Arabic, as well as to surround himself with language tutors and scholars. In 1518, Egidio was entrusted with a papal mission to Spain to meet Emperor
7 Biblical Concepts in Qurʾānic Texts
Moriscos singled out not only Old Testament figures such as Adam, Abraham, and Moses, but also Jesus and Mary to explore the points of convergence between Christianity and Islam. This tendency is particularly visible in a set of glosses to the Qurʾān written by the aforementioned Juan Gabriel, which come from a translation commissioned by Egidio da Viterbo. Juan Gabriel used the tradition in Latin Europe of glossing the Qurʾān in particular places, for example in passages where biblical figures are mentioned, to present Islam as compatible with Christianity rather than heresy. It is our hypothesis that the Moriscos were interested in blurring the boundaries between these two religions, just as the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars did in the other corner of the continent. In the texts prepared for Christian readers, the Morisco authors thought it especially beneficial for patrons to focus their attention on familiar Bible figures. The aim of this strategy might have been to demonstrate that there was a place for Islam in the Christian world on the grounds of their shared prophets.35
Juan Gabriel of Teruel converted to Christianity at the beginning of the sixteenth century, at a time and place where Morisco conversion was a highly charged issue. In some of the Iberian territories, the Mudéjars were already compelled to embrace the Christian faith, for their own salvation and for the sake of those around them, as the existence of Islam, especially in the vicinity
In the midst of these religious persecutions, Juan Gabriel must have decided to turn his weakness into a strength: not only did he change his status from Muslim faqīh (pl. fuqahāʾ) to Christian, but also started to instruct Catholic preachers on the tenets of Islam, so that they could preach against it with greater knowledge and, therefore, more conviction. Juan Gabriel was almost certainly the former faqīh of Teruel, previously known by his Muslim name, ʿAlī Alayzar, and was probably forced to receive baptism in 1502 together with the other Mudéjars in Teruel. Fray Johan Martín de Figuerola, an ecclesiastical figure connected to the bishop of Barcelona, Martín García, from whom he took over the campaigns to preach to the Moors, was not reticent about his collaboration with the convert from Teruel. Figuerola explains in his work Lumbre de fe contra el Alcorán (Valencia, 1521) that he knew some Arabic and was acquainted with the Qurʾān thanks to the teachings of Maestre Johan Gabriel, a convert to Christianity.
Christ and Mary are worshipped by the Moors to such a degree that when they speak about them, they always add these honorable titles: [“our lord”] they call him, ﺳﻴﯿﺪﻧﺎ [“peace be upon him”], which means “our lord, peace be upon him.” And they call Virgin Mary ﺳﻴﯿﺪﺗﻨﺎ [“our lady”] “Cesina,” which is “our lady,” and like this: [“Mary, God bless her”] “Mariene aradia allahu lanche.”36
Just like these authors, Juan Gabriel also faced the problem of how to translate something as impalpable as faith. He could have chosen to use different terminology, such as ‘maurus’, which is the word he uses on other occasions, but must have decided that this would not have an equivalent religious connotation. One gets the impression that the convert was not territorial as far as his religious views were concerned; he saw equivalents and points of convergence between Islam and Christianity and seemed comfortable enough to leave traces of this attitude throughout the translation. One cannot deny a certain didactic value in such an approach, visible both in the glosses and in the translation: using a known vocabulary and focusing on familiar religious personages is an excellent teaching strategy, allowing the reader to build on already familiar concepts. This approach is at odds with that taken by medieval Christian readers of the Qurʾān, who glossed the text in accordance with the polemical circumstances in which the Iberian translations were undertaken.
8 The Written Legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars
The writings of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars probably date back to the turn of the sixteenth century,37 and their distinctive feature were texts in European languages – Polish, Old Belarusian, or local Polish-Belarusian transitive dialects, written with use of the Arabic alphabet adapted to the phonetics of these languages. (In addition to these, Tatar manuscripts contained Arabic and Turkic liturgical and prayer texts, sometimes with Polish or Belarusian translations.)
The handwritten literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars is one of the central segments of their religious culture. At the same time, it is one of the few elements representing the culture of the Muslim East, which the Tatar community has preserved, and even developed, having lived in the Christian milieu of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The function and content of the manuscript books of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars were mainly related to religion. However, they contained only the limited array of religious content that was necessary to cultivate Muslim rituals and preserve basic knowledge of religion. This explains why little attention was paid, for example, to sharia, since the Tatars abandoned Islamic law in most of their normative areas and replaced it with the private and public law of the Polish-Lithuanian state.38 There is also very little ‘secular’ content, such
Tatar handwriting culture was based on knowledge of the Arabic alphabet, transmitted as part of traditional internal schooling for centuries, until the middle of the twentieth century. However, knowledge of alphabet did not mean knowledge of the languages of the Islamic world.
As early as the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, Tatars replaced their ethnic (Tatar) language with the languages of their Christian neighbours, i.e. Polish, Belarusian, or local Polish-Belarusian dialects. This became the primary reason for the creation of their own literature in the languages of the local Christian population, used to preserve the knowledge of the tenets of Islam. The exclusive use of the Arabic alphabet in the Tatar manuscripts was also – as in the case of Iberian Moriscos – an unambiguous manifestation of their connection with Islam. This script was used to write not only Arabic and Turkish liturgical texts, but also informative sections, in Polish or Belarusian.39 The use of the Arabic alphabet was not motivated by the need to conceal Islamic religious content since the Tatars openly professed Islam in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Unlike the Moriscos, Islam did not become a crypto-religion.
9 Circulation of Tatar Manuscripts
Tatar manuscripts, in terms of their external form, graphic conventions, and palaeographic features, belonged to the tradition of Muslim writing culture that extended across the vast area of the Turkic peoples (from the Volga region to the Ottoman Empire and the Arab Middle East). At the same time, they
In general, the content of the Tatar scriptures reflects their religiosity. The Tatars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth represented the variant of Islam which today can be described as traditional, spread among the Sunni Turkic peoples, following the Hanafi madhhab. It might have been tinged with some elements of ‘unorthodox’ trends of Islam, such as Sufism or Bektashism (although they were not identified as such). The Tatar religiosity was characterized by a very extensive sphere of piety, practised in permanent petrified forms. A special place in these practices was given to the cult of the dead, which reflected a Turkic developed ancestral memory.
The primary source of content for Tatar manuscripts was Turkic popular Islamic literature, which can be placed in a vast literary space between high and folk culture (which in the Turkic world was permeable). For the Ottoman Empire, the Bektashi milieu and Sufi brotherhoods played a significant role in its creation and circulation (especially popular in the Ottoman Balkans and Anatolia). Traces of its penetration are noticeable at successive levels of Turkic Muslim culture, up to the courts of rulers. We should not be surprised to find texts in Tatar manuscripts from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that are the same or similar as those found in Middle Eastern and Turkish court milieus. The same can be said of the literature from the regions of Europe such as the Rumelia (Ottoman Balkans), the Crimea, or the Volga, where popular Islamic literature also circulated. The problem, however, is the lack of knowledge and research on this layer of Islamic literary culture. Only in recent years have there been signs of a slowly growing scholarly interest in the popular religious culture of the Turkic peoples.
It should be noted that, although some Tatar adaptations refer to the titles of Eastern works, only occasionally can they be identified with specific prototypes. Moreover, texts in the Polish-Lithuanian Tatar manuscripts are almost entirely anonymous (which is typical in the context of popular Islamic literature). Sometimes it is only in Eastern sources that we find versions similar to those in Tatar manuscripts.
All this, at the current stage of research, makes it impossible to determine precisely the import routes of Islamic literature to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Even linguistic features cannot fully indicate the exact circulation of manuscripts, because in the case of Turkic literature, the circulation of the same texts without significant language transformations between different Turkic peoples was not unusual, and during the Golden Horde period and the
10 Tatar Religiosity as Attested in the Primary Sources
A significant feature of the Tatar writing culture in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not only the exclusive Arabic script, but also the strict classification of manuscripts with clearly established functions, petrified form, a set of texts, regular content structure, and specific nomenclature. The basic types of Tatar manuscripts are:
kitab – a codex containing mainly informative texts in Polish or Belarusian, dedicated to the religious historiography of Islam;
khamail (Pl. ‘chamaił’) – a prayer book, containing mainly liturgical or devotional texts in Arabic or Turkish with practical instructions in Polish or Belarusian;
tefsir – a large book containing the complete text of the Qurʾān with an interlinear translation into Polish; this work is essentially translational, of a good literary level, with elements of exegesis representing classical Islamic exegetical literature; its genesis and specific sources have not yet been fully explained; the same applies to the dating of the translation – everything indicates that it was written in the seventeenth century and was authored by the imam of the city of Minsk, Urjasz (Uriah) son of Ismail Szlamowicz; this work represents a high literary and exegetical level and is undoubtedly one of the first translations of the Qurʾān into a European language; apart from tefsir manuscripts – which essentially contain only this specific work by imam Urjasz – mystical commentaries on the Qurʾān or pieces of a translative-exegetical character can also be found in kitabs;
Qurʾān manuscript – which included the complete text of the Qurʾān with prayers accompanying its recitation.
Apart from manuscript books, two types of scrolls with prayer texts and fragments of the Qurʾān were developed: (a) daławar (derives from duʻālar – Ar./Tr. ‘prayers’) containing a set of devotional prayers and fragments of Qurʾān,
In addition to books they produced themselves, the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars occasionally used manuscripts imported from the Muslim East. Originally, these might have been the source of the texts that the Tatars translated or included in their ‘homemade’ writings. Few of these, however, mostly of late Ottoman origin, have survived to this day.
It should be emphasized that the dissemination of Tatar manuscripts was relatively wide. We can assume that in the recordable period (from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries), there may have been on average one prayer book (chamaił) per family (house) of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, one kitab for a dozen or so houses, and one or two tefsirs for a congregation (‘pairish’ as Tatars named their local communities). Considering the demographic data (which can be correctly traced as of the mid-nineteenth century), according to which the number of Tatars remained at a relatively constant level of 10,000 to 12,000 people, it can be assumed that during this period there were at least one to two thousand chamails, 100–200 kitabs, and around 20–40 tefsirs in circulation. (These figures could probably be correlated with the quantity of manuscripts preserved today. However, the vast majority remain in private hands and very few are available in public collections.) The scale of manuscript book production in the eighteenth century might have been somewhat smaller, but our estimation can only be intuitive, as just a dozen or so manuscripts (as far as we know) have survived from the period between 1580–1750. Nevertheless, the manuscripts of the later period contain texts of much older origin, most of which were copied by previous generations of Tatar scribes.40
11 The Bible as an Islamic Source
The most significant difference between the Tatar manuscripts produced in the Polish-Lithuanian state against the background of the Muslim literature of
It can be assumed that while the loss of their ethnic language drove the Tatars to create their own religious literature in local Polish and Belarusian languages, the circumstance conducive to this action was the general cultural revival in the region, associated with the Renaissance and the Reformation. Tatar manuscripts provide us with evidence that these ideological and intellectual trends in Europe inspired Tatar writing and theological activity.
The Bible (translated into Polish in the sixteenth century) was remarkably popular among the Tatar authors. Not only did they adopt fragments of biblical history which are unknown to Islam, but in some stories accepted elements of Christian doctrine that are contrary to Muslim tradition, such as the martyrdom of Jesus.41
Tatar authors used the Bible as a source of knowledge about the history of their own religion, complementary to the Qurʾān and usually even dominating over Muslim apocryphal tradition (as represented in qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’). We might say that, in their works, the Tatars intentionally created a synthesis of knowledge excerpted both from the Bible (or other Christian works) and from Muslim sources. It should be emphasized here that although Islamic doctrine recognizes the prophetic missions of the Old and New Testaments in general, it rejects the biblical records of Jews and Christians, accusing them of falsification and distortions of divine revelations and scriptures. Despite this, the Tatars recognized both the Old and New Testaments as a source of legitimate religious knowledge, with only limited reservations regarding certain controversial topics. Biblical content found its way into Tatar literature through the Tatars’ assimilation of views and religious knowledge expressed by the Christians in everyday contact, and more significantly, through Christian literature related to the Bible, such as apocrypha or religious polemics, or even from direct study of the biblical text.
Apart from the Nieśwież Bible, there are other polemics adopted from anti-Trinitarian literature in the Tatar manuscripts which show the Tatars were inspired by Protestantism in their approach to crucial elements of Christianity, such as the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and divine nature of Jesus. At the same time, however, the Tatars in their texts referred to Jesus and Mary with great abomination.
Evidence for the insightful opinion of the defects and inconsistencies of the Catholic doctrine (resulting from the misinterpretation of the Bible in the Vulgate of St. Jerome) is the Tatars’ use of a Protestant polemic (otherwise unknown) from the early seventeenth century. It discussed the issue of a so-called ‘abyss of the Holy Fathers’ (limbus patrum), in which the prophets and patriarchs were to be placed after their death. This polemic pointed out, among other things, St. Jerome’s mistranslation of the Hebrew word sheol – which was referred to as ‘hell’ in the Vulgate instead of the correct translation ‘grave’. The polemic refers to those biblical personalities who “died in God’s grace before the birth of the Lord Jesus, until he opened heaven by his death”, such as Abraham or Lazarus. The polemic accuses the Catholic commentators of the Bible of “a false confession against the Holy Scriptures and against the Holy Gospel” – indeed, even the words used (in Arabic alphabet) are unusual in books written by Muslims to uphold their confession!43 A particularly
Said God: “O Man, dwell, you and your wife, here in Paradise, in the Eden orchard, and eat therefrom what you will. But do not approach this tree of knowledge of the good and evil, and you shall not eat from it, or else you will become harmdoers for yourself, because in the day that you eat, you shall die.”
The Nieśwież Bible was, of course, the source of biblical quotations in this work.46
Apart from the anti-Trinitarian Nieśwież Bible, we can find traces of other sources of biblical texts in the Tatar manuscripts. A spectacular example of
12 Conclusions and Desiderata for Future Research
The written circulation of Islam in Europe encompasses diverse regions and periods, with two notable cases being the Moriscos of Iberia and the Tatar communities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While Morisco manuscripts have received significant scholarly attention, the abundant corpus of Polish-Lithuanian Tatar sources remains largely understudied. Through the presentation of the Tatar materials as a significant yet underexplored component of Islamic textual transmission in Europe, we sought to correct this imbalance. Rather than viewing the Morisco texts as the dominant focus, we positioned them as a well-documented counterpart, offering context and comparison for the lesser-studied Tatar sources. By shedding light on the Polish-Lithuanian Tatar corpus, we aim to highlight its importance and encourage further research into its contribution to the intellectual and religious life of Eastern Europe.
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement no. 810141, project EuQu: “The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150–1850”.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
Secondary Literature
Drozd, Andrzej, “‘And Eve Raised up Her Hands to Praise God with Al-Fatiḥa’. The Polish-Lithuanian Tatars’ Adaptation of Vita Adae et Evae”, in La Vie d’Adam et Ève et les traditions adamiques (Actes du quatrième colloque international sur les littératures apocryphes juive et chrétienne, Lausanne – Genève, 7–10 janvier 2014), eds. Frédéric Amsler, Albert Frey, Jean-Daniel Kaestli, André-Luis Rey, and B. Cangemi Trolla, Publications de l’Institut romand des sciences bibliques 8 (Lausanne, 2017), pp. 97–126 and pls. IV–VII.
Drozd, Andrzej, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki” [Literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars. A General Survey], in Katalog zabytków tatarskich, vol. 3, Piśmiennictwo i muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich [Catalogue of Tatar Monuments, vol. 3, Scriptures and Muhirs of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars], eds. Andrzej Drozd, Marek M. Dziekan & Tadeusz Majda (Warsaw, 2000), pp. 12–37.
Drozd, Andrzej, “Rola Tatarów polsko-litewskich w recepcji kultury arabsko-muzułmańskiej w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (wybrane zagadnienia)” [The Role of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars in the Reception of Arab-Muslim Culture in the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Selected Issues)], in Ogniwa transferu: O roli pośredników między kulturą arabską a polską; Transfer kultury arabskiej w dziejach Polski, vol. 2, eds. Agata S. Nalborczyk and Mustafa Switat (Warsaw, 2019), pp. 209–57.
Miszalska, Jadwiga, “Kolloander wierny” i “Piekna Dianea”: Polskie przekłady włoskich romansów barokowych w XVII wieku i w epoce saskiej na tle ówczesnych teorii romansu i przekładu [“The Faithful Colloander” and “Beautiful Dianea”: Polish Translations of Italian Baroque Romances in the 17th Century and the Era of the Polish-Saxon Union against the Background of Contemporary Theories of Romance and Translation] (Kraków, 2003).
The Muscovite expansion directed against the Golden Horde and post-Golden Horde Tatar khanates in eastern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries should not be forgotten. However, we have no knowledge of the Muscovy anti-Muslim literature that served this expansion at the time.
We should also include here the Emirate of Crete (ninth to tenth centuries), which was attached – not geographically but politically – to Andalusian Islam. However, obscure remains bear witness to its history.
We should not omit the small Greek-speaking Muslim communities of Vallahades in western Macedonia or Cretan Muslims, as well.
This work does not deal with the issues concerning Muslims in the Christian states of the Eastern (Orthodox) Europe, specifically the Tatars in the entire post-Golden Horde region, from the Volga, through the Crimea to Dobruja. However, it should be remembered that in the area conquered by Muscovy in the sixteenth century, there was a very significant population of Muslim Tatars, who were subjected to an oppression parallel to the Moriscos in Iberia. This resulted in the emergence of a community of ‘baptized Tatars’, which exists to this day. This community also experienced the difficulty of switching from the Arabic to the Cyrillic alphabet. Most similar to the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, however, was the political and historical specificity of another post-Golden Horde community, the Kasymov Tatars.
For the remainder of this chapter, we will refer to Morisco sources in a broad sense that also includes the earlier Mudéjar manuscript production, which was read and reworked by the Moriscos.
The only serious conflict that took place in the second half of the seventeenth century and resulted in the rebellion of some Tatar troops on the Polish-Ottoman border in Podolia (today Ukraine) resulted from the economic threat to the Tatar officer elite. However, this was accompanied by the intensification of legal restrictions on social and religious grounds resulting from Counter-Reformation sentiments in the seventeenth century. This conflict was quickly settled by the Polish king Jan III Sobieski before the Vienna campaign of 1683–4, in which the Tatar troops also took part.
See, for example Nuria de Castilla, “Uses and Written Practices in Aljamiado Manuscripts”, in Creating Standards: Interactions with Arabic Script in 12 Manuscript Cultures, eds. Dmitry Bondarev, Alessandro Gori, and Lameen Souag (Berlin, 2019), pp. 111–30.
Including, for instance, a project conducted by the Seminario de Estudios Árabo-Románicos (SEAR: https://www.arabicaetromanica.com/) at the Universidad de Oviedo (Spain). The aim of this research group has been to study the linguistic and literary influences between Arabic literature and writings in Romance vernaculars, and it has centred mainly on aljamiado-Morisco texts and on the borderlines of Arabic-Romance philology. Among other activities, the SEAR publishes the editorial series: “Bibliotheca Arabo-Romanica et Islamica” (https://www.arabicaetromanica.com/biblioteca-arabo-romanica-1/) and “Colección de Literatura Española Aljamiado-Morisca” (CLEAM https://www.arabicaetromanica.com/cleam/). The SEAR also offers various online resources, such as the “Corpus de Textos Aljamiado-Moriscos” (COTEAM https://www.arabicaetromanica.com/coteam/).
Luis F. Bernabé Pons, “Los manuscritos aljamiados como textos islámicos”, in Memoria de los Moriscos: Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural, ed. Alfredo Mateos Paramio (Madrid, 2010), pp. 27–44: 32–33.
The ongoing ERC Synergy research project EuQu: “The European Qur’an. Islamic Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1150–1850” deals with the phenomena related to Qurʾānic production and translations in Europe. Regarding early modern and medieval Iberian translations of the Qurʾān see: The Latin Qur’an, 1143–1500: Translation, Transition, Interpretation, eds. Cándida Ferrero Hernández and John Tolan (2021); and The Iberian Qur’an: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times, eds. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers (2022), both publications are part of the De Gruyter European Qur’an series.
Consuelo López-Morillas, “The Genealogy of the Spanish Qurʾān”, Journal of Islamic Studies 17, no. 3 (2006), 255–94. Pablo Roza Candás, “Dialectal Variations in Aljamiado Translations of the Qurʾān”, in The Iberian Qurʾān: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times, eds. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers (Berlin, 2022), pp. 199–216.
Luce López Baralt, “Un itinerario secreto de los moriscos del siglo XVI”, in Memoria de los Moriscos: Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural, ed. Alfredo Mateos Paramio (Madrid, 2010), pp. 222–24.
The path to be explored is the relationship between Isquierdo’s translation and that of Juan Gabriel of Teruel presented below. Maxime Sellin (EuQu, Nantes Université) is examining this probable connection, reinforced by the fact that, before his conversion, Juan Gabriel was known as ʿAlī Alayzar << Ar. علي اليسار, which can be translated literally as Ali Izquierdo.
Nuria Martínez de Castilla Muñoz, “Corán de Salónica”, in Memoria de los Moriscos: Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural, ed. Alfredo Mateos Paramio (Madrid, 2010), pp. 228–29.
Consuelo López-Morillas, El Corán de Toledo, Bibliotheca arabo-romanica et islamica 5 (Gijón, 2011), pp. 11–14.
Óscar de la Cruz Palma and Cándida Ferrero Hernández, “Robert of Ketton. Chronica mendosa et ridicula Sarracenorum”, in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, vol. 3, eds. David Thomas and Alex Mallett (Leiden, 2011), pp. 508–19.
On Peter of Poitiers and his possible authorship of the Qur’ānic glosses found in one of the manuscripts, see José Martínez-Gázquez, “Glossae ad ALCHORAN LATINUM Roberti Ketenensis Translatoris, Fortasse a Petro Pictauiense Redactae: An Edition of the Glosses to the Latin Qurʾān in Bnf Ms Arsenal 1162”, Medieval Encounters 21, no. 1 (2015), 81–120.
Alchoran siue lex Saracenorum: Petro Cluniacensi Abbate precipiente a Roberto Ketenensi translatus; glossae in Alchoran fortasse a Petro Pictauiense redactae, eds. José Martínez Gázquez and Fernando González Muñoz (Madrid, 2022). For a general overview, see the publications of the research project Islamolatina, http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/islamolatina/
Bibliander’s edition (1550) was reprinted by Les Mondes Humanistes (GRAC-UMR 5037), 2010.
Óscar de la Cruz Palma, “La trascendencia de la primera traducción latina del Corán (Robert de Keton, 1142)”, Collatio 7 (2002), 21–28.
For the critical edition of this translation, see Marcos de Toledo, Alchoranus latinus quem transtulit Marcus canonicus toletanus: estudio y edición crítica, ed. Nàdia Petrus Pons, 44 (Madrid, 2016).
See Thomas E. Burman, “Mark of Toledo”, Christian-Muslim Relations 4 (2012), 150–56 and the exhaustive bibliography cited therein.
Thomas E. Burman, “Tafsīr and Translation: Traditional Arabic Qurʾān Exegesis and the Latin Qurʾāns of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo”, Speculum 73, no. 3 (1998), 703–32; Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Philadelphia, 2009).
Ulli Roth, “Juan of Segovia’s Translation of the Qur’an”, Al-Qanṭara 35, no. 2 (2014), 555–78.
Davide Scotto, Juan de Segovia e il Corano: Convertire i musulmani nell’Europa del Quattrocento (Villa Vigoni, 2022).
José Martínez Gázquez, “Las traducciones latinas del Corán, arma antislámica en la Cristiandad Medieval”, Cuadernos del CEMYR 13 (2005), 11–28: 24–27.
Editions of the prologue: Cabanelas Rodríguez, Darío, Juan de Segovia y el problema islámico (Madrid, 1952); José Martínez Gázquez, “El Prólogo de Juan de Segobia al Corán (Quurân) trilingüe (1456)”, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch: Internationale Zeitschrift für Mediävistik 38, no. 2 (2003), 389–410. Selections from the preface in English translation: Anne Marie Wolf, Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace: Christians and Muslims in the Fifteenth Century (Notre Dame, 2014).
Gerard Albert Wiegers, Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado: Yça of Segovia (Fl. 1450), His Antecendents and Successors (Leiden, 1994); Gerard A. Wiegers, “‘Isà b. Yabir and the origins of Aljamiado Literature”, Al-qantara: Revista de estudios árabes 11, no. 1 (1990), 155–92.
Among the most recent studies on the subject see Roth, “Juan of Segovia’s Translation of the Qur’an”; Wolf, Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace; Davide Scotto, “‘De pe a pa’. Il Corano trilingue di Juan de Segovia (1456) e la conversione pacifica dei musulmani”, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 48, no. 3 (2012), 515–78.
Roth, “Juan of Segovia’s Translation of the Qur’an”.
Benoît Grévin, “Late Medieval Translations of the Qur’ān (1450–1525): Discontinuity or Cumulativeness?”, Medieval Encounters 26, no. 4–5 (forthcoming).
Chapter 21 edited by Bobzin: Hartmut Bobzin, “Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada e La Sua Traduzione Della Sura 21 (‘Dei Profeti’)”, in Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada alias Flavio Mitridate: Un Ebreo Converso Siciliano (Palermo, 2008), pp. 173–84. On this text see also Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560, pp. 133–48.
Benoît Grévin (CNRS) and Katarzyna K. Starczewska (CCHS-CSIC), “Reading Qur’an and Tafsīr from a Hebrew Perspective? Remarks on Flavius Mithridates’ Translations and Commentaries in Manuscripts Urb. Lat. 1384 and Vat. Ebr. 357” in print.
Katarzyna K. Starczewska, Latin Translation of the Qur’an (1518–1621): Commissioned by Egidio Da Viterbo: Critical Edition and Case Study, Diskurse Der Arabistik 24 (Wiesbaden, 2018).
See also Ryan Szpiech, “Preaching Paul to the Moriscos. The Confusión o confutación de la secta Mahomética y del Alcorán (1515) of Juan Andrés”, La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures & Cultures 41, no. 1 (2012), 317–44.
“Christus et Maria sunt tantae uenerationis apud Mauros ut cum de eis loquuntur, addunt semper titulos illos honoratos السلام عليه alii appellant eum, سيدنا id est ‘dominus noster, super illum pax.’ Et Mariam Virginem uocant سيدتنا ‘Cesina,’ id est ‘domina nos<tra>,’ et hoc modo مريم رضي الله عنها ‘Mariene aradia allahu lanche.’” Starczewska, Latin Translation of the Qur’an, p. 789.
The oldest surviving Tatar manuscripts containing Polish-Belarusian texts come from the first half of the seventeenth century, although it is known that the Tatars copied Muslim literature earlier: the oldest copy of this kind, discovered by Andrzej Drozd in 1998 (Andrzej Drozd, Marek M. Dziekan, and Tadeusz Majda, eds., Katalog zabytków tatarskich, vol. 3, Piśmiennictwo i muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich [Catalogue of Tatar Monuments, vol. 3, Scriptures and Muhirs of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars] [Warsaw, 2000], p. 48), comes from the second half of the sixteenth century and contains a hitherto unknown medieval Turkish interlinear translation (tafsir) of the Qurʾān. The first mention of Tatar literature in external sources (referring to the Tatars in Lehistan translating or commenting on the Qurʾān in Polish, although they use the Arabic script) is the account of the Ottoman army intendant who spent several years in Polish captivity after the 1621 war, quoted by the Turkish historiographer Ibrāhīm Pečevī in 1640.
See e.g. Andrzej B. Zakrzewski, “O asymilacji Tatarów w Rzeczypospolitej w XVI–XVIII w.” [On the Assimilation of the Tatars in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16–18th cent.], in Tryumfy i porażki, ed. Maria Bogucka (Warsaw, 1989), pp. 76–96; Andrzej B. Zakrzewski, “Osadnictwo tatarskie w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim – aspekty wyznaniowe” [Tatar Settlement in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Confessional Aspects], Acta Baltico-Slavica 20 (1989), 137–53. Andrzej Drozd, “Rola Tatarów polsko-litewskich w recepcji kultury arabsko-muzułmańskiej w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej (wybrane zagadnienia)” [The Role of Polish-Lithuanian Tatars in the Reception of Arab-Muslim Culture in the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Selected Issues)], in Ogniwa transferu: O roli pośredników między kulturą arabską a polską; Transfer kultury arabskiej w dziejach Polski, vol. 2, eds. Agata S. Nalborczyk and Mustafa Switat (Warsaw, 2019), pp. 209–57.
Some authors refer to these texts in Polish or Belarusian rendered in the Arabic alphabet as aljamiado, but this term is not appropriate for Tatar scriptures because it only describes the literature specific to Muslim Iberia. Transferring this term to Tatar manuscripts (as well as to vernacular Balkan Muslim writings) would seem unnatural at the least. The Tatars and their entourage did not create any specific term either for texts of this kind in local languages written in the Arabic alphabet, or for the version of Arabic script adapted to the local phonetics.
For further reading on the Polish-Lithuanian Tatar manuscripts and historical literary culture see: Andrzej Drozd, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki” [Literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars. A General Survey], in Katalog zabytków tatarskich, vol. 3, Piśmiennictwo i muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich [Catalogue of Tatar Monuments, vol. 3, Scriptures and Muhirs of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars], eds. Andrzej Drozd, Marek M. Dziekan & Tadeusz Majda (Warsaw, 2000), pp. 12–37; Andrzej Drozd, “O twórczości literackiej Tatarów w dobie staropolskiej” [On the Literary Works of Polish-Lithuanian Tartars in the Old Polish Period], Przegląd Orientalistyczny 1–2 (2017), 19–44.
This can be seen, for instance, in the incipit of a short polemical text entitled Kiedy Jezusa męczono (Pl. When Jesus Was Tortured), which runs counter to the Islamic doctrine that rejects the martyrdom of Jesus. Another work that describes the story of crucifixion, entitled O narodzeniu Isy proroka (Pl. On the Birth of Jesus the Prophet), develops Muslim tradition by including the character of King Herod (who – miraculously assimilated by God to Jesus – is mistakenly crucified by the Jews in place of Jesus; thus the story may correspond to the inscription “INRI” [Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum] nailed to the cross: the Jews crucified their own king). See Andrzej Drozd, “Wpływy chrześcijańskie na literaturę Tatarów w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej. Między antagonizmem a symbiozą” [Christian Influences in Old Polish Tatar Literature: Between Antagonism and Symbiosis], Pamiętnik Literacki 88 (1997), pp. 20–21.
Tatar authors did not reveal this source of their biblical information. This could only be discovered by detailed comparison of the biblical quotations in Tatar manuscripts with individual Polish translations of the Bible. See: Drozd, “Wpływy chrześcijańskie na literaturę Tatarów w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej”; Drozd, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki”.
Andrzej Drozd, “Nowe odkrycia w badaniach nad piśmiennictwem tatarskim” [New Discoveries in the Research on Tatar Scriptures], Rocznik Tatarów Polskich 2 (1994), 218-30 (pp. 222–23); Drozd, “Wpływy chrześcijańskie na literaturę Tatarów w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej”, pp. 13–14. Andrzej Drozd, “Biblical polemics of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars”, in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 22. Central and Eastern Europe (1800–1914), Leiden: Brill, 2024, pp. 697–707.
This piece was discovered and studied by Andrzej Drozd in 1995–96, however his further research revealed more Old Polish (and Western European) literary sources that were adapted in this Tatar work (Drozd, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki”, p. 32; Andrzej Drozd, “‘And Eve Raised up Her Hands to Praise God with Al-Fatiḥa’. The Polish-Lithuanian Tatars’ Adaptation of Vita Adae et Evae”, in La Vie d’Adam et Ève et les traditions adamiques, eds. Frédéric Amsler, Albert Frey, Jean-Daniel Kaestli, André-Luis Rey, and B. Cangemi Trolla, Publications de l’Institut romand des sciences bibliques 8 [Lausanne, 2017], pp. 97–126 and pls. IV–VII).
According to the recent research, the work Commentaria in Genesim by Benedictus Pereira, published in Rome at the turn of the sixteenth century, was the source of exegetical material in some episodes of the Loredano’s L’Adamo (Jadwiga Miszalska, “Kolloander wierny” i “Piekna Dianea”: Polskie przekłady włoskich romansów barokowych w XVII wieku i w epoce saskiej na tle ówczesnych teorii romansu i przekładu [“The Faithful Colloander” and “Beautiful Dianea”: Polish Translations of Italian Baroque Romances in the 17th Century and the Era of the Polish-Saxon Union against the Background of Contemporary Theories of Romance and Translation] (Kraków, 2003), p. 82).
Drozd, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki”; Drozd, “‘And Eve Raised up Her Hands to Praise God with Al-Fatiḥa’”; Drozd, “O twórczości literackiej Tatarów w dobie staropolskiej”.
Drozd, “Piśmiennictwo Tatarów polsko-litewskich (XVI–XX w.). Zarys problematyki”. Andrzej Drozd, “Descriptions of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatar-Muslim mourning ceremonies following the death of Tadeusz Kościuszko (1817–18)”. In: Clinton Bennett (ed.) Christian-Muslim Relations. Primary Sources 1700-1914. Vol. 3”. London: Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp. 125–128; Andrzej Drozd, “Ceremonie żałobne w intencji zbawienia duszy Tadeusza Kościuszki”, in D. Thomas and J. Chesworth (eds), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 22. Central and Eastern Europe (1800–1914), Leiden: Brill, 2024, pp. 659–66.